London – Liv-ex, the London-based company that offers the world’s largest open-source database of wine information for free, published its monthly update on the wine market. Their rich database contains detailed product information for over 140,000 wines and spirits.
The Liv-ex 1000, which measures the performance of the fine wine market, experienced its fourth consecutive monthly decline, with the Burgundy sub-indices taking the biggest hit, falling 2.1%. The overall index has fallen by 2.6% since October 2022, which Liv-ex attributes to the wider economic situation. Liv-ex had previously warned about the trade’s concerns regarding the macro-economic picture, stock shortages, and rising prices following its annual members survey. However, Italian wine, particularly Barolo and Barbaresco, remained relatively unaffected, with the Italy 100 sub-index being the only one to see growth, rising 1.1%, with wines such as Gaja Barbaresco, Bartolo Mascarello, and Giacomo Conterno experiencing strong double-digit growth. The Liv-ex 1000 index is a broad measure of the fine wine market, representing the price movement of 1000 of the most sought-after fine wines in the world. It is calculated using transactional data from 600 of the world’s leading fine wine merchants, making it an independent and reliable source of information.
In February, the Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 Index increased by 0.4%, reaching a closing value of 415.29. This marks the first rise for the benchmark index in 2023, after several months of decline, with the last positive movement seen in September when it rose 1.9%. While the Liv-ex Fine Wine 50 and Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000 both fell 0.3% and 0.8%, respectively, the Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 was the only major index to experience a positive movement in February. However, the 0.4% rise is not sufficient to correct the 1.85% loss experienced by the index over the past four months.
The positive movement of the index in February was driven by recent vintages outside of Bordeaux and Burgundy, with several Italian wines including Tignanello 2019 (+4.7%), Masseto 2018 (+4.5%) and Sassicaia 2019 (2.8%). seeing impressive gains. California’s Harlan Estate 2018 and Opus One 2019 also had positive movements. Among the 100 wines in the index, 54 saw their prices increase, 44 decreased, and two remained unchanged. While there are no clear trends from these movements, the California 50 rose 1.2% and the Italy 100 was the only Liv-ex 1000 sub-index to end the month positively.
The best-performing wines in the Liv-ex 100 index in February. Bollinger La Grande Annee 2014 saw the biggest price increase (+11.1%). It was followed by Napa Valley’s Harlan Estate 2018 (+9.9%). Australian staple, Penfolds Grange 2017 was also up 8.0%.
Burgundy’s Domaine de la Romanee-Conti Richebourg Grand Cru 2018 and Domaine Armand Rousseau Chambertin-Clos de Beze Grand Cru 2016 rose 9.1% and 7.8% respectively.
