We might be months away from Christmas, but recent weeks have brought some good news for Port lovers.
For a rare third consecutive year, Taylor’s and Sogrape (Sandeman, Offley and Ferreira) declared 2018 a classic vintage. Despite a difficult market environment, due to Covid-19, Fladgate Partners and Symington Family also announced the release of their 2018 single Quinta vintage Ports. The latter launched them last week via a live video presentation.
On the secondary market, Port’s performance has been very stable. Over the past five years, the Port 50 index has given a gain of 1.6%, rising a few percentage points in the third quarter of most years, before giving it back over spring and summer.
However, within its sub-indices one finds a more nuanced story. Graham has risen 10.1%, Warre is up 1.8%, Dow has maintained its level (0.6%), Taylor has slipped 0.2% and Fonseca – 2.5%. In the past year, Graham has continued to lead the way, helped by strong performance of older vintages like ’83, ‘85, ‘91, ’94 and the more recently physical 2016.
Since April ‘19, the Port 50 index has fallen 3.6%, compared to a dip of 3.3% for the Liv-ex 100 and 4.5% for the Liv-ex 1000. Buyers might wish to take advantage of the softer seasonal market and look back at older drinking vintages (’94, ’97, ’03 etc.), many of which are now available at a discount to last year.
Your exchange currently has over 100 Port wines available, ranging from vintage 1963 to 2017. If you are interested, please do take a look at Liv-ex.com or email your Account Manager who would be pleased to assist you in your selection.
