The most powerful fine wines 2015: part 1

We count down the top 10 most powerful wines of 2015, starting with those brands placed at positions 10 to 6.

Domaine Leflaive is one of this year’s highest risers. This image depicts the biodynamic white Burgundy producer’s egg-shaped barrel cellar, which is used for maturing its best Chardonnays.

As our regular readers will know, December at the drinks business means one thing: it’s time to reveal the results of our annual fine wine power survey in partnership with Liv-ex: the global marketplace for professional buyers and sellers of fine wine.

Called the Liv-ex Power 100, our year-end issue lists the strongest labels of 2015, ranked according to the volume and value traded through Liv-ex over the past 12 months, along with other measures, such as price movement and the average cost of a 12-bottle case (the full methodology can be seen below).

It is, as always, an illuminating sign of collectors’ tastes, and a reflection of buying trends of the last year.

For the full report, see the December issue of db, but to see the most powerful brands, scroll through the following pages, which lists those labels at positions 10 to 6, with numbers 5 to 1 featuring next week.

Methodology

To calculate the scores, we took a list of all wines that traded on Liv-ex in the last year (1 September 2014 to 31 August 2015) and grouped these by brand. We then identified brands that had traded at least three wines or vintages, and had a total trade value of at least £10,000.

Brands were ranked using four criteria: year-on-year price performance (based on the market price for a case of wine on 1 September 2014 with its market price on 31 August 2015), trading performance on Liv-ex (by value and volume), number of wines and vintages traded, and average price of the wines in a brand.

Over 3,000 different wines/vintages were traded. These were grouped into 265 brands, of which 166 qualified for the final calculation. The individual rankings were combined with a weighting of 1 for each criteria, except trading performance which had a weighting of 1.5 (as it combined two criteria). The final 100 brands accounted for over 1,760 unique wines/vintages traded in the past year – an increase of 219 on last year’s ranking.

10. Château Léoville-Las Cases 

Total score: 148 (rank 10 – up 15 places from 25 in 2014)
Value and volume trading performance score: 40 (rank 20)
Value of trade on Liv-ex: 1.15% (rank 20)
Volume of trade on Liv-ex: 1.27% (rank 20)
Average trade price per case: £1,118 (rank 54)
Number of unique vintages traded: 20 (rank 28)
Price change (Sept ’14 to Sept ’15): 3.60% (rank 36)

Second growth St Julien property Léoville-Las Cases has climbed 15 places in the last 12 months to make it into the top 10 most powerful wines of this year.

Helping this wine’s performance in the past year is an uptick in trade interest for well-priced classic clarets, particularly from older, highly-rated and ready-to-drink vintages.

Indeed, Léoville-Las Cases is the cheapest wine to feature in the top ten, with an average trade bottle price of under £100, although this is slowly creeping upwards, with a price increase in the past 12 months of 3.60%.

Considering the property is widely considered the closest in quality to the five Premiers Crus, and is sometimes referred to as “the sixth First Growth”, it appears relatively good value – a bottle of Léoville-Las Cases is more than half the price of Haut-Brion.

The performance this year of Léoville-Las Cases is in keeping with a sense that cru classé claret prices have reached their lowest point and Bordeaux may be beginning to turn around.

9. Domaine Leflaive  

Total score: 140.5 (rank 9 – up 40 places from 49 in 2014)
Value and volume trading performance score: 122 (rank 53)
Value of trade on Liv-ex: 0.35% (rank 52)
Volume of trade on Liv-ex: 0.34% (rank 70)
Average trade price per case: £1,279 (rank 48)
Number of unique vintages traded: 45 (rank 4)
Price change (Sept ’14 to Sept ’15): 8.54% (rank 9)

Burgundy’s Domaine Leflaive is the only white wine to appear in the top 10, and has enjoyed a significant rise up the chart, climbing 40 places in the past 12 months.

Part of this brand’s significant rise could be ascribed to the extremely sad and premature death of winemaker and proprietor Anne-Claude Leflaive, who passed away in April, aged 59.

This probably prompted a flurry of activity among buyers wanting to secure wines made by the great woman – who was given the Winemakers’ Winemaker award by the Institute of Masters of Wine only last year.

But Domaine Leflaive’s impressive performance is also because of a general increase in demand for top-end Burgundy worldwide, and particular in Asia, where the great domaines are the new darlings of the fine wine trade.

8. Château Cheval Blanc

Total score: 139 (rank 8 – down 5 places from 3 in 2014)
Value and volume trading performance score: 39 (rank 18)
Value of trade on Liv-ex: 2.96% (rank 9)
Volume of trade on Liv-ex: 0.93% (rank 30)
Average trade price per case: £3,910 (rank 10)
Number of unique vintages traded: 25 (rank 16)
Price change (Sept ’14 to Sept ’15): -0.08% (rank 86)

The most expensive claret in the top 10, Château Cheval Blanc has seen its performance slide a little this year, and has fallen five places to eighth position.

As a result of decreasing demand, Cheval Blanc’s secondary market trading prices have slipped a touch, perhaps signifying that this famous fine wine appears expensive relative to its peers on the Right Bank.

Although it is pricier than Châteaux Pavie and Angelus, which have risen up the table over the past few years since their upgrade to Grand Cru Classé A status in 2012, Cheval Blanc is still cheaper than other A-class St-Emilion, Château Ausone – 49^th most powerful fine wine this year, but fifth priciest brand, with an average trade price per case of almost £6,000, which is almost double that of Cheval Blanc.

7. Château La Mission Haut-Brion

Total score: 136.5 (rank 7 – up 18 places from 25 in 2014)
Value and volume trading performance score: 22 (rank 11)
Value of trade on Liv-ex: 3.01% (rank 8)
Volume of trade on Liv-ex: 1.67% (rank 14)
Average trade price per case: £2,215 (rank 26)
Number of unique vintages traded: 11 (rank 27)
Price change (Sept ’14 to Sept ’15): 0.22% (rank 83)

Storming up the table in 2015 is Château La Mission Haut-Brion, widely considered to be the greatest Graves after neighbour and First Growth Haut-Brion and, in some vintages, La Mission is even considered superior.

In essence, La Mission has been a big climber this year because it scored 11th in volume and value traded.

And this is probably because this property has more 100 points from Parker than even the first growths and people are trading the brand Mission Haut-Brion because it is so closely associated with Haut-Brion – which is also very much in vogue at the moment.

6. Château Margaux

Total score: 118 (rank 6 – up 2 places from rank 8 in 2014)
Value and volume trading performance score: 13 (rank 6)
Value of trade on Liv-ex: 4.48% (rank 4)
Volume of trade on Liv-ex: 2.23% (rank 9)
Average trade price per case: £2,472 (rank 24)
Number of unique vintages traded: 50 (rank 3)
Price change (Sept ’14 to Sept ’15): 0.29% (rank 82)

The strong performance from Château Margaux this year proves that premier cru claret is still a big draw for fine wine collectors, as long as the price is right.

Up two places this year, Margaux has benefitted from a large volume and value of Liv-ex activity in the past 12 months, along with a high number of vintages traded, although prices are almost stagnant.

Helping its performance is the combination of high scores and the fact that this is currently the cheapest of the first growths, according to average trading prices on Liv-ex.

Once more, this wine’s performance in the past year lends weight to the fact that a turnaround in the demand for fine Bordeaux is beginning to happen, although this growing interest is concentrated on well-priced mature claret.

Click here to read Part Two, which counts down the top five most powerful fine wine brands.