Bordeaux drags Liv-ex 100 down further

For a record thirteenth straight month the Liv-ex 100 index has fallen, with Bordeaux the chief casualty.

The Poet Dylan Thomas is supposed to have said before he died “I’ve just had 18 straight whiskies, I think that’s a record.”

The index which tracks the 100 most sought after wines on the secondary market fell 1% in April, the thirteenth straight month of dips which is seeing the value of the index fall back to early 2010/late 2009 levels.

As was noted last month when the index hit the grim milestone of a full year of decline, the fine wine market is in free fall and Bordeaux is the part dragging it down.

This is the longest single period the index has been falling for and if it goes on it’ll be able to make use of the apocryphal last words of Dylan Thomas.

It’s not the sole fault of Bordeaux however, other regions are underperforming too. The biggest faller in April was the previously bullet-proof 2002 Taittinger Comte de Champagne.

One of the most successful prestige cuvées, it fell 10% to £1,234 a case last month.

Léoville Poyferré 2003 was close behind falling 9.3% to £930 a case. It was one of the risers in March, the cheapest vintage on the index and only just peeking its head over the £1,000 threshold.

Too much for some apparently.

Latour’s 2004 was behind that dropping 6.6% to £3,200 a case. When Latour did its ex-cellar release back in March the wine was greeted with “deathly silence” – and it shows.

Latour did a double-dip whammy as its 2001 was also a faller at 6.6% while Montrose’s 2009 – now a fairly regular feature with its 2010 in the downward movers chart – fell 6.2% to £1,895 a case.

Funnily enough its 2000 vintage was one of the month’s risers, up 3.8% to £1,161.

Lafite’s 1998 was also up 5.4% to just over £5,300 but the top spots were held by Burgundy and Champagne.

Next up was Armand Rousseau’s 2009 Clos de Beze went up 6%, its 2009 Clos St Jacques was a top riser in March.

Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s 2009 La Tâche was also up and neatly book-ending the highs and lows this month was Louis Roederer’s 2002 Cristal which went up 7.5% to over £1,600 a case.