Liv-ex Fine Wine 50 Index Rises For Second Straight Month

By Steve Wynne-Jones
Liv-ex Fine Wine 50 Index Rises For Second Straight Month

The Liv-ex Fine Wine 50 Index of leading Bordeaux wines climbed in January for the second straight month, marking its first back-to-back monthly gains since June and erasing the declines of October and November.

The index rose to 269.17 on 29 January, up 1.6 per cent since the start of this month and following a 1.2-per-cent gain in December, data on the London-based exchange’s website showed. That followed drops of 1.6 per cent in November and 1.2 per cent in October.

The rally comes after five years of declines in the index. The benchmark, which comprises ten recent vintages from each of the top five left-bank Bordeaux first-growth estates, has dropped 40 per cent since its peak, as demand switched toward other regions such as Burgundy, Italy and California.

'It was a good week for Bordeaux, with the region taking 83.9 per cent of overall market share by value, up from the previous week and well above the average for 2015,' Liv-ex wrote in its blog.

Last week, Bordeaux’s market share compared with 78.6 per cent the previous week and an average of 74.4 per cent for 2015, according to Liv-ex. Italian wines accounted for 3.5 per cent of trading by value last week, Rhone, 3.3 per cent, burgundy, 2.4 per cent, and champagne, 2.1 per cent.

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Wines taking the top share of trade over the past week on the exchange were led by Château Léoville-Poyferré 2003, which traded at £930 ($1,323) per case of 12, Lafite Rothschild 2012, which traded at £3,200, and Pichon Longueville 2009, which sold for £985.

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