Major Live-ex fine wine indices see February drop

By Hamish Graham

Published: 17 March, 2025

Data from Live-ex, the fine wine trading platform, saw all its major indices decline in February, including its benchmark Fine Wine 100 index which fell 0.8%.

The larger Fine Wine 1000 index saw a slightly steeper decline, dropping by 1.1% in February. The February decline in Fine Wine prices, illustrated by the falling Live-ex indices, is a continuation of a trend seen over recent years. Comparing the Fine Wine 100 index to one year and two years ago, the index has seen declines of 8.9% and 22.1% respectively.

Fine wine markets in 2025 to date have been characterised by an uptick in the average volume per trade (up 12.1%) when comparing the same period in 2024. When analysing the fall in value per trade of 9.5% for the year to date compared to 2024, it is approximately in line with the fall in average price decreases over the past 12 months (-10.4%). The average cost per case trade for the year to date has fallen more precipitously, by 19.3% compared to 2024, which indicates that lower price wines are being traded more in the fine wine market.

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By contrast, one index that saw a rise was the Bourdeaux Legends 40, a sub-index of the Fine Wine 1000 which tracks the performance of 40 older Bourdeaux wines from exceptional vintages, which rose by 0.9%. The performance of these older Bourdeaux wines contrasts to the performance of the Fine Wine 50, an index that includes the 10 most recent vintages of the five First Growth wines, which fell by 1.4% in February.

For Burgundian wines, Live-ex data shows that 48.2% of wines traded for the year to date are regional Burgundy, this compares to 39.4% for the same period last year. Live-ex posits that the increase in trading of Regional Burgundy wines is seller-driven as stockholders seek to clear out cheaper Regional Burgundy for more expensive lines.

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