Tag: Economics

Piedmont prevails over Tuscany with Economics scores

Confirming the outstanding economic performance of Piedmont’s top crus, Italy’s top five wines for economics all hail from Barolo and Barbaresco. Tuscany doesn’t get a look-in. Featuring just two producers – Giacomo Conterno and Bruno Giacosa – this week’s listed section boasts wines achieving outstanding Economics scores of over 960.

Wine Lister’s Economics score combines five criteria: three-month average price, six-month-price performance, three-year compound average growth rate (CAGR), price stability, and liquidity (volume traded).

A three-month average price of £595 per bottle tips the Economics rating in favour of Giacomo Conterno’s Barolo Monfortino Riserva, which scores a mighty 978. Its three-month average price is over double that of the second-most expensive wine.

Seven points behind in second place is the Barbaresco Asili Riserva from Giacosa’s Azienda Agricola Falletto, with an Economics score of 971. Just one point behind that, in third place, with an Economics score of 970, Giacomo Conterno’s second wine to make the top five is the Barolo (Cascina) Francia. Following a slump in its score at the end of 2016, it bounced back January and continued to rise throughout the year.

Score blog image

Giacosa’s Azienda Agricola Falletto Barbaresco Rabajà is fourth-highest with a score of 963. This wine has the strongest three-year CAGR of the group, at 27.5%.

Bruno Giacosa’s third entry, completing the top five with an Economics score of 963, is his Barolo Rocche Falletto Riserva. It has the highest liquidity of the group, with 500 bottles of its top five vintages traded in the past year.

Top 5 Italians

All of the top five hold Buzz Brand status, but their soaring prices equate to lower price stability across the group, averaging 8.6% standard deviation compared to 7.1% for the top five Tuscan wines by Economics score. Piedmont might offer more potential upside, but by definition this makes it riskier investment territory.

Larrivet Haut-Brion sees trading volumes lift

For the second consecutive quarter, the five wines which saw trading volumes rise most were all from Bordeaux. Four of the wines below are big hitters, with overall Wine Lister scores ranging from 921 (Château Montrose) to 963 (Château Lafite Rothschild).

These top crus are also mainstays at global fine wine auctions, with over 2,000 bottles of the top five traded vintages of each wine selling at auction every year, and over 5,000 for Lafite. So, while auction trading volumes – a measure of liquidity – feed into a wine’s Economics score, none of the four has seen a significant enough increase to find their Economics score significantly changed.

There is one anomaly. Château Larrivet Haut-Brion has an average price of £23 per bottle, and from the period of July 2016 until June 2017 its top five vintages sold only 103 bottles at auction. At the end of last month, however, 228 bottles of the wine’s 2000 vintage were sold at a Bonham’s auction, making the wine the most popular of the day.  The update to Larrivet Haut-Brion’s trading volumes has had a strong impact on its Economics score, which has risen from 567 to 667, and boosted its overall Wine Lister score from 663 to 684.

Volume changes Oct

We calculate which wines have seen the greatest incremental increases in bottles traded by using figures collated by Wine Market Journal from sales at the world’s major auction houses.

Listed: Bonnes-Mares’ best wines by Economics score

Wine Lister’s holistic, dynamic rating system tracks a wine’s performance over time. By constantly analysing a wine’s brand strength and economic performance, as well as updating its Quality score as it is retasted by our partner critics, Wine Lister’s ratings evolve over time, as demonstrated by our new score history tool.

Wine Lister’s Economics score is a perfect case in point. Reacting to the very latest market data, it analyses a wine’s performance across several criteria: three-month average bottle price; short and long-term price performance; price stability; and liquidity. A strong showing across these criteria is what defines the five wines in this week’s Listed section – Bonnes-Mares’ top wines by Economics score.

Listed - Top 5 Bonnes-Mares Economics scores

Whilst all five achieve Economics scores that put them amongst the very strongest on Wine Lister, it is Domaine Georges Roumier’s Bonnes-Mares that leads the way with an outstanding score of 970. It is the most liquid of the five, its five top-selling vintages having traded 414 bottles over the past four quarters.

In second-place is Domaine d’Auvenay’s Bonnes-Mares (967). Underlining the Queen of Burgundy’s continuing surge in demand, it has a remarkable three-year CAGR of 35.6% (nearly double that of Domaine Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier’s Bonnes-Mares, its closest rival in that criterion). Its price is the highest of the group by a considerable distance, at £1,902.

Domaine Comte Georges de Vögué fills the third spot with its Bonnes-Mares’ Economics score of 942. One of the group’s two Buzz Brands, it is the second most-traded of the five (327 bottles), and has strong short-term price performance, its price having increased 11.2% over the past six months.

The Bonnes-Mares from Domaine Jacques-Frédéric Mugnier and Maison Joseph Drouhin fill the last two spots. Whilst they display similarly modest levels of liquidity (having traded 63 and 68 bottles over the past four quarters respectively), Mugnier leads Drouhin thanks to its considerably higher price (£436 vs £281) and superior long-term price performance (three-year CAGR of 18.2% vs 13.9%).

And thanks to Wine Lister’s approach, these scores will continue to change over time, meaning that they are always relevant and reflect the wine’s evolving position in the market.

Listed: the Australian wines getting their prices right

Wine Lister’s Economics scores are based on a variety of price and liquidity metrics, including a wine’s three-month average bottle price, six-month price performance, and three-year CAGR. This week’s newly updated Listed section features the five top-scoring Australian wines by Economics score. Noticeably, all are red, and red wines outperform for Australia in this category (the top white, Leeuwin Estate Art Series Chardonnay, has an Economics score of 498, its top traded vintages only trading 10 bottles in auction over the past year). While there is quite a difference in points between the first and fifth wine on today’s list, all are considered very strong (750–900) or among the strongest (900+) wines in Wine Lister’s database.

Several of Australia’s best-known producers feature in our top five, including Penfolds, which accounts for the top two entrants: Penfolds Grange and Penfolds Bin 707 Cabernet Sauvignon. While both wines excel on three-month average bottle price and three-year CAGR, Penfolds Grange is particularly strong for liquidity, its top five trading vintages having traded 626 bottles over the past four quarters.

The third wine on this list, Torbreck Run Rig, experiences good trading volumes but has the lowest three-year CAGR of the five (3.27%). Fourth place goes to Henschke Mount Edelstone Shiraz, which is the lowest in price and sees fewer bottles traded than the others, but has an excellent six-month price performance of 11.88% and good price stability. Finally, the list is completed by Grant Burge Meshach Shiraz, which has one of the higher three-year CAGRs, at 6.4%.

Listed_Top five Australians

Don’t forget – if you’re not yet a subscriber to Wine Lister, you can still fully explore this week’s five Listed wines, and those for the previous four weeks, via the homepage. 

Latour’s trade at auction is on the rise

The latest trading data is in, and it is evident that this quarter one region’s wines have had particular success at auction. We’ve calculated which wines have seen the greatest incremental increases in bottles traded by using figures collated by Wine Market Journal from sales at the world’s major auction houses, looking at the total number of bottles sold of the top five vintages for each wine over the past four quarters.

In contrast to last quarter’s data, which saw wines from a variety of regions see trading volumes rise, all five wines in the table below are from Bordeaux. Four are from the left bank, with first growth Haut-Brion benefitting the most from increased trade, while right bank Ausone also makes the cut.

Latour is the only wine to feature two quarters running. This presents an interesting counterpoint to the château’s reported fall in trading volumes on the wine exchange Liv-ex. Since its decision in 2012 to withdraw from the en primeur system, Latour has held back its five most recent vintages. It seems unsurprising, therefore, that the wine is less present than its fellow first growths on trading platforms, where recent vintages tend to attract high volumes of trade. However, this has not affected the wine’s success on the auction market, which favours older vintages, and therefore arguably makes for a fairer comparison.

Volume changes June

Top Bordeaux crus: Brand and Economics scores

When it comes to wine scores, we’re all used to looking at quality and critic ratings. Wine Lister scores incorporate two other crucial measures: Economics and Brand. Today, we take a closer look at these categories in the context of the top Bordeaux crus in our 2017 Bordeaux Market Study. 

Brand: not much in it

We begin with the Brand category, based on search frequency and distribution. The first thing to notice is that score differentials are incredibly narrow. The 15th wine in Economics terms achieves a score of 932, while the 15th wine in the Brand table gets 992 – testament to the incredible brand strength of Bordeaux crus in general.

Three wines share the top spot, with near-perfect scores of 999 apiece: Lafite, Mouton, and Yquem. Latour and Margaux have lost one point since last year, putting them in joint fourth with Haut-Brion, up one place, while Pauillac and Pomerol powerhouses, Lynch-Bages and Petrus, share seventh position. Only two right bank wines achieve Brand scores in the top 15, and Cheval Blanc is the only Saint-Emilion premier grand cru classé A to feature.

Brand score - top wines

Economics: all change at the top

We now move onto the Economics score, based on a variety of price metrics and liquidity. Unsurprisingly, due to the constantly changing nature of its component parts, the Economics category displays significant changes over a 12-month period. The order of wines in the top 15 has completely changed from the previous year. Compared with the Brand table, the top 15 is also very different: wines have moved in and out, and the order has shifted.

In a continued display of commercial strength, Angélus has moved up three places into pole position, while second and third places are also occupied by right bank wines: Pomerol’s Le Pin and Petrus. The first growths have all moved up the table since last year, in part thanks to improved price performance, although Latour still trails the others. The wine that has most improved on 2016 – a new entrant into the top 15 – is Ausone, up 26 places, while Beychevelle has also seen significant improvement. Pavillon Rouge is the only second wine in the top 15.

Economics score - top wines

For the top Bordeaux crus in terms of overall Wine Lister score – which takes into account a wine’s Quality score as well as those for Economics and Brand – take a look here.

These are excerpts from Wine Lister’s 48-page Bordeaux Market Study – subscribers can download the full report from the Analysis page.

Trading volumes on the rise in Q1 2017

Trading volumes are a key measure of a wine’s success in the marketplace. To evaluate these, Wine Lister uses figures collated by Wine Market Journal from sales at the world’s major auction houses, looking at the total number of bottles sold of the top five vintages traded for each wine over the past four quarters.

With the first quarter data now in, we look at which wines saw the greatest incremental increase in bottles traded. Although the list is dominated by French wines, top of the table is a Tuscan, Biondi Santi Brunello di Montalcino Riserva. The producer was recently highlighted as one to watch in a survey of Wine Lister’s Founding Members. The rise in auction sales for this wine has had a significant impact on its Economics score, boosting it from 911 to 945/1000. Volume is just one of the five criteria that feed into a wine’s Economics score, along with four different price-related metrics.

Wine Lister Volume Changes April

The wine seeing the second largest gain in trading volumes, Domaine du Pegau Châteauneuf-du-Pape Cuvée Réservée, also has the lowest Economics score of the table, at 789. Nonetheless, its overall Wine Lister score is very strong at 846 (lifted by a high score for Brand), and with the latest data in from Wine Market Journal its Economics score is on the rise.

The final three wines of the table – two Bordeaux first growths and a prestigious Champagne (Taittinger Comtes de Champagne)  – also benefitted from increased trades in the last quarter. All three enjoy very high Economics scores, with Lafite Rothschild the highest, at 955/1000. Meanwhile it seems that 2017 has been a positive year so far for Latour, which was also among the top five wines that saw its number of searches increase significantly in March.

Liquidity gainers of Q4 2016

Trading volumes are a key measure of a wine’s success in the marketplace. To evaluate these, Wine Lister uses figures collated by Wine Market Journal from sales at the world’s major auction houses, looking at the total number of bottles sold of the top five vintages traded for each wine over the past four quarters.

A change in trading volumes impacts a wine’s Economics score. The chart below pulls out the biggest gainers in the last quarter of 2016, comparing auction data from the 12 months leading up to the end of Q3 2016 to data for the calendar year.

liquidity-changers

Wines from a variety of regions saw their Economics scores boosted by auction sales in the final quarter of 2016, suggesting a healthy broadening of interest in addition to the usual suspects.

Gaining most was Artadi Rioja Viñas de Gain, which saw trading volumes from January-December 2016 increase tenfold. Its Economics score remains relatively low, at 420/1000.

Australia and the Loire also made an appearance. Domaine Huet Cuvée Constance enjoys a very strong Economics score of 796/1000, and also excels in terms of Quality and Brand, leaving it with a very strong overall Wine Lister rating of 856/1000.

Burgundy is still on the rise at auction, and was the only region to feature twice, with Maison Louis Jadot Gevrey-Chambertin Premier Cru Lavaux Saint-Jacques and Domaine Hudelot-Noëllat Chambolle-Musigny.