Fine wine gains strongly in August

After a quiet July, Liv-ex’s two leading fine wine indices returned to growth in August with Burgundy in particular leading the way.

The Fine Wine 100 – tracking the 100 most widely traded fine wine labels – rose 0.5% last month to close at its highest level since September 2011.

Although August has seen several claret labels hit new all-time highs on the Exchange, the two best-performing wines in August were both from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, the 2012 Romanée-Conti rising 13.7% to £124,049 per dozen and the 2012 Richebourg up 10.9% to £18,044 a case.

Pape Clément’s 2012 was the only claret in the top five performers, the other two labels both being 2013s from Italy – Sassicaia and Masseto.

Going down, meanwhile, were DRC’s 2012 La Tâche, Krug 2002, 2013 Opus One and Screaming Eagle and La Mission Haut-Brion’s 2010 (the worst drop at -6.6%).

DRC’s otherwise positive performance was broadly reflected in the news from the Fine Wine 1000, which jumped a solid 1.5%, leading the index to close at 321.64, yet another record high.

All of the sub-indices rose in August but the Burgundy 150 was the strongest, gaining 3.4%. It’s also the best-performing index on the year-to-date and over a one and five year period – seriously out-performing the whole 1000 index in both cases.