Major recent releases have included the 2020 vintages of top-tier SuperTuscans – a category to track in recent years. Data suggests, though, that the overall market had a relatively quiet first quarter of the year (see below).
Tignanello 2020 launched in the UK at £1,230 (12x75cl in bond), reported Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the wine trade, making it the second- cheapest Tignanello on the market, despite a year-on-year release price increase. Sassicaia 2020 was released at £2,400 (12x75cl in bond), it added. And UK merchant Lay & Wheeler offered Ornellaia 2020 at £927 (6x75cl in bond) in early April.
This has been a category to watch in recent years. ‘Our customers can’t get enough of Tignanello, Ornellaia and Sassicaia,’ said Tory Oliver-Bellasis, secondary market specialist for Berry Bros & Rudd’s BBX marketplace team, in the merchant’s 2023 fine wine report at the beginning of the year.
Data from Bordeaux Index’s online platform LiveTrade shows Tignanello prices have risen the most (see chart below). Alongside the vintages shown, Tignanello 2015, 2011, 2010 and 2009 all rose more than 60% in 24 months to the end of 2022. LiveTrade CEO Matthew O’Connell said the top SuperTuscans were very actively traded, especially Sassicaia and Tignanello, but he was expecting a relatively quiet 2023 for the category: ‘I think it’s natural, given how far they’ve come, that there’s a bit of consolidation.’ Brand power and their relative value may fuel more price gains over the longer term, he added, although potentially at a slower pace.
O’Connell said the secondary market overall was pretty subdued in the first quarter (Q1) of 2023, with prices broadly flat. He added ‘things could really pick up very nicely’ as the year progresses, however.
Liv-ex said in April: ‘The secondary market is tentatively beginning to find its feet after a slow start to the year.’ The Liv-ex 100 index rose 0.2% in March and 0.4% in February, following four months of decline.
Cult Wines said a mixed Q1 performance for its Cult Wines Global Index, powered by Wine-Searcher data, suggested buyers were being more selective ‘as investors gauge the sustainability of price rises over the past few years’.
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The Bordeaux Index view
Fine wine & spirits specialist Bordeaux Index kindly sponsors this section of Decanter, and provides its view on the market here every issue. It can be found at bordeauxindex.com
The wine market in Q1 has seen subdued activity, characterised largely by stable prices but lower trading volumes. New releases across Burgundy 2021 en primeur, Champagne (eg, Bollinger RD 08) and Bordeaux (eg, Latour 2015) have seen strong interest, but macro distractions seem to have somewhat muted buyer interest for wines already in the market.
There are reasons to believe this will change during the course of Q2 and especially in the second half of the year – China’s post-Covid reopening among them. This is unlikely to be a ‘big bang’ but rather a gradual recovery in activity and potentially a resumption of price growth in some wine regions.
Italy’s SuperTuscans are a good example of this subdued activity dynamic. The wines – especially the best known ‘brands’ Tignanello and Sassicaia – have seen outsized growth in the last two years, but trading in these and the other key names has been slower in 2023, not aided by the pricing of new releases having been not necessarily attention-grabbing. Whether this sector performs strongly across the rest of the year remains to be seen, given how far prices have already moved in recent times.
Chris Mercer is a Bristol-based freelance editor and journalist who spent nearly four years as digital editor of Decanter.com, having previously been Decanter’s news editor across online and print.
He has written about, and reported on, the wine and food sectors for more than 10 years for both consumer and trade media.
Chris first became interested in the wine world while living in Languedoc-Roussillon after completing a journalism Masters in the UK. These days, his love of wine commonly tests his budgeting skills.
Beyond wine, Chris also has an MSc in food policy and has a particular interest in sustainability issues. He has also been a food judge at the UK’s Great Taste Awards.
