Bordeaux 2012: best performing wines

With news that it is the 2012 vintage driving non-first growth Bordeaux currently, what are the best-performing wines?

Liv-ex recently noted that it is the wines of the 2012 vintage that are making the most gains of all the vintages from the last 10 years, they’re average price having risen just over 8% on average since becoming physical in February 2015.

There are 48 wines from the vintage included in the Bordeaux 500 index (there would be 50 but 2012 was the first vintage that Latour did not participate in so its grand vin and second wine are not included) and 41 of them have shown gains over the course of a year.

Activity for the wines is also up with the vintage accounting for 9.5% of Bordeaux trade since February last year.

Considering the market into which the wines were released and the generally negative reaction to their initial pricing, this represents a strong turnaround in the vintage’s fortunes – and is a further sign of the firming up of the Bordeaux market.

The best performing wines over the course of February 2015 to February 2016 can be seen below.

source: Liv-ex

Recent reviews by Robert Parker and Jancis Robinson MW have confirmed the Right Bank and Pessac Léognan as particular sweet spots for the 2012s and there is a broad reflection of this in the chart above.

The presence of three first growth second wines is also very much in tune with recent reports.

Of the two rather (in)famous St Emilion estates that both increased their prices in 2012 and introduced special packaging to celebrate their elevation to grand cru ‘A’ status the same year, it is Pavie’s silver label that has been the most successful (up 36.5% and also one of the leading labels sold by value from the vintage), while Angélus’ 2012 has struggled to maintain the boost news of its special gold label created in 2014.

Angélus (down 6.5% in price) is one of the seven wines that have declined in price over the course of the year.