Uncertainty is a two‑faced friend to fine wine. Over the last cycle alone, the market has experienced both its steepest ever rise – turbocharged by the global pandemic – and its sharpest recorded decline. The final quarter of 2025 brought the first signs of calm. Liv-ex indices, the global benchmark for secondary market pricing, have stabilised, and bid:offer ratios are drawing closer to equilibrium once again. Green shoots, yes – but fragile ones.
Lessons in History
Fine wine is not just an asset class – it is a living product, shaped by agricultural risk, global wealth redistribution, evolving consumption habits, and the psychology of collectors. Today, these forces are shifting simultaneously, but not necessarily in harmony. Historically, economic upheaval in a low-inflationenvironment has lifted fine wine prices. The tail-end of the 2008 financial crisis, post-Brexit Britain in 2016, and the COVID boom are three clear examples. But the geopolitical climate that followed – resulting in high inflation – produced the opposite effect.
What comes next?
Today, we once again find ourselves treading new ground. The last three years of turbulence have acted as a purge. The fine wine market today is cleaner, healthier, and arguably more rational than it has been in years. Small, opportunistic investors have exited. Merchant inventories in mature markets such as the UK and Hong Kong remain high but are shrinking, with supply of the most sought‑after wines visibly tightening. Optimists might hasten to call a revival. In reality, cash-strapped estates (even at the very top end) are still licking their wounds from the latest down-cycle. Many are willing to make compromises to see themselves through to green pastures.
Possible paths ahead
Bullish: If conflict in the Middle East ends quickly, it’s possible that today’s bullish buyers may be proven right. With the correction behind us, fine wine sits at its new bottom. For the right brands with sufficient age, the only plausible long-term direction is upward.
Cautious: But prolonged or escalated conflict could invalidate these bullish assumptions. Should traditional assets classes stumble, wine would feel a similar pinch to the initial backlash of 2008, when prices dropped as much as 48% from their peak – implying roughly another 20% downside from today’s post-COVID low.
Moderate: The middle path remains most likely. Continued energy-related inflation will compress demand for mid- to low-tier wines, while strengthening opportunities at the top. Concessions made by elite estates will centre more around access than price – a perfect example presented itself to 1275 this week, as we acquired some ex-château Mouton Rothschild 1982 (a phenomenon the 1275 team has only ever seen once before).
Fine wine’s Roaring Twenties
Assuming the moderate path prevails (and macro conditions don’t deteriorate into WWIII,), we could be living through a rare window – the modern “Roaring Twenties” for fine wine. This is not the era of speculation, but that of seizing spoils as they appear. Over the coming months, we expect more perfect provenance unicorns to seep out of fine wine’s woodwork, and for the market to reshape itself around those with the power to capture them.
If there’s one conviction we hold, it’s that demand for these will surge again. Humans have gathered around wine for 12’000 years. In uncertain worlds, people reach for each other, for togetherness. And what could possibly bring people together better than exquisite, legendary bottles of wine.