Is the Fine Wine Market Recovering in 2026?

The fine wine market recovery remains selective. Prices have largely stabilised after the correction that began in 2022. In the year to September 2026, the Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 gained 4.35% in sterling, well behind global developed-market equities at 16.8%. October brought a small retreat, though buyers are returning to some mature wines. Fine wine’s place in a long-term portfolio rests on the scarcity, ageing potential and cultural significance of particular wines. The price you pay determines how much room you have to sell, hold or change course when the market moves.

The same bid and two different decisions

Imagine two collectors who each own three cases of Château Mouton Rothschild 2010. They receive the same bid for one case. The first bought at a price that allows a gain after costs and could sell one case while keeping the other two. The second bought near the peak and would have to take a loss to accept that bid. The market is offering them the same price. The choices available to each were shaped years earlier, when they bought the wine.

On 22 September 2025, I published Fine Wine in Reset: A Market at the Crossroads. The pressures had built at different times. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the sanctions that followed disrupted a market for European luxury goods. China’s post-pandemic slowdown weakened another source of demand. Within wine, the expensive Bordeaux 2022 en primeur campaign left merchants with stock to work through. Donald Trump’s return to the White House in January 2025 brought another source of uncertainty, this time over US trade policy. European Commission overview of the sanctions

My view then was that prices had to adjust after the boom. The reasons collectors wanted to own and drink particular wines would endure beyond it. A year on, we can see where buyers are prepared to come back, even with some of those external pressures still in play.

At Lafleur, we start with what you want to own and what you want the collection to do. For a first acquisition, we work out which wines are worth looking for and what we would be prepared to pay. For an established cellar, we look at where the market gives you room to add a wine you want or sell one you already own in depth.

If a business sale has given you capital to invest, whether to start a fine wine collection now also depends on how long you can comfortably hold it.

From the 2025 lows to a firmer market

The Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 fell from 424.35 at the September 2022 peak to 309.27 at the end of August 2025, a decline of roughly 27%. My article appeared a few weeks after that August close. Over the full calendar year 2025, the benchmark still finished down 2.5%. Historical Liv-ex index levels · Knight Frank’s 2026 Wealth Report

Through April 2026 the main Liv-ex indices were broadly flat. The second quarter still showed weak breadth. Within the Fine Wine 1000, more vintages fell than rose, even though gains among the risers were larger on average than losses among the fallers. A stable index still left many owners trying to sell into a falling market for their wine. Decanter’s spring market review · Liv-ex first-half report

The clearest link between the politics of 2025 and the wine trade of 2026 is in the United States. Liv-ex described the second quarter of 2025 as heavily affected by tariffs. A year later, US buyers accounted for 26.9% of purchase value on the exchange, against an average of 20.7% in 2025. Liv-ex attributed part of the change to American businesses adapting to tariffs as inventories ran down. The return of US buyers is one sign of a selective fine wine market recovery. The exchange figures give us a clearer view of that adjustment than of any change in Russian or mainland Chinese demand. Liv-ex first-half market report

By the third quarter, the evidence began to move from price levels to activity. Liv-ex reported a marked increase in the value of trades on its exchange compared with both the second quarter and the same quarter of 2025. The Fine Wine 100 closed September at 326.31, up 1.05% for the month, while the broader Fine Wine 1000 rose 0.55%. They gave back about 0.6% and 0.3% respectively in October. The Fine Wine 100 was still roughly 5% above its August 2025 low and 24% below the 2022 peak. Liv-ex state of the market · September Liv-ex close · October Liv-ex close

How fine wine behaved alongside public markets

The September month-end gives us a common point close to the anniversary. Sterling is the natural basis for the comparison because Liv-ex quotes its indices in pounds. For stocks I use a global developed-market ETF and an S&P 500 ETF, both measured in sterling. The global fund already includes US shares. The S&P 500 gives a direct view of how the US market fared over the same period.

Sources and calculations. Liv-ex September close. Global stocks, US stocks and bond returns compound four quarterly fund figures from Q4 2025 to Q3 2026. The gold figure compares the World Gold Council’s September 2025 and September 2026 sterling closes.

The relationship was reversed at the end of the 2020–2022 wine boom. In calendar 2022, the Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 gained about 7% in sterling while the global equity fund used here fell 7.7%. Over 2023–2025, that same fund gained about 59% and the wine index fell about 24%. The latest year still favours stocks. Wine has recovered some ground in its own market while a buyer considering fresh capital can see much stronger recent returns elsewhere. That raises the bar for an asset that produces no income and can take time to sell. Lafleur’s analysis of the 2022 divergence · Morningstar equity returns · Liv-ex annual figures

Equities, bonds and gold also followed different paths in 2026. In the third quarter, resilient earnings helped support shares while rising yields put pressure on bonds. Gold gained over twelve months in sterling and fell 6.6% in September alone, even as the World Gold Council recorded US$10 billion of global gold ETF inflows that month. Investor demand and market prices can move in different directions over short periods. Ninety One’s third-quarter review · World Gold Council’s September commentary

The fund returns reflect charges and reinvested income. Gold and wine are price changes. Liv-ex uses mid-prices checked against other evidence, including trades. A cellar owner’s proceeds depend on the bid, the case’s condition and format, and selling costs. Investors measuring their wealth in francs or euros also need to account for currency movements. Liv-ex pricing methodology

Where private wealth is moving

Alternatives accounted for 42% of surveyed family offices’ 2025 portfolios in UBS’s 2026 report. Developed-market equities alone represented 27%. Among those planning changes, infrastructure and gold drew interest alongside emerging-market shares. J.P. Morgan also recorded a rise in US evergreen fund assets from US$423 billion in 2024 to US$535 billion in 2025, a measure that reflects valuations as well as subscriptions. These figures show where private capital is being allocated. The evidence for wine comes from its own bids and trades. UBS Global Family Office Report · J.P. Morgan Guide to Alternatives · How wine compares with other alternative assets

What gives fine wine value over time

A great wine is a physical record of a place and a year. The site, the growing season and the producer’s decisions all leave their mark. The estate can make another vintage, but the original harvest can never be repeated. From the moment the wine is bottled, the stock of that vintage can only shrink as bottles are opened or lost. For wines that develop with age, well-kept bottles can become harder to find at the very point collectors most want to drink them.

People also want these wines for reasons that sit outside a price chart. A vintage can mark a year in a family’s life. A bottle from a great estate can carry a piece of the history of a place and offer an experience worth sharing decades later. That cultural significance helps explain why demand can survive a difficult market. Scarcity has financial value when there are buyers who still want the wine, and good storage and documented provenance give them reason to trust the bottle in front of them.

Those qualities give selected fine wines a case as a long-term store of value and a way to diversify what a portfolio depends on. In a historical study of five leading Bordeaux wines, researchers found that the group appreciated in real sterling terms after storage and insurance over the period from 1900 to 2012. The result was specific to that selection. For the wine in your own cellar, the purchase price, condition and eventual buyer still determine what you can realise. The Price of Wine by Dimson, Rousseau and Spaenjers

Where buyers are returning

Prices, bids and completed trades

An index shows how a basket is valued. The order book shows where someone is prepared to buy or sell today. A completed trade tells us where those two sides actually agreed. The three can move at different speeds. If sellers withdraw stock rather than cut their asking prices, the ratio of bids to offers can improve even without a corresponding increase in buyer demand. One rare case can change hands at a high price. The next trade in comparable stock tells us whether another buyer will pay a similar price.

Liv-ex reported that the ratio of bid value to offer value for the Fine Wine 1000 reached a level it has historically associated with price stability. It also reported a sharp rise in trading in pre-2011 Bordeaux during the third quarter. That combination carries more weight than either signal on its own. The exchange saw firmer conditions in its order book alongside renewed activity in a recognisable part of the market. I would still want to see the number of cases changing hands and the breadth of buying. An increase in the value traded can also reflect a shift towards more expensive wines. Liv-ex state of the market

What Mouton 2005 and 2010 tell us

Liv-ex screened completed trades for wines whose average realised prices had risen in three or four quarter-on-quarter comparisons. Five Château Mouton Rothschild vintages appeared, including 2005 and 2010. Both give an investor an opportunity to compare repeated transactions in the same wine as buyers return. The screen also included Mouton 2015, where Liv-ex found that most of the rise had come in late 2025 and that trading appeared to have settled around its 2020 lows. Even within the same château, an upward trend can describe different paths. Liv-ex transaction analysis

If we were helping you sell a case of Mouton 2005, we would look first at the case itself. An original case in bond with a documented storage history gives a prospective buyer something concrete to assess. A case assembled from individual bottles may need a different comparison. The Liv-ex trades give us a reason to seek a firm bid. That bid helps us show you what a sale would put in your hands after costs.

If you came to us to weigh Mouton 2005 against 2010, we would compare the offers we could source with recent bids and completed trades for each vintage. Then we would consider when you might want to drink or sell the wine. If the available 2010 is priced above comparable trades, we would look at what you are getting for the difference. A well-documented case may be worth a premium for a collector who plans to drink it. For a resale holding, we would ask how much of that premium a future buyer might recognise.

An auction shows another side of that demand. On 1 October, Sotheby’s sold €3.4 million of wine released directly from Château Haut-Brion’s cellars. A five-litre Haut-Brion 1989 fetched €62,500. For that lot, the vintage, the format and the estate provenance were all part of what bidders were buying. The sale shows how much appetite can exist for something difficult to replace. To value a standard case of Haut-Brion from a private cellar, I would still start with comparable secondary-market trades. Decanter’s auction report

Where stock is still weighing on prices

The broader Bordeaux figures put the strength of those examples in perspective. In the year to September the Bordeaux Legends 40 rose 1.68%, compared with just 0.36% for the Bordeaux 500. Champagne and Italy advanced further, with the Champagne 50 up 4.56% and the Italy 100 up 4.85%. The region generating much of the evidence for returning demand in older wines was also one where the wider index barely moved. September Liv-ex regional indices

Liv-ex’s autumn reporting from Hong Kong and Singapore described returning interest in some leading Burgundy and Champagne, alongside pressure on recent Bordeaux vintages as stock came onto the local market. That was a broker’s account of conversations with merchants. For an owner who expects to sell in Asia, it is a reason to look at current local bids before assuming that a firmer global index will translate into a better exit price. Liv-ex reporting from Asia

The 2025 en primeur campaign, offered in 2026, gave a related test in the primary market. Liv-ex’s survey of UK members put sales by value broadly in line with the preceding campaign. Liv-ex observed that releases which sold well tended to be offered below comparable vintages whose own market prices had steadied or risen. That makes the older vintages relevant even if you only buy on release. An estate asking you to commit years before you can drink the wine is competing with the cases you could buy and take delivery of today. Liv-ex first-half report

What would confirm a broader fine wine market recovery?

Over the next two quarters, we’ll be watching for three developments.

• More vintages rising across the Fine Wine 1000. After a quarter in which more fell than rose, broader participation would carry more weight than another gain driven by a small group of wines.

• Repeated trades at firmer prices, alongside active bids. We would want to see comparable cases sell at those levels more than once and buyers remain willing to bid when fresh stock is offered.

• Sustained demand beyond the most sought-after mature wines. A broader recovery would be easier to argue if younger vintages with ample stock could also find buyers at stable prices across more than one market.

We’ll also watch what happens if the order book improves while trading slows. If offers are withdrawn and little wine changes hands, we would give the higher bid-to-offer ratio less weight. We want to see what buyers do when sellers test those prices with stock.

What a selective recovery means for your holdings

Begin with what you want to own

When we help you buy a first case, we begin with a conversation about the wines you would enjoy owning and how long you are comfortable holding them. We then look at comparable sales and what is available to source. If you already have a collection, we review what you own by château, region and maturity, with the wines you want to drink or keep in the family in mind. That helps us judge whether another case of Mouton 2010 adds something you want or simply adds to an existing position. How to review an existing fine wine portfolio

Buy at a price that gives you room to act

To decide what we would recommend paying, we work back from a conservative resale price and allow for storage, insurance, selling costs and the return you would need over the expected holding period. A sensible entry price can give you room to accept a fair bid while the market is still below its previous peak. If the asking price already assumes a strong recovery, we may recommend waiting or look with you at another vintage. Bordeaux after the market correction

Recognise an exit window when it opens

Return to the two Mouton owners. If comparable cases keep trading at firmer prices, we can seek a firm bid for the same format and condition and show each owner what they would receive after costs. For the first, selling one case could free capital while the other two mature. With the second, we would weigh a sale at a loss against the cost of holding, the concentration in the cellar and what else the capital could do. Both owners make their own decision with the proceeds and the trade-offs in view.

An exit window like that can open even in a year when equities deliver the higher return. When we help you buy, we think about both possibilities from the start. If the market stays quiet, you should be comfortable owning the wine. If buyers return sooner, the price we advised paying can give you room to sell a case and keep the bottles you bought to share.

If you are considering a first purchase or deciding what to do with an existing cellar, you can request a private conversation with Lafleur Wines. We can start with a wine you have in mind or with the cases you already own.