Fine wine trading tips of the week

Matthew O’Connell, head of investment at Bordeaux Index, shares his top three fine wine trading tips of the week.

• Although our view is that the performance seen by Tuscan wines is likely to slow over the next 12-18 months as focus continues to shift to Bordeaux and Burgundy, Sassicaia and others have risen so far in 2021, with Sassicaia 2015 (+4% YTD) and 2016 (+6% YTD) seeing significant activity on the LiveTrade platform.
• We continue to see more activity and signs of emerging strong performance in Cheval Blanc, something we see as linked to the château’s movement towards more favourable release prices (as with both 2019 and 2020 en primeur, each of which saw outsized demand), which can often catalyse the secondary market.
• Recent price gains in Bordeaux have not just been limited to first growths, but there is healthier activity in Super Seconds, such as Ducru Beaucaillou, than we have seen for a long time. It will be interesting to see whether the current en primeur campaign boosts this market activity further, something we expect to be strongly linked to release prices, which trended towards being less attractive than for first growths across the 2016-2018 period.