Liv-ex bid (£30.2m) and offer (£51.5m) exposure grew another 2.1% this week from the £80m milestone set at the start of November. It’s also been the second consecutive week of record trade as activity ramps up towards the holiday season.
Our latest blog considers in greater depth where the interest in fine wine is coming from. Stability in a world of volatility has been the marker for this year, as the chart below shows. As well as posting a year-to-date gain of 3.8%, outperforming the FTSE100, DAX and Hang Seng, the Liv-ex 100 has done so with minimal volatility, moving only ±1.5% monthly.
Bordeaux (40.5%) trade stepped up this week, surpassing 40% for only the second time in the past ten weeks. The 2010 and 2015 vintages led trade by value for the region while 2017 vintage lead the volume charts.
Burgundy (17.8%) trade fell from last week, but was ably supported by its white wines which accounted for a quarter of the region’s trade.
The USA (11.3%) nearly doubled its previous week’s share, led by large value trades of Screaming Eagle and large volume trades of Opus one.
Champagne (9.3%), Italy (14.3%), the Rhone (3.6%), and Others (3.2%) all made small gains on the week prior.
The most traded wine by value was DRC, Romanee-Conti Grand Cru 2017 – easy to do at £12.5k per bottle. Relative to previous vintages, the 2017 (AG 96) could be almost be considered a bargain. The 1990 vintage (NM 95) last traded at £20,737 per bottle (£248,844 per 12×75). Indeed, four out of the five most expensive bottles traded this year are also Romanee-Conti – all which brushed up to, but did not surpass £20,000 per bottle (£240,000 per case).
Another wine commanding high prices is Screaming Eagle, Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon 2013. It’s a wine James Suckling described as “glorious to taste”, and if one was lucky enough to acquire an allocation has posted glorious returns. The wine has risen over 50% to its highest level since its first trade 4.5 years ago.
