Recent trading activity
Beaulieu Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Georges de Latour Private Reserve 2019 traded for the first time on Wednesday (16th November) after it was named James Suckling’s wine of the year.
Released during this autumn’s La Place de Bordeaux campaign, the wine traded for £956 (12×75). Californian trade has accounted for 8.5% of the total so far this week.
Bordeaux has led trade overall, with Château Lafite Rothschild 2018, Clos du Marquis 2017 and Château Lynch-Bages 2020 among the wines sold since Tuesday (15th November).
2016 and 2017 Vintage Port comparison
*Mid-Prices represent the mid-point between the highest live bid and lowest live offer on the market, validated against additional data including transaction prices. Mid-prices are used to calculate the Liv-ex indices.
2016 and 2017 were the first back-to-back vintage Port declarations by the leading producers in 144 years (the previous consecutive years being 1872 and 1873 across 16 producers).
Today’s article compares the two vintages across the five major houses, with Fonseca offering potential value for buyers as one of the cheapest but also best-scoring wines in both years.
Brands such as Taylor’s, Graham’s and Dow’s are often viewed as Port’s leading brands; Taylor’s is usually the most expensive and Graham’s holds its value well as the table shows.
However, the real opportunity for buyers may lie in Fonseca. In both vintages it is the second-cheapest Port among the major houses. Yet its 2016 is the highest-rated (WA 97-points) of the five houses for that vintage and it is the second highest-scored in 2017 (WA 98-points).
Most of the wines from both vintages have fallen in value year-to-date, with the 2016s down 6.8% on average (led by Warre’s fall of 19.1%) and the 2017s falling 2.1%.
This is in line with Port’s overall performance. The Port 50 index, which tracks the performance of the last 10 vintages across these houses, is also down 3.3%.
In terms of quality, the 2017s have a slight edge over the 2016s, with higher scores from The Wine Advocate on average. On the other hand, they are also 19.6% more expensive than the 2016s.
There are currently more than 160 LIVE opportunities from Portugal, including over 30 on 2016 and 2017 Vintage Port.
Port opportunities
Liv-ex analysis is drawn from the world’s most comprehensive database of fine wine prices. The data reflects the real time activity of Liv-ex’s 600 merchant members from across the globe. Together they represent the largest pool of liquidity in the world – currently £80m of bids and offers across 16,000 wines.
