Liv-ex enjoys busiest February trading period on record

The coronavirus crisis doesn’t seem to be impacting the fine wine world, with Liv-ex experiencing its busiest February trading period on record last month.

“This time a year ago as the Covid-19 pandemic began to throw global financial markets into turmoil, the benchmark Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 and 1000 indices were briefly knocked off course until a market rally in May/June.

“In a sign of how the market has bounced back since then, trade by value this February was almost double that of February 2020.

“The number of LWIN7s (wine labels) and LWIN11s (wine labels + vintage) traded was also substantially higher: 1,149 and 2,035 respectively this year versus 786 and 1,357 last year,” Liv-ex said.

All three of the company’s benchmark indices – Liv-ex 50, Liv-ex 100 and Liv-ex 1000 – are up on a year-on-year basis with a growing string of positive months under their belts.

Liv-ex reports that news of the trade truce between the US and European Union last Friday provided an instant fillip to activity on the secondary market, with US members returning in force.

The number of LIVE bids from US merchants on the exchange “soared” last weekend and were particularly concentrated on Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and Rhône wines.

Demand for Italian wines from American buyers also remained robust and the country’s market share by value remains the largest after Bordeaux’s.

Encouragingly, trade across the Liv-ex platform is becoming ever more diverse. “Demand for non-Bordeaux and Burgundy wines in the shape of LIVE bids in this early part of 2021 is already double that of this time last year,” Liv-ex said.

It also reported that Burgundy’s momentum had carried over from January – the Burgundy 150 was once again the best-performing sub-index with a gain of 1.5%.

Red Burgundies from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti and Armand Rousseau were the top-performers in the Liv-ex 1000, while Domaine Leflaive’s 2016 Chevalier Montrachet and 2015 Puligny Montrachet ‘Clavoillon’ led the Liv-ex 100, alongside some Super Tuscan back vintages.

Burgundy’s success was closely followed by the Champagne 50, which has enjoyed its best one-year run since 2018.

The Champagne 50 closed February at up 1.47%. The sub-index has hit new highs for four consecutive months and now stands up 10.77% over the past year.

Louis Roederer Cristal Rosé 2012 led the way, up 12.2% to £3,244 per case.

Continuing the rosé trend in February three vintages of Dom Pérignon Rosé – 2004, 2003, and 2005 – were also among the top five market movers. Also in the top five was Bollinger La Grand Année 2005, which was recently awarded 18.5/20 points by Jancis Robinson MW.