Interest in off-vintages spreads

The Liv-ex 50 has continued to rise thanks to a steady increase in interest for weaker vintages of the first growths.

The increased trade has in turn led to the ratio of bids to offers on the index rising to a six month high. The Bordeaux first growths accounted for 50% of weekly trade by value for the first time since August and the Liv-ex 50 reached its highest level since October – 299.51.

Liv-ex reported that the interest in vintages such as 2001, 2004 and 2006, which began with Lafite, has now filtered through to all the firsts.

Trade for Château Margaux from 2001, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008 is currently six times that of trade for the 2000s, 2003s, 2005s, 2009s and 2010s.

The 2009s are still leading by value but it is the 2004s seeing the highest trade by volume.

The full list of risers and fallers can be seen on Liv-ex here.

The chief risers though were: Margaux 2004, which rose 5.9% from its December 2011 price of £2,643 a case to £2,800 at is last trade; Latour 2002 went up 5.7% from £3,500 to £3,700 since December last year and Mouton 2003 grew 3.6% from £2,950 to £3,057.

The biggest fallers were: Lafite 2009, which dipped 28% from a December 2011 high of £9,800 a case to £7,000 at its last trade; the ill-starred Mouton 2008 dropped 27% from £4,400 to £3,200 and Lafite 2007 fell 24% from £6,800 to £5,150.