As the year draws to a close, it is interesting to have a look at the most actively traded wines by Value and Volumes across 2018. Given the unique guaranteed two-way nature of our LiveTrade platform and its scale, these wines are highly reflective of broader market flows across Investment as well as Collecting.
Indeed we see this as very reflective of a couple of the year’s core themes: increasingly healthy activity in top Bordeaux and sharp focus on Champagne, particularly in the context of premium 2008 releases; at the same time, year-on-year we see the top Tuscan wines becoming ever more consistent in their market profile and volumes.
On average across this year 84% of our LiveTrade prices have been more attractive than those on Livex and this has been reflected in value-traded growth of 17%.
As you can see the lists show some similarities with both recent releases of Cristal featuring in the top 10s for both value and volume, along with 2015 Haut Brion and 2012 Lafite.
Perhaps unsurprisingly the ‘by value’ list features some of the heavy hitters which clearly require fewer trades to make a significant impact – the perfectly-scored Lafite 2003 and Haut Brion 1989 being the most obvious of these, along with the “sensational” (NM) Petrus 2005.
The ‘by volume’ list really shows the breadth of interest across the LiveTrade platform with the latest releases of Sassicaia – whose trade was significantly boosted after being named Wine Spectator’s #1 wine of 2018 – and Tignanello adding a little Tuscan flavour to the Champagne/Bordeaux mix.
Next year will see the addition of the leading 2016 Bordeaux wines to the LiveTrade screen, which will likely see a boost in interest – and of course, trade volumes – in this most desirable vintage.