LONDON, March 18 — A case of 2007 wine from Chateau Angelus, a Saint-Emilion estate promoted to the region’s top status of Premier Grand Cru Classe A in 2012, sold for £1,589 (RM8,640) on Liv-ex in the past week, a 10-month low.

While the price was 5 percent down from the record £1,681 (RM9,140) a case touched on London-based Liv-ex in September, it was above the £1,425 (RM7,748) at which it sold at the start of 2013 and still left the vintage 41 percent above its level of April 2012, before the estate’s promotion, Liv-ex data showed.

The Liv-ex Fine Wine 50 Index, a benchmark for top Bordeaux wines, is heading for its seventh straight month of declines after falling 3 percent last year and 10 percent in 2012. While the broader Bordeaux market is still weakening, collectors have shown appetite in recent months for wines from the right back of the Dordogne such as Saint-Emilion and Pomerol, often made in smaller amounts than left-bank clarets.

“Despite the weak indices, there are some encouraging signs from Liv-ex,” Chris Smith, investment manager at The Wine Investment Fund in London, said in an e-mailed market report. “Notably, the bid-offer ratio is now 54 percent, and historically a level above 50 percent has been a positive indicator for prices.”

The Liv-ex Right Bank 100 Index, a component of the Bordeaux 500 Index, gained 0.9 percent in the 12 months to the end of February, according to Liv-ex data, while still falling 1.8 percent on a year-to-date basis.

 

Eight Generations

The Right Bank 100 Index includes Angelus, which was promoted along with Chateau Pavie in 2012, joining Chateau Ausone and Chateau Cheval Blanc in Saint-Emilion’s top tier of wine producers. The new rankings replaced a classification in force since 1996.

Angelus 2007 is still trading at more tha double the price of £780 (RM4,241) a case for which it sold on Liv-ex in November 2009, as it first started trading on that platform.

Angelus 2007 is the second-cheapest of the estate’s wines over the past 10 years, ahead only of the 2011 vintage, according to data on Liv-ex’s Cellar Watch website.

The 2007 Angelus was given a 92 rating on the 100-point scale used by U.S. critic Robert Parker in an online tasting note in April 2010, lower than the score assigned to at least eight other vintages in the past 10 years.

The estate is owned by Hubert de Bouard de Laforest, whose family traces its connection with the vineyard back through eight generations, according to its website. The current property took shape during the 20th century, when the family’s Chateau Mazerat estate absorbed a neighboring plot of vines known as L’Angelus. —Bloomberg