Fine wine gains 0.5% in May

Screaming Eagle’s 2013 vintage soared in May, rising nearly 20%, as the Liv-ex 100 index also posted a positive gain.

After a choppy first quarter of the year, the benchmark index (which charts the 100 most commonly traded labels in the secondary market) has now posted gains for two consecutive months, with a small 0.3% rise in April and now a more substantial 0.5% gain last month.

The month’s most successful label was the 100-point (Robert Parker) 2013 Screaming Eagle which gained 18.5% to a new mid-price of £23,700 per dozen. Liv-ex reported that there has been a fair amount of movement in the Screaming Eagle portfolio recently, with the 2015 also seeing “significant price increases”.

Elsewhere, some of the labels that dipped a little in April rebounded in May, including Comte de Vogüé’s 2014 Musigny Vieilles Vignes (11.5%), Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s 2012 La Tâche (10.3%) and Lafite 2000 (6.3%).

On the other end of the scale, after proving buoyant in April, two of the Champagne brands that rose in that month took a tumble in May: Krug’s 2002 saw most of its April gain washed away in May and Cristal’s 2007 April gains also shrivelled last month.

Also going down were Cheval Blanc’s 2009 and Lafite’s 2006 while Montrose’s 2010 took a 5% tumble which has taken it back down below its 2009 sister wine despite the 2010 being re-rated 99-points by Neal Martin last year and the 2009 98.