Fine Wines still dipping in February

The Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000 dipped for the fifth consecutive month in February with only the “Rest of the World” and old Bordeaux indices not slipping into negative figures.

Liv-ex reported on its blog that the index, which tracks the leading labels from Bordeaux, Italy, Champagne and the Rhône among others, dipped 1% last month – as did the Fine Wine 100.

The only sub-indices not drop were the Rest of the World 50, which includes Opus One, Dominus, Taylor’s Port, Penfolds and Vega Sicilia, and the Bordeaux Legends 50 which is made up of various “legendary” or famous Bordeaux vintages.

Both indices stayed steady on 0.1% growth, the Rest of the World buoyed up no doubt by its US labels which were some of the best performing over the last couple of years it was recently reported.

Indeed, in its March Market Report, Liv-ex said that trade in Opus One pushed the US’s share of trading to 3%.

Likewise, the drinks business recently reported that older Bordeaux vintages were building in popularity as they were priced for drinking rather than speculation.

The Rhône meanwhile accounted for its highest amount of trade by value, 10.6% – driven by the flurry of activity surrounding the release of the 2010 “La Las” from Guigal.

However, as Liv-ex noted: “This did not translate into price rises” and the Rhône 100 was one of the biggest fallers, down 1.5%, with only Italy (down 1.6% and formerly a top performing sub-index) and the Bordeaux 500 (down 1.7%) falling further.

Burgundy did not fall too far in value (0.4%) but its share of trade by volume dropped to a 14 month low.