The recent Knight Frank Wealth Report included a section on ‘luxury collectable assets’ – such as classic cars, fine art and fine wine. It was revealed that although fine wine was the third most popular luxury investment in 2012, it had the worst yearly performance out of the nine assets featured.
Quoting Andrew della Casa from the Wine Investment Fund, the report cited Lafite as the brand that ‘drove prices up, creating a bubble’ which led to the market ‘over-correct[ing]’. But the Liv-ex indices are now on the rise – as we saw yesterday, the Liv-ex 50 has risen 10.8% since its low point in November 2012, while the Liv-ex 100 has risen 6% year to date.
Although it would seem that the market started to turn in mid-November, the chart above shows that some Lafite vintages had begun rise in price before then. Asian buyers began to turn back to Lafite in late August, but only the “off”-vintages found themselves in demand – and prices increased.
It has taken longer for the more acclaimed vintages to find buyers, but as the chart below shows, both “off” and “on” vintages are now moving upwards in tandem, suggesting that Lafite is attracting broad market interest again.
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