Fine wine index short of expectations in 2018

Liv-ex’s leading index for monitoring the secondary market, the Fine Wine 100, ran more-or-less stable last year but it fell far short of expectations.

The index closed the year down 0.2% which, in the grander scheme of things, means it ran flat last year.

At the start of each new year Liv-ex likes to ask its international members (several hundred of them) how they think the benchmark index is going to perform in the year ahead – with a good bottle of wine promised to whoever gets closest to the right answer in order to focus their minds.

For 2018, 80% of Liv-ex’s members thought that the Fine Wine 100 would increase by almost 4% – closing at around 324.22. In fact it dipped 0.2% and closed on 312.05, with one prediction placing it at 312.69 (the closing level in 2017) proving by far the closest guess.

By contrast to the Fine Wine 100, the much broader Fine Wine 1000 rose 10% last year, boosted by Burgundy, Champagne and famous Bordeaux vintages.

For the first time Liv-ex also asked its merchants to predict the three best performing sub-indices of the Fine Wine 1000.

Burgundy was far and away the top prediction for best-performer as it did indeed turn out to be.

Second best was a far more undecided affair, with a fair number predicting that the Italy 100 would do better than it actually did (which was 5^th place).

The Bordeaux Legends 50 and Bordeaux 500 were also popular and the Bordeaux Legends did end up being the second best.

And finally, Liv-ex’s members just managed to pick out the Champagne 50 as the third best but many gave the Rhône 100 the benefit of the doubt and it did do well – perhaps 2019 will see it do even better?