Fine wine sags in January

Liv-ex’s principal fine wine trackers both registered small dips in January as the fine wine market limped into the new year.

Both the Liv-ex 100 and its broader counterpart, the Fine Wine 1000, recorded minor dips last month, which for the FW 1000 was the first month of non-positive growth in over two years.

The FW 100 ran pretty much flat with an extremely minor 0.02% dip versus its December close.

Burgundian, Italian and Champagne labels were the best performing wines including 2007 Cristal, 2014 Musigny from Comte de Vogüé and Richebourg from Domaine de la Romanée-Conti while Giacomo Conterno’s 2010 Barolo Riserva Monfortino was the month’s best-performing label.

After a strong December, Bordeaux labels dominated January’s worst-performing wines, 2015 Lafite declined the most in price (5.5%) and even Margaux’s much trumpeted 2015 went down from £11,000 to £10,000 a case, a regression of 4.9%.

The FW 1000 pulled back 0.3%, still a minor decline but enough to blunt an index that has been in almost continual growth since early 2016.

The Italy 100 was the top riser, thanks to strong performances from Conterno and also Gaja’s wines.

Further reflecting some of the trends from the FW 100, the Bordeaux Legends 50 was the weakest sub-index.

The remaining sub-indices covering Burgundy, the Rhône, Champagne and Rest of the World broadly ran flat.