Recent trading activity
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Richebourg Grand Cru 2016 was among the top traded wines by value this weekend, having last changed hands at £62,000 per 12×75. It was followed by Châteauneuf-du-Pape’s Château Rayas 2009, with a last trade price of £15,750 per case.
Meanwhile, Château Figeac 2019 was the top traded by volume. The wine boasts 100-points from Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW (The Wine Independent), who described it as ‘a towering triumph’. The 2019 was the most active Bordeaux vintage overall.
The Right Bank outperforms the First Growths
The Right Bank 50 index tracks the performance of five leading wines from Bordeaux’s Right Bank: Lafleur, Le Pin, Pétrus, Ausone and Cheval Blanc. These properties are often seen as the equivalent of the Left Bank’s First Growths. Today we compare their secondary market performance, average prices and scores.
Year-to-date, the Right Bank 50 index (10.7%) has outperformed the First Growths, measured by the Fine Wine 50 index (2.9%). It has also been the top-performing Bordeaux 500 sub-index during this time.
Its biggest riser has been Pétrus 2019, up 44.5% so far this year, followed by Le Pin 2008, up 41.3%. By contrast, the best performer from the First Growths – Château Margaux 2019, which boasts 100-points from William Kelley (The Wine Advocate), Lisa Perrotti-Brown MW (The Wine Independent), James Suckling and Jane Anson – has risen just 13.7% year-to-date.
The table below shows a breakdown of the average Mid-Prices and Benchmark Critic scores for the wines that make up both indices.
Le Pin, Lafleur and Pétrus are the most expensive wines in Bordeaux, due to extremely limited production volumes and tight allocations. The rarity and rising demand for these wines has also been reflected in their recent price performance.
On the other hand, their strong recent performance has created potential buying opportunities when making comparisons with the First Growths.
On average, the First Growths cost 69.0% less than their Right Bank counterparts. Furthermore, for the past 10 vintages, the First Growths have an average Benchmark Critic score of 95.7, compared to 95.4 for the wines in the Right Bank 50.
*The Mid-Price is 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.
When looking at the First Growths, Château Mouton Rothschild looks attractive with an average price of £5,365 per case and an average score of 96.1-points. Last week, we also examined the best Mouton Rothschild opportunities, which included vintages 2012, 2014 and 2016.
Of the Right Bank wines, Château Ausone is the second highest rated (95.7) and the second cheapest, with an average Mid-Price of £5,524 per case. We recently looked at the Ausone vintages offering the most value for money, such as the 96-point 2012 and 2017.
Discover Blue-chip Bordeaux opportunities on your exchange.
Blue-chip Bordeaux 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.
