Liv-ex celebrates a decade of development

Liv-ex celebrated its tenth birthday this week and memories were cast back to its first-ever transactions.

Exactly ten years ago on Monday, 19 July, the fledgling fine wine platform completed its first sale of five cases of Gruaud Larose 1982 at £920 a case.

That particular estate has appreciated 171% over the years and now trades at £2,500.

At the start Liv-ex boasted 12 members. Today it has 308 in 26 countries around the world.

In a celebratory fit of number crunching, Liv-ex has calculated that in the last 10 years the price of the Bordeaux first growths has risen 276%.

This means that Liv-ex and fine wine has outperformed gold, the FTSE 100, S&P 500 and the Nikkei 225.

Only gold has seen price increases approaching anywhere near those of fine wine with an increase of 194%. The Nikkei 225 by contrast has performed the worst with a -46% slump over 10 years.

Rupert Millar, 22.07.2010