Growing appetite for US fine wine shows greater buyer confidence in its credentials
US wines have consolidated their place on the international fine wine market, a report from Liv-ex has said, showing a “clear tilt towards higher-value bottles”.
The data shows that wines from the US now account for 8% of trade on the platform, up from only 1% ten years ago, with buyers from all regions allocating a greater share of their spend to US wines “than at any point over the past decade”.
This growth demonstrates the “rising confidence in the investment and collectability credentials of US fine wine, rather than primary market supply”, the report said.
That the value was increasing more sharply than the volume highlighted that people are not simply buying more (volume), they are spending more on US wines.
California dreaming
The demand has been “overwhelmingly” driven by Californian wines, the report said. These routinely account for 99% of US trade, with other regions yet to develop “regular trading patterns”, according to Sophia Gilmour, Liv-ex’s market analysis. Meanwhile Screaming Eagle made up “an increasingly high proportion of US wine trade”.
Speaking to the drinks business, Gilmour noted that Screaming Eagle’s Cabernet Sauvignon and Opus One combined for example, account for around 25-40+% of the US’s share of traded value on Liv-ex. Meanwhile, around a quarter of all Liv-ex trades of US wines in 2026 (in terms of frequency) have comprised these two estates.
In terms of popular vintages, the 2018s have traded most frequently this year, leading by both value and volume traded.
“Opus One 2018 paints an interesting picture: having seen its trade prices decline to a low of £2,388/12×75 in March, trade prices have now risen above its ex-negoce (225EUR/btl) and ex-London (£2,760/12×75) up to £2,800/12×75,” she pointed out. “With trade frequency picking up at this level and trades taking place above market price, this support level — its March 2022 low and ex-London release price — looks likely to hold.”
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However, while Screaming Eagle and Opus One may lead the region (particularly by value), she pointed out that they are not the sole US players.
“Harlan, Promontory and Dominus follows with around .5% share of US trade each, but Liv-ex has seen more than 140 US wines (one or more vintage of each) change hands so far this year, with Scarecrow, Continuum, Sine Qua Non, Ridge and Joseph Phelps following behind as the top producers,” she said. And while these producers are too well established to be described as “‘breaking through’ as such,” Gilmour pointed out that Promontory’s quick rise to high trade levels, thanks to the Harlan brand, was one that stood out.
Changing buying patterns
And buyers of US wines are changing, with Asian, European and US buyers increasingly contributing, following the waning of UK dominance since 2015.
Sophia Gilmour, Liv-ex’s market analyst, said that US buyers’ purchasing of US wines on the secondary market was “notable”, upending the idea that it would be cheaper for US buyers to acquire wine domestically.
“For those without initial allocations, this appears not to be entirely the case. US buyers’ increasing share of purchasing prior to tariff impositions is not the sole contributor to their increased share,” she pointed out. “Since the start of 2023, the percentage of their total purchasing allocated to US wine has been steadily rising.”
Participation from European and Asian buyers had also expanded however, showing that this was not a reaction to short-term policy changes, but part of a ‘broader, demand-led shift”.
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