Wine investment: Eyes turn to Bordeaux 2016 once more

It’s a key year for critical reappraisals of Bordeaux 2016 and many top wines recently featured at a ‘10 years on’ tasting hosted by international merchant Bordeaux Index in London.

While scores for individual wines can’t be prejudged (look for a full report in Decanter’s Bordeaux supplement, published with the May issue), 2016 is widely considered a modern benchmark.

And yet price performance has been modest in a challenging market. A few wines have risen since en primeur release in 2017, notably Pichon Comtesse and Les Carmes Haut-Brion, but some were more than 10% below their debut level, said Bordeaux Index and its LiveTrade online trading platform (see table below).

Liv-ex, a global marketplace for the trade, said the ‘mid-prices’ on 31 out of 45 2016-vintage red wines in its Bordeaux 500 index were below their ‘ex-London’ release.

Its ‘mid-price’ reflects the halfway point between the lowest live offer and highest live bid (in pounds sterling).

Buyers stepping up to the plate

Bordeaux Index’s Geraint Carter described 2016 as ‘sensibly priced’ but also cheaper than some older five-star vintages, such as 2009, 2005 and 2000.

Prices have risen after bottoming-out in 2025, too, echoing wider positive signals in the market after a three-year downturn.

Liv-ex said: ‘With prices stabilising, there is an argument to be made that now is a time to gently lean into the 2016s.’

It highlighted Cheval Blanc and Haut-Brion as wines that looked to have ‘decisively stabilised’ and appeared to present lower risk.

Miles Davis, market expert at Vinum Fine Wines, said the merchant saw more buyers ‘stepping up to the plate’ in general.

While particularly noticeable on top-end Burgundy, he cited recent demand for Pichon Comtesse 2016. ‘I suspect [Bordeaux] 2016s will continue to sell well this year,’ Davis said.

Carter agreed: ‘There’s definitely [buyer] enthusiasm for it.’ With macroeconomic headwinds still buffeting the market, Davis said he didn’t expect prices necessarily to shoot up significantly in the near to medium term.

Still, he said the top wines would likely be more expensive in another 10 years.

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

‘Truly life-affirming’ Bordeaux

The 2016 tasting was a salutary reminder that while wine is often viewed as an asset, it’s nothing without an enthusiastic consumer at the end of the chain.

Tasting wines that so clearly sit among the greats, and seeing them met with genuine delight, is a far more visceral, and frankly more useful, metric than any spreadsheet or analytical framework.

It was fascinating to taste a collection of wines that straddled the stylistic shift from the ‘Parker era’ of concentration, power and majesty to the contemporary ‘infusion phase’, in which aromatics, finesse and energy take precedence.

That framing may be slightly contrived, but there’s no denying that the wines’ precision and clarity make them unmissable.

After strong gains since summer 2025, the market position of the top 2016 clarets looks sensible relative to their peers rather than obviously cheap. That said, buyers today are less motivated by relative value alone, and the vintage’s ‘musthave’ status could yet drive prices higher.

Fortunately, 2016 was a generous crop and consumption so far has been limited, so availability shouldn’t be overly constrained.

Financially, those who bought en primeur may be questioning some choices. Those who tasted the wines, however, were certainly not thinking in such terms; they were congratulating themselves on owning something truly life- affirming.

In the long run, we know which sentiment matters most.

Further signs of market recovery

Headline auction house figures have added to signs of a renewal in interest from buyers at the top end of the fine wine market, despite the ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty.

Sotheby’s said total wine and spirits sales – auction and private – hit US$127.5m (£93.5m) in 2025, up 12% on 2024.

It’s the fourth-highest total in the department’s history, behind 2023 ($159m), 2022 ($150m) and 2021 ($132m).

‘This success [in 2025] has been driven by a truly international buyer base, strong growth in new collectors, and our depth of expertise in presenting landmark singleowner collections,’ said Nick Pegna, global head of Sotheby’s wine and spirits.

Spirits sales reached $21.5m in 2025. Burgundy delivered the highest-priced wine lots, from the Hospices de Beaune charity sale to a 12-bottle case of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, Romanée-Conti Grand Cru 1990.

The latter sold for HK$3.5m (US$449,890), including buyer’s premium, in Hong Kong in September (high estimate: HK$2.2m).

Auction house Zachys was also upbeat in its Year in Review: ‘Throughout 2025, Zachys has observed continued and steady market recovery following the post-pandemic slump.’

The average hammer price of top lots has steadily increased, it said. Meanwhile, Christie’s earlier reported a ‘positive shift in collector confidence and participation’ in Asia in autumn 2025, spanning wine, handbags, watches and jewellery.

Sales from live auctions during its ‘Hong Kong luxury week’ in November hit HK$987m (US$127.5m), up 27% year-on-year.

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