Fine Wine Finds Its Footing: What the Data Is Revealing About Demand, Pricing and Confidence

For over 15 years, Moncharm has supported private clients, collectors, and wealth-builders in accessing the world’s most prestigious wines as powerful, tax-efficient assets. Based in London, the firm combines deep market expertise with a highly personal, portfolio-driven approach, carefully aligned to each client’s objectives and time horizon.

As proud members of Liv-ex and long-standing participants in the global fine wine trade, Moncharm offers clients privileged access to market data, insights, and sourcing opportunities across the most sought-after wine regions worldwide. Transparency, informed decision-making, and long-term value creation sit at the core of its philosophy, ensuring the fine wine market is not only profitable, but genuinely rewarding to engage with.

In partnership with Moncharm, we extend this commitment even further. Together, we share the same values of discretion, expertise, and client-first service, working seamlessly to deliver best-in-class support across every stage of the journey. From initial strategy through to long-term portfolio stewardship, our combined teams provide trusted guidance, giving clients confidence that they can rely on us at every step.

Fine wine has long existed slightly outside the mainstream investment narrative. It produces no dividends, cannot be rebalanced at speed, and rarely moves in straight lines. Yet for decades it has remained a serious consideration for collectors and long-term investors, precisely because it is driven by a different set of fundamentals: scarcity, provenance, and global cultural demand.

Over the past two years, the market has undergone a widely acknowledged correction following the post-pandemic price surge. What makes 2026 notable is not the correction itself, but the sense that the market is now entering its next phase, where stabilisation begins to give way to early recovery.

A measured recovery, not a rebound

A healthy market does not need to surge to signal strength. It rebuilds quietly.

Recent commentary suggests that late 2025 delivered the kind of incremental progress that matters most: improved liquidity, more consistent trading, and early signs of positive movement across key indices. According to industry analysis, the fine wine market spent much of 2025 repricing to credible clearing levels, allowing liquidity to return after a prolonged correction. Over the final four months of the year, the Liv-ex Fine Wine 50 and Fine Wine 100 rose by approximately 2.5 percent, while the Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000 gained around 1 percent. These shifts may appear modest, but in context they represent meaningful directional change.

Perhaps more telling is the behavioural data. Trade reporting indicates that the Liv-ex 1000 posted its third consecutive month of gains in November, while the Liv-ex 50 rose by 1.5 percent. For the first time since May 2023, bids exceeded offers for First Growth Bordeaux, suggesting tightening supply and renewed buyer confidence in the market’s most liquid tier.

Why collectors continue to return

The appeal of fine wine is emotional, but the rationale for holding it is structural.

At the top end of the market, demand is global and persistent. Production is inherently limited, releases are finite, and mature stock steadily disappears through consumption. As a result, the most recognised names often benefit from the strongest liquidity when conditions begin to improve.

Occasionally, this dynamic is highlighted by headline sales that travel well beyond the wine world. The 2018 sale of a Domaine de la Romanée-Conti 1945 at Christie’s for $558,000 remains an outlier, but it underscores how scarcity and prestige can drive extraordinary willingness to pay.

For most collectors, however, the real activity sits below that extreme. Day-to-day trading in blue-chip Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and increasingly Italy continues to define the market. These are regions where pricing is transparent, demand is repeatable, and provenance remains central.

The UK perspective on tax, with caution

For UK-based collectors, tax treatment is often part of the conversation. Fine wine is commonly classified as a wasting asset, which can make it exempt from capital gains tax in many cases. This characteristic has featured increasingly in mainstream financial commentary around alternative investments. That said, individual circumstances vary, and independent advice remains essential.

The role of the merchant in the next phase

As liquidity returns and buyers re-engage, the role of the merchant becomes more focused. Access, diligence and execution matter more when markets are selective rather than exuberant.

In practice, collectors are looking for clarity around what qualifies as investment-grade wine, confidence in provenance and storage, and a credible route to market when selling conditions improve.

Moncharm Wine Traders, established in 2010, operates squarely within this framework. The firm supports clients across buying, storage and resale, helping them build and manage fine wine holdings through different market cycles. Its scale reflects sustained activity over time, with more than £63 million in sales since inception, over 29,000 bottles under care, and more than 15,700 completed transactions.

Looking ahead to 2026

The constructive view of the fine wine market is not that prices will rise without interruption. It is that the market appears to be regaining stability. Bids are strengthening, indices are edging back into positive territory, and trading activity is normalising in the most liquid segments.

For collectors, this is often the moment when confidence begins to return quietly. By the time a new cycle feels obvious, it is usually already well underway.

To learn more or explore opportunities within fine wine, connect with Moncharm in partnership with SW for trusted, end-to-end guidance.