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US buyers takes the top spot in fine wine market
US buyers have accounted for the greatest percentage of purchases in the fine wine industry for the first time, Liv-ex’s annual fine wine report has said – but with Trump 2.0 tariffs looming on the horizon, the market remains uncertain.
According to the 2024 fine wine market report, US buyers now account for 34.8% of global buyers, up from 25.7% in 2023, giving them the largest share in purchases for the first time, while also being the only region in which total value of purchases rose on 2023 by an impressive 16.0%.
However, with Trump set to take the White House in January, “uncertainty that has ratcheted up in the US over the past month”, the report said. We already know that tariffs “appear a certainty”, while the impact of forex and the “wider US macroeconomic context will play an important role”.
“Markets do not like uncertainty, and with US buyers playing a increasingly prominent role, further unpredictability is not going to be met with open arms,” the report noted.
Wine Cap’s latest report also noted the rise in demand for fine wine in the US, boosted by the strengthened US dollar. It noted that rising US Treasury yields had been “driven by expectations of future interest rate hikes”, attracting capital inflows and strengthening the US dollar, thereby reinforcing investor confidence in US economic policies.
However at the same time, this has raised concerns about higher borrowing costs and a “potential drag on economic growth”, while concerns over increased tariffs have also created uncertainty.
Trade overall
Overall, the year was marked by challenges, with all major Liv-ex indices have fallen least 9% year-on-year, during 2024, as reported in the Power 100. For example the industry benchmark Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 was down 9.2% in the year-to-date, while
Consumers have continued to be “risk averse” and “tiptoe[ing] their way through a market that is searching for signs of the bottom”, it said, even though trade remains higher than last year by 5.5%, despite volumes being down 1.9%. This, Liv-ex said was “a sign of buyers’ reluctance to take on stock that they can’t quickly sell on (or broke through straightaway).”
However, perhaps conversely, 2024 regained the momentum it lost in 2023, seeing a similar number of unique wines or unique brands traded – or an even greater number – as in 2022.
Bordeaux’s share of trade fell during 2024 (even though Lafite 2019 was the most-traded wine by value over the year), which Liv-ex said suggested a return to the long-term trend that has seen the market diversify away from Bordeaux’s “historic dominance”, the report said – and that Bordeaux no longer represented “a safe bet” in the current downturn, partly as a result of “ineffective release prices and the knock-on effect they have on the demand-supply balance”, as well as a subdued Chinese market.
Meanwhile, gold reaffirmed its historic position as a “safe-haven asset” in 2024.
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