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market report
Liv-ex is an electronic exchange for fine wine used by professional merchants and collectors. Each month Liv-ex publishes a detailed Market Report analysing fine wine prices and trends in the marketplace. The Market Report is part of a package of data and services offered to subscribers of Liv-ex, with subscriptions starting at £39.95 per year.
Below is just a brief extract from the latest Market Report. An extract will be offered on wine-pages as soon as it is published each month, but for the full report and Liv-Ex's extensive services, sign-up with them at www.liv-ex.com
Liv-Ex Market Report
by Liv-ex.com, March 2005
Trading
Activity in February picked up strongly after a rather lacklustre start to the year. Trade through the Exchange was up 35% on January. The brief strength of the dollar provided a boon to trade in February as dollar
based buying emerged. Stock held by the leading UK merchants dropped 6.4% for the month lead by Burgundy as 2003 en primeur stocks were sold down. The Liv-ex 100 rose 1.2% for the month.
(more analysis by region in the full report)
Major Movers
The table below shows the major movers, month on month, in February. One can see liquidity drivers at play here. Both Le Pin and Rousseau Clos Roche are so thin on the ground that single case deals can have a profound effect on price.
Top Bordeaux from the 80's remain well bid, while Left Bank '98s continue to come under pressure.
(the featured wines are analysed in detail in full report)
Critical Corner
Final Thought
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Despite speculation that Parker was due to report on Bordeaux 2002, he didn't! But Wine Spectator did. In the table below we have therefore adjusted the spreads taken from last month's piece on the subject.
To remind; below we have listed Parker's top fifteen Bordeaux 2002 by score against Tanzer and Suckling (Wine Spectator). We have then ordered them by the spread, or the difference between the top end and bottom
end of the adjusted combined scores. Continuing with the assumption that any surprises from further reviews are most likely to come in wines where opinion is most split (i.e. the spread is largest), it would
seem Palmer and Troplong Mondot are potentially in the firing line! A further interesting point of note is that Suckling scored Latour, Lafite and Mouton Rothschild at the bottom end of their previous ranges.
At the more affordable end of the market (and not represented below) there seems to be one wine that is shining through - Pontet Canet. It was awarded 5 stars by Decanter magazine last week and gets between 90
and 92 points from the American critics. Trading at around £180, it would seem to be a sure fire bet for the Vintage.
see all stockists of Pontet Canet 2002 on wine-searcher.com.
(more analysis in full report)
This month we have decided to take a look at the supply side of the Claret market, vintage by vintage. In the chart below we have aggregated the Bordeaux stock holdings of 14 major merchants, measured by both value and case volume. This has been restricted to wines with a case value of £150 plus. While this takes no account of private reserves held by collectors, it
provides a loose measure of what we call free stock.
(more tables for first growth stock holdings and further analysis in the full report)
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