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Fine wine auction prices have ‘calmed’ following market correction

12 June 2024 By Arabella Mileham

The prices at fine wine auctions have ‘calmed’ in the past year, according to auction house iDealwine, as a result of the correction in the fine wine market during 2023.

According to the French auction specialists’ recently published annual Barometer report, the average price of a bottle of wine at auctions has dropped to €152 – a fall of 22% on last year’s average.

“Auction values have… been heavily affected by the prices for fine wines correcting throughout 2023,” the report noted, with value sales falling 11.7%, to €33.8 million and in-depth analysis of the rankings for each region highlighting how the hammer prices of the highest-priced wines had reduced “significantly”.

This had particularly affected the averages price of a bottle of Burgundy wines, which fell by 35% year-on-year to around €250, on the back of a “highly volatile prices”.

The Rhône also saw an overall price decline of 28% to €119, followed by Champagne, which saw the price of an average bottle fall by 20.1% to €207. Meanwhile Bordeaux, which makes up 35.9% of volume sales, down from 36.6% the previous year, saw the average price of a bottle fall by only 7.3% to €131. However, the report noted that give the 26.6% jump in auction value in 2022 followed by a 30.9% jump in 2023, the average price of Bordeaux did not suffer such a large price correction.

There were a few winners though, including Savoie, which saw the average cost of a bottle of wine rise by 25% in the last year to €85, causing some to ask if Savoie was set to be “the next Jura”, along with Corsica and Alsace which saw an increase in bottle price of 30.3% (to €64) and 15% (to €52) respectively.

This calming of prices combined with record volumes of wines going under the hammer, suggests that people were tending to review and refine their collections – and part with some of their collection of wines, but potentially not their most expensive bottles.

For example, there was a 12% increase in volume sales through iDealwine’s auctions, with volume sales of the three leading regions rising. This was lead by Burgundy up 21.4%, along with Champagne (+15.1%) and Bordeaux (+10.4%). Italy also saw growth in volume sales, up 37.5% to account for 3.5% of iDealwine’s market, while values rose 31%, due to the slight decline of the average price, down 4.4%.

“Last year wine enthusiasts preferred to keep their treasures for a few years longer, instead of parting with them,” the report said.

It pointed out that the increase in interest rates since the middle of 2022 had encouraged investors to seek out more traditional financial investments rather than alternative investment possibilities such as wine, with those that had seen the highest price increase in 2022 falling the most in 2023.

However, drilling into the data provided a more nuanced look. The top 50 wines generated more than half of the auction’s total value sales (52%), although accounting for just 18% by volume. This helped boost the average price of these top 50 bottles to €432 per bottle (compared to – with just under half of these (24) coming from Burgundy, 16 from Bordeaux, four from the Rhone, two from Champagne (Jacques Selosse and Dom Perignon), two from Jura, and one each from the Loire (Clos Rougeard) and Languedoc (Domaine de la Grange des Pere).

Trends

There were a few notable trends, however, with the proportion of dry white wines sold jumping by 19% to take a 18.9% market share of iDealwine’s volume, while the volume of Champagne also rose by 15%, driven by its success in recent years – even if demand for classic cuvees overall had slowed somewhat.

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