Liv-ex introduces Bordeaux 500

Liv-ex has launched a new index to track the 500 best performing Bordeaux wines.

Dubbed the “most comprehensive to date”, it replaces the Liv-ex Fine Wine 500 as this was based on merchants’ list prices rather than actual trading prices on the platform.

The new index represents the movement of the 10 most recent physical vintages of the leading 45 Bordeaux châteaux (and the first growths’ second wines to make 50 wines in total) and will be calculated monthly using the platform’s “mid price” system.

The new index is comprised of six “sub-indices” tracking various components in the Bordeaux wine market.

These include: the First Growth 50 (FG 50); the Right Bank Super 50 (RB 50); the Second Wine 50 (tracking the second wines of the first growths, SW 50) ; the Sauternes 50 (SA 50); the Right Bank 100 (RB 100) and the Left Bank 200 (LB 200).

Last month the new index recorded a fall of 8% year on year. As can be seen on Liv-ex’s blog here, compared to the Fine Wine 100, however, the fall was slower for the broader Fine Wine 500, a 12% decline as opposed to 21%.

By being able to split the index down into its six sub-indices, it is possible to see where the decline has come from (below).

It is the FG 50 that slipped the most over 2011, only beginning to pick up in the early stages of this year – something the second wines are yet to do, having recorded a 19% decline since last summer.

Clearly it is the slightly less glamorous but more reliable Right and Left Bank wines that have performed the most consistently, particularly the RB 100, which rose 11% over the course of 2011.