What’s happening in the market?
Trade since the start of the year has been dominated by Bordeaux, the region accounting for almost 50% of total trade by value. Two vintages of Pétrus have changed hands, as have several vintages First Growths Château Margaux, Château Latour and Château Haut-Brion. Trade has been focused on great Bordeaux vintages, notably 2005, 2009, 2015 and 2018.
Bordeaux’s success comes at the expense of Champagne and Burgundy, which have dropped down to 13.5% and 5.9% of trade respectively. Tuscany’s trade share, however, has surged to 19.1% of the total, buoyed by trades of the 2009 and 2019 vintages of Sassicaia and the 1999, 2006 and 2020 vintages of Masseto.
Today’s deep-dive: The most popular ‘Dragon’ wines for Chinese New Year
The start of the new lunar year, which will be a year of the Wood Dragon, is fast approaching.
The Chinese zodiac has been known to influence the secondary market in Asia, either through increased trading of wines relating to the zodiac sign of the new lunar year, or of wines from previous vintages of the same sign.
Château Beychevelle is commonly associated to Dragon years as its Chinese name means ‘dragon boat’. In French, the word ‘Beychevelle’ derives from the phrase ‘baisse voile’, which is a term for the lowering of sails as a mark of respect, and the wine’s label depicts a ship with the head of a griffon.
The chart below shows the Château Beychevelle index as well as its parent indices, the Left Bank 200 and the Bordeaux 500.
Since 2008, Beychevelle has soared ahead, with a notable surge leading up to 2011 during the Asia-led market boom. However, unlike other popular brands in Asia such as Château Lafite Rothschild, Beychevelle remained relatively stable when the bubble burst and grew steadily until the start of the latest downturn in late 2022.
There are 70 LIVE bids and offers for Château Beychevelle wines on Liv-ex. Log in to the exchange to view them and trade.
The last four Dragon years were 2012, 2000, 1988 and 1976. Asian buyers have accounted for 19.8% of total buyers for wines from these vintages in the last three months, almost double the proportion of the previous three months.
Interestingly, the most bought wines from the last Dragon vintage by Asian buyers did not all hail from Bordeaux. As we noted last year, buying habits in Asia (and beyond) have been extending outside of the region, notably to red Burgundy and the Rhône, which is particularly popular in Singapore.
Bordeaux has actually been overtaken in terms of trade by value in most Asian regions bar Hong Kong, where its wines remain the most widely purchased. Burgundy is the region’s new darling, aside from Champagne which is favoured in Japan.
There are 934 LIVE bids and offers for 2012 wines on Liv-ex. Log in to the exchange to view them and trade.
In case you missed it
Here’s what we’ve been reading:
- Liv-ex: How well did the wine trade predict 2023?
- The drinks business: Château Lafite Rothschild: What comes up, must come down
- Harpers: New wine label reforms take effect
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 620+ merchant members from across the globe. Together they represent the largest pool of liquidity in the world – currently £100m of bids and offers across 20,000 wines.
