Has fine wine price appreciation peaked?

The Liv-ex Indices are showing signs of slowing down after months of sustained rises.

Although the change is widely blamed on a summertime sales slip, some believe the shift is part of a longer-term trend and that fine wine prices may have peaked.

The Liv-ex Fine Wine Indices all suffered a slight fall over June and July, despite hitting record highs throughout recent months and climbing steadily since last year.

The Fine Wine 100 Index ended July on 300.93 points, a drop of 3.74 (1.23%) on June. It does, however, remain up 25.7% on the year-to-date and has recorded a year-on-year rise of 38.3%

The Liv-ex Claret Chip also took a slight downturn, finishing trading in July on 361.13 points, a drop of 1.55%.

Although the Fine Wine 50 is up 50.5% year-on-year, it also closed on Friday 30 July down 1.3% at 339.22 points.

Least affected was the Investables Index, which only recorded a 0.3% drop, finishing the month on 295.21.

Liv-ex also noted that its Lafite Index had sustained a slight fall, the first since March 2009.

The index, which measures the performances of Lafite’s vintages from 2000 to 2006, peaked in April after nearly a year of climbing and suffered a month-on-month fall of 1.8%.

Current prices show the 2000 and 2005 Lafite prices, per case, to be £17,000 and £10,000 respectively.

Liv-ex stressed that there is often a “slow down” during the summer months and the news was in no way an indication of a new direction for the château.

Finishing the month on over 600 points, it would need a very serious fall to take the first growth back to the 300 points recorded in early 2009.

However, while Lafite’s first wine catches its breath, the second wine Carruades des Lafite is still going strong with the 2000 and 2005 vintages on £2,500 each.

Carruades saw a 3.35 rise in prices in July bringing its year-on-year increase to 83.9%.

Rupert Millar, 05.08.2010