According to the fine wine exchange Liv-ex, prices of the 100 top-traded wines, of which 95% are Bordeaux, fell by an average 22.5% between June-Dec 2011. This was the most precipitous fall since the beginning of the recession nearly 4 years ago. In a shorter time period, August to December 2008, the Liv-ex 100 fell by 22%. It is top Bordeaux that is falling fastest, Liv-ex director Justin Gibbs told Decanter.com. Another index, the Live-ex Claret Chip, which consists only of Bordeaux first growths in top vintages going back to the mid-1980s, showed an even steeper decline, dropping 26% in the second half of 2011. The greatest loser was Chateau Lafite 2008, which peaked in January 2011 at £14,043 a case and whose last average trade price, this month, was £8,108, a fall of some 45%. This is a very different picture to October 2010, when the price of Lafite 08 rose by 20% overnight after it was announced bottles would be marked with the Chinese symbol for the number 8, regarded as propitious in China. Lafite 2009 has dropped 28% in value in the last six months, from 13,831 in July 2011 to 9,800 in December 2011.
