Low wine trade over China National Day

The Chinese “Golden Week” holiday last week resulted in minimal trading in fine wine, with Bordeaux seeing a slight decline in its share of trade – but Italy seeing continued growth.

Based around National Day, Golden Week is not a traditional gifting holiday and, as such, never gives a boost to fine wine trading in the way Chinese New Year and the Mid-Autumn festival do in good years.

The recent unrest in Hong Kong because of the pro-democracy protests has little to do with the limited Chinese activity either – given the record amount paid for a superlot of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti at the weekend.

September saw the second straight month of small gains for the Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 however, as the signs continue to point to an improvement in the health of the market.

Bordeaux’s share of the trade rose to just over 71% in September, although the week of 26 September to 2 October saw it drop back to 64% – mostly because of a dip in trading for Margaux, Haut-Brion and Latour – although Lafite and Mouton saw “good” levels of trade over the same period.

The real winner last week was Italy, which saw its share of trade jump to a little above 20%, with Sassicaia 2011 leading the way with 12.7% of the total share.

Masseto 2011 and “healthy volumes” of Tignanello and Petrolo Galatrona helped boost Italy’s position as well.

Other top movers were Henschke’s 2009 Hill of Grace and 2000 Pétrus.