What’s happening in the market?
Sassicaia 2022 is the top-traded wine of the week so far, changing hands in decent volumes several times around the £1,800 per 12×75 mark, 28.0% below its ex-London release price.
Today’s deep dive: Left Bank 200’s most in-demand wines
Of the Left Bank 200, Beychevelle holds by far the highest bid:offer ratio – 1.96 — demand outweighing supply almost twice over. Despite the high ratio, its trade levels remain relatively low, coming in as only the sixth top-traded Left Bank 200 brand by value year-to-date. More interestingly, while Beychevelle is well known for its popularity in China and Hong Kong, Asian buyers have only accounted for c.10% of this year’s purchased value, despite having placed around a third of live Beychevelle bids.
Its foreign demand partially explains its high bid:offer ratio. With large quantities shipped directly from France to mainland China and Hong Kong, bypassing the UK (from which certificates of origin cannot be issued), and being drunk quickly, stock diminishes. Though Beychevelle’s bid:offer ratio is high, its peers see a higher proportion of their bids successfully trade.
Top-traded: Lynch-Bages, Cos d’Estournel and Pontet-Canet
Lynch-Bages is the top-traded Left Bank 200 wine of 2025 by both value and volume. Though Europe is its largest buying segment, accounting for 60% of traded value year-to-date, US buyers have played a key role, maintaining a 20%+ share of purchased value before the introduction of tariffs. Perhaps surprisingly, UK buyers have comprised only 5% of purchasing YTD.
Cos d’Estournel and Pontet-Canet take second place by value and volume respectively. Like Lynch-Bages, Pontet-Canet has seen strong demand from US buyers, who accounted for 41.2% of its purchased value in 2024.
US buyers, able to purchase at higher prices while maintaining their margins, have had a positive influence over both Lynch-Bages’ and Pontet-Canet’s prices. With tariffs cooling the US’s presence on the secondary market, however, much of this price support has been lost.
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 620+ merchant members from across the globe. Together they represent the largest pool of liquidity in the world – currently £140m of bids and offers across 20,000 wines.
