The Drinks
Business and Liv-ex have published the 2013 edition of the Liv-ex Power 100
– our annual list of the most powerful brands in the fine wine market.
This year’s list clearly showed the development of the
trends that we were beginning to see in last year’s Liv-ex Power 100. Below are
our key findings:
- For the first time in its eight-year history,
the brand at the top of the list was not a First Growth or DRC. Pavie and
Angelus’ promotion to Premier Grand Cru Classe A in the St Emilion
re-classification last September led to strong trading and price rises over the
year. As such, the brands placed 1st and 2nd in the list. - Right Bank wines have performed well overall,
benefitting from good scores and solid price gains in a year which has seen
many Bordeaux prices in stasis. Eglise Clinet was one of the highest risers,
moving up 61 places from its 2012 rankings. But it was Left Bank Pape Clement
which moved furthest up the table: elevated by a perfect score for its 2010
vintage, it climbed 93 places. - There was a clear split in the performance of
First Growths. Lafite and Latour dropped down the table due to price
performance while the more “affordable” Bordeaux Premier Crus rose. In fifth
place, Haut Brion – whose value we looked at in a recent blog
– was the best of the Firsts. - DRC has dropped off the top spot, falling 14
places. A faltering price performance suggests the brand’s power may be waning.
Nevertheless, seven new Burgundy brands made it into the table. - The highest new entrant was from Italy: the
wines of Bruno Giacosa entered the table at number 40. - Champagne continues to be a strong performer,
boosted by a spate of great vintages and support from merchants.
This year we changed our methodology slightly to better
reflect the market. We have grouped wines together as brands (e.g. Carruades de
Lafite is incorporated with Lafite Rothschild under brand Lafite) and have
placed more emphasis on secondary market trades.
Our starting point was to take a list of all wines that
traded on Liv-ex in the last year and group these by brand. We then removed all
those that had traded lightly. Brands were ranked using five criteria: year on
year price performance, average critic score (we used Robert Parker’s scores
where possible, and where none were available we used The Wine Spectator, Allen
Meadows, Stephen Tanzer and James Suckling), trading performance on Liv-ex,
number of wines and vintages traded, and average price. Only the wines and
vintages that traded on Liv-ex in the last year were included in the
calculations.
The individual rankings were then combined with a
weighting of 1 for each criteria, except trading performance which had a
weighting of 1.5 (as it combined two criteria). The final 100 brands accounted
for over 1600 unique wines/vintages traded in the past year.
Below are the results in full for the 2013 Liv-ex Power 100.
In tomorrow’s blog we will look at “Value” brands within this year’s list.
