Recent trading activity
Italy has been in the spotlight this week thanks to some high-volume trades of Gaja Barbaresco 2010 and 2009.
The 2016 and 2010 vintages of Masseto also found the bid, while Tignanello 2014 traded at an all-time high of £1,614 per 12×75 (packed as 6×75) on Monday.
Château d’Yquem 2001 also traded at an all-time high of £2,800 per 12×37.5, in what has been an impressive year for Sauternes.
The wines driving Sauternes’ price performance
*Made with the Liv-ex Charting Tool.
The Sauternes 50 is the second-best performing sub-index of the Bordeaux 500 year-to-date, up 6.7%. It trails the Right Bank 50 index (10.7%), whose performance we looked at earlier this month.
Interestingly, both indices were among the weakest-performing in 2021, but have since seen a change of fortune.
Among the Sauternes 50 components, Suduiraut 2018 is the biggest price riser. The wine’s Mid Price has risen 32.9% year-to-date. Its 2017 vintage is also up 20.5%.
Rieussec 2008 is in second place, with increases of 28.5%. While Climens 2011 is third, up 26.7%.
However, it is important to note that Sauternes has historically not performed well during En Primeur. Often the releases were linked to allocations of their red siblings and as such they were not priced relative to the physical market.
Despite these impressive price rises year-to-date, many of the wines are still down significantly on their release. Rieussec 2008, for example, currently commands a Market Price of £330 per 12×75 – 27% below its release price (£420 per case).
*Made using Indices Explorer.
But next year the 2021 vintage will become physical. Production volumes for the 2021s was around 20% of the region’s ten-year average: Suduiraut only produced 6,000 bottles and Climens didn’t produce any wine at all.
With stock shortages on the horizon, it will be interesting to see if Sauternes can sustain these price rises in the year ahead.
There are currently 166 LIVE opportunities for Sauternes on the exchange.
Liv-ex analysis is drawn from the world’s most comprehensive database of fine wine prices. The data reflects the real time activity of Liv-ex’s 600 merchant members from across the globe. Together they represent the largest pool of liquidity in the world – currently £80m of bids and offers across 16,000 wines.
