LIQUID ASSETS


Building a more sustainable wine environment


§ T


Chloe Ashton presents her quarterly look at the movers and shakers in the world’s salerooms and ponders what must be done to return auction activity to pre-pandemic levels


ime has not been kind to fine wine over the past two years. Having experienced their steepest climb to date during the Covid pandemic, Liv-ex indices have all been tumbling since the fall of 2022—a damning sentence for a real asset that principally relies on the passing of time for value accrual. Indeed, 2024 saw Liv-ex indices slide an average 10% between January and December (fig. 1). The only mercy was its pace—an average 3% slower than declines over the previous 12 months. Matthew O’Connell, CEO of Bordeaux Index’s digital trading platform Live Trade and head of investment, explains, “One can perhaps describe 2023 and early 2024 as having seen intrinsic price declines, whereas the past six to nine months have been a more gradual drift on sustained lower activity. […] it feels like pricing has now balanced out.” Examining 2024’s last quarter


specifically, small signs of light appeared. The Liv-ex 100 index registered a tiny uptick (0.2%) in December. At least some of this was driven by demand resurgence from across the pond. Liv-ex reports that US merchants accounted for 43% of purchases on its exchange in December 2024, presumably in a bid to buy and ship prior to potential impending tariffs. Overall, the platform’s bid:offer ratio still sits low, maintaining (but not worsening) the supply/demand imbalance. Miles Davis, a fine-wine consultant who recently joined fine-wine merchant Vinum, points out that “the past five years have been the most turbulent times most of us have ever experienced.” No wonder, then, that fine wine’s recent injuries are taking a while to heal.


The diagnosis


The first step on the road to recovery from trauma is acceptance. Will Hargrove, associate director of leading UK merchant Corney & Barrow, says, “In hindsight, some of the prices [during Covid]—particularly of Champagne and Burgundy—got silly and were never sustainable.” Price inflation aside, he adds that the sheer volume of purchases during the pandemic years—encouraged both by additional disposable income and by the release of “a strong trio of vintages across several regions” (2018, 2019, 2020)—means that many have had their fill for the time being. There’s less pressure now to stock up. People are


36 | THE WORLD OF FINE WINE | ISSUE 87 | 2025


Collector Pierre Chen, whose series of “Epicurean's Atlas” sales through Sotheby's was a highlight of wine auctions in 2024, tasting the exceptionally rare 2022 Musigny at Domaine Faiveley. Photography courtesy of Sotheby's.


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