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Liv-ex Webinar: One Year into Recovery, What’s next for the Fine Wine Market?
Tom and Sophia discuss the question ‘Is this the best time to buy fine wine in a decade?’
Watch the Webinar
In the webinar they discussed:
- Q3 2026’s most important fine wine market trends
- The macroeconomic factors impacting the fine wine market
- How to accurately define recovery
- How to capitalise on emerging stability
- The outlook across different wine regions and trade markets
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Bordeaux strengthens its market lead, mature vintages trading actively
Bordeaux strengthened its lead of the market, claiming 41% of traded value. Burgundy’s share also rose compared to last week.
- Bordeaux strengthened its lead of the market, claiming 41% of traded value. Burgundy’s share also rose compared to last week while Champagne’s fell.
- Calon Segur 2006, Leflaive Puligny-Montrachet Les Pucelles 2023 and Lynch-Bages 1996 were the top-traded wines by value.
- Both UK and US buyers, who drove purchasing last week, decreased their spend by over 20%. Asian buying also fell slightly, while EU buyers upped their purchasing slightly.
Bordeaux again strengthened its lead of the market, claiming 41% of the week’s traded value. The 2019 and 2020 vintages were top-traded by value, though more mature vintages such as the 2005, 2006 and 2009 also traded actively.
Burgundy’s share rose from 15.7% last week to 20.8% this week. Domaine de la Romanee-Conti and Domaine Leflaive were the top-traded producers by value, accounting for around a third of the region’s trade.
Champagne’s share fell from 13.0% last week to 8.5% this week. Belle Epoque 2018, Krug 1996 and Dom Perignon 2003 were the top-traded wines by value, Laurent Perrier the top-traded producer overall.
Tuscany had a strong week, claiming 11.6% of traded value. Soldera Case Basse and Sassicaia were the top-traded wines by value, purchasing driven by EU buyers.
Piedmont’s share fell to 4.0%, Giacomo Conterno and Gaja accounting for over half of the region’s trade (by value).
US wines took a smaller share of the market this week than last week, though Opus One, Colgin and Promontory continued to trade actively.
Missed last week’s market update? Read it here.
Copyright © 2026 Liv-ex Ltd. All rights reserved.
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On the Ground in Asia: Signs of a Selective Recovery
Following a trip to Hong Kong and Singapore, Paolo-Luca, Broker for Asia, shares what he heard from merchants, what’s driving activity and where caution remains.
The aim of the trip was to grow and build relationships with members and non-members alike, and to give credence to the whispers of growth in the region this year. It appears there is a reason for hope, but also a feeling of caution around Bordeaux in the market.
‘The world has changed.
I see it in the water.
I feel it in the Earth.
I smell it in the air.’
- J.R.R. Tolkien
It’s no secret that trade in the East has perhaps suffered the worst coming out of Covid. When Covid cleared, excitement was ripe for a big Asia comeback – but what we found was the opposite. Crackdowns on grey-market trading in Hong Kong pulled a lot of hutzpah out of the market, and stock overhangs (a dragon’s haul of undrunk and immovable recent release stock) were gathering dust in the several warehouses and private client cellars. On top of this, the hospitality scene in both Hong Kong and Singapore never really recovered in a post-Covid world and there were stories of some of the top Michelin Starred restaurants going bust – DHK, Seasons and Ancient Moon to name a few.
All in all, it’s been a rough ride, and more recent events didn’t help. Each year, mispriced vintages of Bordeaux, and Beyond Bordeaux have added more stock pressure to an already pressurised market. Purchasing slowed drastically. Then, a crackdown on gift-giving and a general fear of being ostracised meant many high rollers stopped buying and drinking the top names; instead settling for humbler 2nd to 5th growth Bordeaux, and village Burgundy.
So, amidst all the doom and gloom, what’s changed? We noted that demand out of Asia started to pick up early Summer and there has been more demand for Champagne and Burgundy especially the top names. As trade picked up, so did enquiries, and on the grape vine we started to notice that a lot of our members were taking advantage of private clients returning to the market.
Starting my trip in the gateway to China: Hong Kong seemed more alive than usual. On previous visits merchants in the country had ofttimes spoken of a ‘dead’ market and have garnered a feeling of dread about business. However, there was a palpable sense of returning demand – driven largely by foreign operators. A mixture of tourists and businesses we’re coming into Hong Kong to satiate their demand for fine wines. Namely these are coming from South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore amongst another few select South-East Asian countries. As well as this, there is word of an increase in tourism again from Mainland China – with some shops in Central reporting sell-outs across the Golden Week with tourists coming into the local market.
Things are also looking up on the hospitality side. In contrast to the ‘empty Friday nights’ of 2023, looking around a Michelin starred restaurant, I notice its full on a Tuesday. Wine bar hopping on a Wednesday showed that people are going out again, and people are drinking. Speaking with one of the sommeliers at the wine bar – he remarked this was ‘quiet’ for a Wednesday… even though the bar was mostly full! People are going out; however, they are paying less per head than pre-Covid.
After Hong Kong I headed through a lightning storm over Ho Chi Minh to Singapore. Singapore has seemed similar positive signs in recent months, and I was told as much. As a financial hub, Singapore has attracted people of all areas to the small country, and so there is quite diverse drinking. People are keen to find out the new and trendy of Burgundy and explore different regions. Nonetheless, the big rollers seem to be returning, and there is an increased trade of people servicing the Southeast Asian market via Singapore.
Across both counties there are several similarities.
In terms of the general secondary market activity, one thing that was noted is private clients aren’t cellaring anymore. They’re looking to drink. And with that in mind, its Champagne and Burgundy that are the words on everyone’s lips. To quote one merchant: ‘French, French, French’ is what’s wanted. Demand is returning for some top-notch Burgundy that we haven’t seen for a while – with names like DRC and Leroy obviously there – alongside those brands which seemed to have been abandoned in the fallout of the covid boom: namely Bizot and Rousseau.
For Bordeaux, its not such a pretty picture. Although some of the stock overhangs have cleared (especially for rarer wines and back vintages), there is seemingly more stock coming to market for recent vintages. This is putting more pressures on prices locally, whilst prices stabilise or even grow in Europe and UK markets. This has made recent vintage Bordeaux a very difficult and tight market to operate in.
For merchants, there is a reported increase in market activity. I’d say that the wine market across the region has grown by 10-20% – with the lowest flat and the highest almost up 40%. This is a substantial shift in trends after 2025: a year that one merchant described as ‘the worst year on record’.
For Liv-ex, it was also an important time to share what we’ve got going on. Over the past year we’re had a real drive to personalisation of the platform with the release of Personalised Market Reports, Buying Recommendations, and Offex. We’re also growing our presence in France, with team members across Business Development, Broking, Account Management, Customer Success and Market Intelligence in our Bordeaux office. We also wanted to reaffirm the value of the exchange and a broker-relationship to help grow sourcing routes efficiently.
For me, it was an important chance to meet some clients and friends in Hong Kong and Singapore. It’s very important to me, that we focus on building long-term relationships with merchants in both countries both commercially and personally. As part of this, what a pleasure it was to meet members, ex-members and prospects alike and grow these relationships, whilst laying the foundations of that network for some new ones. I also managed to get a last-minute Bouldering session in before my flight home. So, all in all, a very good trip!
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The Champagne Market in 2026
What circumstances and changes in buyer and seller behavior led Champagne into its current recovery period? Where should buyers be focusing their attention now?
Download the Report
In this report we cover:
- Changing supply and demand dynamics
- Wines driving Champagne’s recovery
- The market outlook
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How we Rebuilt the LWIN Matching Engine
We have rebuilt the LWIN matching engine; combining traditional search techniques, a language model trained on Liv-ex wine data and a confidence model.
Matching a wine list to LWIN might appear straightforward. A wine description comes in, the system searches for the corresponding record, and an LWIN is returned. In practice, wine data is rarely that consistent.
The same wine may be described differently by merchants, systems, warehouses and marketplaces. Names can be abbreviated or misspelt. Accents and punctuation vary. Some descriptions include the vintage and bottle format; others omit important information entirely.
Over the past few months, we have rebuilt the LWIN matching engine to handle this complexity more effectively. The new system combines traditional search techniques, a language model trained on Liv-ex wine data and a separate confidence model. Together, they allow us to automate substantially more matches without compromising the level of accuracy the wine trade requires.
Why the original matcher needed to evolve
Our previous matching system relied heavily on exact matches. If the description submitted corresponded directly with an existing LWIN record in our database, the system could return the match.
That approach worked well when the incoming data was clean and complete. However, a spelling mistake, an alternative naming convention or a missing piece of information could prevent the system from identifying the wine automatically. The line would then require manual review, even where the correct result might be relatively clear to a wine expert.
The challenge was therefore not simply to build a more flexible search. We needed a system that could recognise variations while distinguishing between wines with very similar descriptions. Just as importantly, it needed to know when there was not enough evidence to make a reliable automatic match.
What powers the new engine
At the heart of the new engine is a machine-learning-powered model. Rather than looking for exact matches, it learns the patterns in how wines are described, so it can recognise the same wine however it is written. This model interprets each wine description and finds the most likely LWIN. Descriptions are first cleaned and standardised, so that superficial formatting differences don’t distort the result.
The core of the model is a cross-encoder. It reads the submitted description alongside each candidate LWIN record and assesses how closely the two correspond. It scores the most likely candidates and reranks them from the most to the least likely match.
An important part of the training process is the use of “near misses”: wines that look plausible but are not the correct result. Teaching the model to distinguish between these closely related records helps it recognise that a description containing many of the right words is not necessarily the right wine.
What sets the engine apart is the data behind it. The model is trained on decades of high-quality Liv-ex wine data, built up and maintained by specialists who know the market. That depth gives it a grounding in how wines are actually named, abbreviated and traded. Over the course of its training process, it is taught the subtleties of wine nomenclature, as well as a large range of expert-backed knowledge.
The engine also improves over time. Mistakes become training material, so the model learns from each one and becomes more reliable with every round of refinement.
Automation is only one layer. Our team of wine experts reviews the results and examines the cases the engine can’t resolve with confidence. This gives a second layer of scrutiny and keeps the matches dependable.
More automation without compromising accuracy
During each training run, we tune the confidence threshold to maximise coverage while maintaining accuracy of at least 99%.
For members, this means that more wines can be identified automatically, with fewer lines requiring manual review or correction. It also makes it possible to process larger lists more efficiently, while preserving the accuracy needed when the resulting LWINs are used with wine and pricing data.
Building a system that continues to improve
The rebuilt matcher is not simply a more permissive version of our previous search. It is a new process designed around the realities of wine data.
Fast retrieval helps us find plausible records at scale. The language model distinguishes between closely related wines. Confidence scoring determines when the engine should act automatically and when a person should review the result. Corrections from our wine experts can then inform future model training.
This combination of technology, proprietary wine data and specialist expertise is central to the approach. AI gives us better ways to interpret inconsistent descriptions, but automation is only useful if the resulting matches remain dependable.
By increasing automatic coverage while maintaining accuracy above 99%, the new engine reduces the work required to prepare wine data and makes it easier to move from an unstructured list to accurate product identification. From there, LWIN can become the foundation for adding trusted price and product data and supporting decisions about valuations, stock, buying and selling.
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Bordeaux keeps the lead, Lynch-Bages 2005 top-traded
US and UK buyers both upped their purchasing, the former segment reclaiming their share of purchasing.
- Bordeaux maintained a strong lead of the market, claiming 37.4% of traded value. Burgundy’s share fell from a September average of 24.6% to 15.7% this week.
- Lynch-Bages 2005, Opus One 2023 and Cheval Blanc 2015 were the top-traded wines of the week by value.
- US and UK buyers both upped their purchasing, the former segment reclaiming their share of purchasing.
Bordeaux led the market with a 37.4% share of purchase. Lynch-Bages was the region’s top-traded wine overall; alongside the 2005 (top-traded overall), more recent vintages (2017-2022) traded actively.
Burgundy’s share fell from 18.4% last to 15.4% this – both weeks below a September average of 24.6%. Domaine de la Romanee-Conti maintained its lead, though Leflaive and Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey followed close behind.
Champagne followed in third place with 13.0% share. Salon accounted for close to a third of the region’s trade, followed by Jacques Selosse with a 12.8% share. US buyers claimed over half of the region’s purchased value.
Tuscany and Piedmont were fairly level this week by value, both claiming c.6% of trade. EU buyers led Tuscan purchasing, focusing on Sassicaia and Tignanello; UK buyers led Piedmontese purchasing, focusing largely on Giacomo Conterno.
The US’s share (largely California) rose from 7.0% last week to 9.6% this week. US buyers once again drove the region’s purchasing, accounting for a 66.2% share of its traded value.
Missed last week’s market update? Read it here.
Copyright © 2026 Liv-ex Ltd. All rights reserved.
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Bordeaux claims 40% of traded value, Lafite 2005 in the lead
Bordeaux led the market, claiming 39.6%, Lafite accounting for over a quarter of its trade.
- Bordeaux led the market, claiming 39.6%, Lafite accounting for over a quarter of its trade.
- Lafite 2005, Tignanello 2023 and Domaine Louis Latour, Corton-Charlemagne 2023 were the top-traded wines of the week by value.
- EU, UK and US buyers shared the stage this week, each buying geography accounting for 27-30% of traded value.
Bordeaux took a strong lead of the market, claiming 39.6% of traded value. Lafite was by far the region’s top-traded wine, accounting for over a quarter of its traded value.
Burgundy followed in second place, its share falling from 24.8% last week to 18.4% last week. Louis Latour, Domaine de la Romanee-Conti and Louis Jadot were the top-traded producers, with the 2022s and 2023s trading most actively.
Champagne’s share remained flat at 12.2%, coming in third place. Bollinger pulled ahead of Dom Perignon and Louis Roeder as the top-traded producer by value, with R.D. 2008 the region’s top-traded wine overall.
Tuscany’s share rose from 5.2% last week to 8.9% this week. UK buyers led purchasing of Super Tuscans – largely Tignanello and Tua Rita – while US buyers led purchasing of Brunello, focusing on Fuligni and Biondi-Santi.
Piedmont’s share fell to 5.5% following its strong close last week, with Gaja accounting for close to half of the region’s traded value.
The US claimed a 7.0% share of traded value, with Opus One, Promontory and Screaming Eagle the top-traded producers. US buyers accounted for 58% of region’s purchasing by value.
Missed last week’s market update? Read it here.
Copyright © 2026 Liv-ex Ltd. All rights reserved.
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The Next Evolution of LWIN: Turning Wine Lists into Value Faster
Liv-ex has introduced two connected improvements designed to help members work with wine lists more efficiently and at scale.
Fifteen years ago, Liv-ex introduced LWIN: a common language for wine.
At the time, the challenge facing the wine trade was simple but significant. Different merchants, systems, warehouses and marketplaces often described the same wine in different ways. Without a shared identifier, exchanging information accurately and efficiently was difficult.
Today, millions of wines are identified using LWIN. It underpins pricing, trading, logistics, inventory management and data exchange across the global fine wine industry.
But mapping a wine list to LWIN is only the beginning. Once wines have been identified, businesses need trusted data to value stock, identify opportunities and decide what to do next.
Liv-ex has now improved both the matching process and the workflows that follow, making it easier to move from identifying wines to enriching matched lists.
Introducing the next generation of LWIN matching
Liv-ex has introduced two connected improvements designed to help members work with wine lists more efficiently and at scale.
Wine Matcher in List Studio
Wine Matcher, Liv-ex’s member-exclusive matching tool, is now available directly within List Studio. Members can upload a wine list, match it to LWIN, and layer in trusted price and product data in bulk.
Once matched, lists can be enriched with Liv-ex data including Market Price, Last Trade, Best Bid and Best Offer, alongside product information including critic scores and ABVs. This gives members the data they need to support valuations, benchmark stock, identify buying and selling opportunities, and build out their e-commerce websites.
A redesigned LWIN matching engine
Behind Wine Matcher, Liv-ex data scientists have redesigned the LWIN matching algorithm.
The new engine combines modern AI with Liv-ex’s proprietary wine data and specialist matching expertise. This allows it to recognise a broader range of variations in wine names, vintages and formats, improving automated wine identification without compromising accuracy.
Higher match rates without compromising accuracy
The redesigned engine delivers significantly higher automatic match rates while maintaining precision above 99%.
This means more wines can be matched automatically, reducing the number that require manual review or correction while preserving the accuracy businesses need when working with wine and pricing data.
It is also built to process larger workloads. The engine can match up to 1,500 lines per minute and supports lists containing up to 10,000 lines.
Members can run multiple matching jobs simultaneously and continue working on other tasks while their lists are processed in the background.
From matching wines to creating value
Matching a list to LWIN makes the information within it more useful. Once wines have been identified, members can enrich their lists with Liv-ex price and product data and use that information to support their next decision.
Depending on the list, that could mean valuing inventory, benchmarking prices, identifying opportunities to sell or finding wines they may want to buy.
Our long-term vision for LWIN is to make it easier for the wine trade to identify products and work with wine data at scale. AI gives us new ways to solve the complexity of wine matching, but it is most effective when combined with Liv-ex’s proprietary dataset and the expertise we have built over many years. Greater automation is important, but not at the expense of accuracy. The trade needs both. Marco Alparone Chief Product & Technology Officer – Liv-ex
Continued investment in wine data
As businesses invest in modern inventory systems, e-commerce platforms, trading tools and pricing technology, reliable product identification becomes increasingly important.
This latest evolution of LWIN reflects Liv-ex’s continued investment in technology that helps members work with wine data more efficiently, accurately and at greater scale. By combining a more powerful matching engine with one connected workflow, members can spend less time preparing their data and more time acting on it.
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Fine Wine News: US buyers maintain lead; DRC top-traded overall
US buyers maintained their lead of purchasing, upping their purchasing on last week. While EU buyers pulled back after a strong week last week, UK…
- Bordeaux led the market with a 30.7% share of traded value, followed by Burgundy with 24.8% and Champagne with 12.4%.
- Two vintages of Romanee-Conti – the 2011 and 1988 – featured amongst the top five wines by traded value, alongside Opus One 2018, Cristal 2008 (Late Release) and Giacomo Conterno’s Barolo Francia 2022.
- US buyers maintained their lead of purchasing, upping their purchasing on last week. While EU buyers pulled back after a strong week last week, UK buyers held strong and claimed second place.
While maintaining its lead of the market, Bordeaux’s share of traded value fell slightly from 33.0% last week to 30.7% this week. Lafite and Cheval Blanc led the region, claiming a combined 26% of its traded value.
Burgundy, keeping second place, also saw its share fall – from 28.5% last week to 24.8% last week. Domaine de la Romanee-Conti was by far the region’s top-traded producer, with Romanee-Conti 1988, 2011, 2017 and La Tache 2015 comprising the region’s top four wines by traded value.
Champagne claimed third place with an 11% share of traded value. Non-vintage wines were the top-traded by value and volume (Bollinger’s Special Cuvee and Veuve Cliqueout’s Yellow Label most popular), though Cristal 2008 Late Release was the top-traded overall.
Missed last week’s market update? Read it here.
Copyright © 2026 Liv-ex Ltd. All rights reserved.