Champagne helps fine wine rally in April

The Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 enjoyed a small rally last month after five months of decline, helped along by steady interest in Champagne.

The benchmark index rose 0.3% in April, not quite enough to erase the 0.5% drop suffered in March nor indeed the declines since December 2017 but a step in a more positive direction.

Three of the best-performing labels were from Champagne, with the Krug 2002 going up 6.5%; Cristal’s 2007 5% and Taittinger’s 2006 Comtes de Champagne rebounding 4.5% after drifting over 5% in March.

Also going up were Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s 2012 Richebourg and Angélus’s 2010 (5% and 4.7% respectively).

Bordeaux and Burgundy labels meanwhile were the big decliners, with a couple of 2009 Bordeaux (Vieux Château Certan and Ducru Beaucaillou) going down and Liv-ex noting that “prices for wines from the vintage have been wobbling for some time now.”

Comete de Vogüé’s 2014 Musigny Vieilles Vignes continued a slide that began last month, declining 3.7%, while Lafite’s 2000 (down 6%) and Domaine de la Romanée-Conti’s 2012 La Tâche (down 7.9%) were the month’s really big fallers.

The upturn in April has put a small break on fine wine’s recent downward course although it is perhaps too much to say it has stopped the rot entirely and with a potentially tricky en primeur campaign in the shape of the 2017 Bordeaux about to kick off in earnest, there’s every chance 2018 is going to be a choppy one for the market.