Full year of gains for fine wine

Liv-ex’s Fine Wine 100 gained 1.6% in November, the twelfth consecutive month of gains, and Champagne and Italian labels led the way.

The index, which tracks the 100 most widely traded labels on the Liv-ex exchange, has now made positive gains every month this year and in fact has seen a full year of consecutive gains since December last 2015.

Now at its highest level for five years, the index is up 23.8% on the year-to-date. The two top movers were Taittinger’s 2004 Comtes de Champagne and 2009 Ornellaia – both up just over 9% in price.

The lead up to Christmas is always a good time for Champagne sales but sales of the 2000, 2002 and 2004 vintages of prestige Champagne are especially strong right now. In fact the 2002 Comtes is the best-performing Champagne overall this year, as was examined in October.

Also doing well in November were the 2009 Léoville Las Cases and 2010 Pichon Baron as well as 2011 La Tâche from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti.

Among those labels that regressed last month were two of October’s top movers, the 2010 Masseto and Beaucastel’s 2012 Châteauneuf-du-Pape.

Meanwhile, the much broader Fine Wine 1000 also rose in November, up 1% in its fourth straight month of gains and also to a new high of 296.6.

Despite this extremely positive news for the market, Liv-ex noted on its blog that the pace of the market appeared to be slowing a little. October’s gain of over 3% was halved in November and the pattern of risers and fallers seems to hold no discernible pattern.

“Overall the market strength appears robust, but as we head towards 2017, it remains to be seen whether the long period of sustained gains will continue,” cautioned Liv-ex.