Prices Down, Volumes Up | Episode 4

0:03Jonathan Stevenson:Welcome to Uncorked, a Cult Wines podcast where we take you behind the scenes of the fine wine market. I'm Tom Gearing, CEO of Cult Wines and as ever I'm joined by my co-host Jonathan Stevenson. Hello, hello. How are you? Very well, thank you. Very well. Good, good. The point of this podcast is we like to take you behind the scenes of what's happening in the fine wine market, talk to you about the key trends, what's going on and really a deep dive into the fine wine market. And today we are joined by someone who's going to really lift the lid on the wine distribution system. Someone who's been working in the industry for a number of years.

0:36Jonathan Stevenson:And I'm really excited about this episode because I think for those listening at home, they're going to get a real treat in finding out some information they probably have never even realised before. So welcome, Hermione Edgerton-Smith, who is Senior Fine Wine Buyer at Cult Wines. Lovely to have you here. Thank you very much. Very excited to be here. Good. We're very excited to have you too. um so yeah you know the first half of this pod really is going to be a focus around sort of the buying side of the fine wine market i feel for a lot of the podcast so far the focus has been a lot more on the selling side you know what's been going on who like what you know what are people buying um obviously that that kind of dominates the market in a way but in a weird way actually how wines are distributed actually has a massive impact on what can or cannot sell um and so i I think getting your insights around your experiences, especially in the different regions, because I think that's something people don't really know about, how different regions distributed differently, is going to be really interesting.

1:33Jonathan Stevenson:So we're very happy to have you here. Yeah, welcome Hermione. Great to see you. Yeah, I thought maybe we could just kick off with a bit of an insight from you in terms of your wine journey, how you got into fine wine buying. um and yeah some some experiences maybe just to to kick off that have sort of shaped your your approach to to what you do um I got into wine so I've been at cult wines coming up 11 years and when I first moved into wine when I first started my career I told a lot of my friends that I had a job in wine and they all were looked me in quite a confused way and said but you don't like wine you only drink beer so that was quite an interesting way to start but I have absolutely loved it ever since I began in a more generalized role and quite quickly decided that the sourcing the buying side of it was what I was fascinated in so over the years I have been spending my time buying and really enjoying the role nice I just say quickly 11 years we have a small round of applause there.

2:44Jonathan Stevenson:And if this was the football world, you'd get a testimonial. So I'm not sure what the equivalent of a testimonial is in the wine world. Yeah, exactly. Being on this show, you have to work for us for 10 years before you get to sit in this seat. But I'm sorry, before you move on, you left out a tiny, tiny weenie little bit of your career experience. What were you doing precisely before you joined Colt Wines? Because I think it's an interesting little tidbit. So before Colt Wines, I was a PA and I used to work for Trinian Susanna so a very very different career choice moving from being a PA into wine buying and how would you rate what me and Jonathan are wearing for today's podcast given your experience given my experience in the area it wouldn't be what not to wear it is what to wear the opposites thank you very much opposites attract you've matched up well yeah yeah we're getting there now we've been through a few branded branded mic muffs yeah you know branded uh note cards i suppose yeah exactly um coordinated outfits you can expect more from that fantastic h do you have uh any memorable first big purchase or sourcing stories so i think my memories are not necessarily in sort of by by value or by volume but more something that i was quite proud of um something that we are you know we spend a lot of time working on is building up direct allocations whether that's with champagne or with french wines or italians or whatever it might be and just i mean a quick step back so direct allocations so i'm sure you're about to give a bit more detail so a direct allocation is where we buy directly from the producers rather than going down the sort of typical distribution route of buying through other merchants or negotiations so when you buy through direct from a producer it is a lot of relationships it's working closely with the the wineries to understand what it is they want what they can sell how we can help so one of my sort of special moments i guess was when i got an allocation with Philippa Nat a champagne house um and i guess that was sort of the start to realizing the that side of buying nice did you get i mean for you personally was it more enjoyable doing that type of buying than kind of you know because i think like a you know a buyer's job is kind of multifaceted you know it could be finding an amazing cachet of like really old rare wines that you hardly ever find on a market because of an incredible network you've got where you know realistically that's never going to come from a producer versus this that's probably as you you said like longer term, it's taken six, 12, 18 months worth of effort of meeting them once, twice, three times, you know, really kind of building that relationship.

5:37Jonathan Stevenson:Like, how would you describe the feeling for you between, you know, getting that first allocation that maybe you put all that effort in versus the other side, which could probably be equally as exciting, right? Especially if you then know the sales team have gone away and sold it for an amazing price or generated a huge amount of revenue. Is there a way that you can maybe talk to like how that that feeling for you uh you know yeah so i think for for me the part that i enjoy the most about buying is the relationships and as you say you have relationships with direct with the producers but also with suppliers both are equally as important and you have to put the time in but with a producer you often have the opportunity to go to the winery and you get first-hand experience of what they are making and a real insight into their philosophy so that's excuse me that for me is great because it's a continuation you don't get an allocation after a quick phone call it's it's work you have to speak to them you have to go back um you often start off with a relatively small allocation and then over time that can grow so yeah i think for me it is the relationship side of the job that I love the most and when you're doing it direct with a producer that's that's pretty special yeah that's really interesting um in terms of the different regions how would you describe you know an interaction where you know you're trying to get an allocation saying champagne versus you know Italy versus the US versus Bordeaux like how do they differ in terms of one just the relationship side yeah but two just like how they're structured as a market it so europe is pretty similar in the sense that if you're getting a direct allocation it is a question of you know going to the winery and speaking to them and then working from there the us is a little bit different because it is it's harder to get direct allocations so a lot of the time a lot of the big wines they sell to those on their mailing list yeah and then once it's been sold to someone for those who don't understand what our mailing list is and that's quite a unique thing i think for the us so maybe you can just describe what a mailing list is for us wineries so a mailing list is where you basically just put your name down to as like a private client to say that you want to buy their wines and each year when they have a new release you will get an allocation of that it tends to go directly to clients rather than necessarily to companies that wine so take screaming eagle as an example as one of the most expensive um us wines that gets sold to a you know a person who then will sell it most likely to a merchant who would then sell it to us cult wines and we would then pass it along to the client so there's quite a long road for that wine before it reaches the you know before it reaches the the customer at the end of the day yeah but with europe it's a lot easier to go well not easier but it's almost flipped the way around right yeah and i think for someone listening at home they might feel okay you have someone that produces wine and they're selling it direct to people that want to buy the wine that kind of makes sense yeah i think they call it d2c yeah i mean there's the abbreviation you know if i was at home and i didn't know anything about wine surely that's you know surely if i want to buy wine from a french chateau i just go and buy it direct but it's kind of flipped completely the other way around right yeah yeah yeah and also it's just like a really celebrated thing in the us you know if you when you speak to big collectors in the us and they the first thing they'll tell you is oh i'm i'm on the list for for screaming eagle for harlem for all of these top names um and i think it will probably come on to it later but i think it creates quite an interesting and quite a weird divergence of how these wines are then brought to market and how they you know ultimately then you know perform and and how they're shared and and and retraded it's it's a bit of a i guess the only thing on on on our side of the the pond as it were that would would be somewhat similar is getting direct allocations of things like drc which obviously is still middleman by you know big merchants that have their direct allocation but you do get that same first price point for like their very top collectors that get access to the romani conti albeit in much smaller quantities um so i think it's just one of those where as we look at the market now and obviously with the tariff conversations that we've been having here um it strikes me that that side of distribution in the us is something that may well change over the coming few years yeah yeah um or may need to actually look at the us market i mean the one brand that has kind of bucked that trend and probably to its advantage has been opus one right and i think it's a bit of a dichotomy right for other cult napa cabs which obviously don't have the production levels like a mcdonald for example i think they make like 500 cases they don't really have the opportunity i suppose distribution but i suppose my point was with opus one they kind of have bucked the trend in that they actually actively went through the plaster bordeaux something you know a lot about maybe that's maybe we can talk to you about the plaster border and your experiences there um but actually in a way if you look at all u.s wines what's probably the most recognized brand globally the most well distributed u.s wine globally what do you think?

10:58Opus one.

10:58Jonathan Stevenson:It'd be opus one, right? So, you know, they kind of went away from that kind of direct to consumer winery mailing list model. They probably still do it to a certain extent, but that isn't necessarily the kind of cherished thing in the collector's armory to say, oh, I'm on the opus one mailing list because it's kind of well distributed. But then on the flip side of that, you know, it's, and we'll come onto this in the later part of this podcast when we talk about the half year review of the wine market, you know, opus one dominates the market in terms of trading volumes, liquidity. And I think it's actually really benefited by making that decision that they wanted to be distributed from the Place de Bordeaux.

11:31Jonathan Stevenson:So Hermione, from your perspective, what advantages do you think a winery like Opus One has got out of, you know, wanting to be distributed through the Place? And what is the Place de Bordeaux? Something that people may have heard of before. And what does it do as a function of the wine market? So I think with Opus, it's quite interesting because, yeah, as you say, they're going through Place de Bordeaux, which is the place of Bordeaux where wines are sold via negotions. So if you look at the... Maybe what's a negotion? Just to think like if I don't even know what that means. So a negotion is sort of as such an importer.

12:09So the wine goes from Opus One. If you think of it sort of as like a rally race, you've got Opus One at the start. They then pass the baton on to the negotion or the importer. that then gets passed on to us the merchant and then we pass it on to our clients so you've got a whole race and a sort of a route that the wine is taking because it goes via Laplace and because it goes by Negotions they then have the ability to distribute their wines to merchants worldwide we also have that as an option we have the distribution that we can then pass our wines and sell them to customers all over the world, which gives really good diversity of where the wines are ending up.

12:52Jonathan Stevenson:Yeah. Because you've got, you know... They kind of control it from a geographical distribution perspective. Exactly. And Opus One also has the option to sort of decide which markets they want the wines to be sold in, which is why they've done such a good job of getting their wines distributed. And you have very different approaches from a wine perspective. You know, the winery itself, depending on how closely connected they are with their you know next stage in the relay race like you said if they're really on top and speaking to the negotiators I think one thing that we came across years ago was kind of that that level of data that we were starting to build in terms of where these wines were being traded most I think we also had some allocations where you know we were able to get more allocation because we could show that we were distributing these to our clients in Asia particularly and I think that you know from that perspective it's just interesting as you say to see what a big difference that can make and whether you're you know based in the US in South America in other regions across the world you can still use the place you'd say that the place of Aldo and the negotiation system is probably the biggest single distributor of wines globally right yeah yeah it's weird though because the whole the whole geographical distribution model which i think a lot of re you know a lot of uh wineries and a lot of regions um employ the problem you have is you know you have like a really well-known burgundy producer it's expensive and they'll go well we need that to be sold in scandinavia we need that to be sold in northern europe in you know central america north america etc etc and obviously you know allocate different levels of volume but what you have is you'll have an importer who's in, I don't know, let's say Norway, for example, or Denmark, they actually don't have a local market for that wine.

14:38Jonathan Stevenson:You know, let's say it's a thousand euros a bottle plus, they don't have enough local market demand to actually sell that through, but they're never ever going to let go of that allocation. And what happens is they just flip the wines and they'll flip the wines into the European market or flip the wines into the UK market, into the US market, into the Asian market, which is where most of the demand is coming from. And so you have this weird model where it's kind of frustrating in a way because the wines will always end up in the places that they can be sold the most. But in a way, they go through this kind of very inefficient process of, as you're saying with this relay race, where it's a relay race with a couple of added, you know, batons added on, you know, a couple of actual runners in the race that don't need to be there.

15:19Jonathan Stevenson:Just because I think the producers or the wineries want to feel like, oh, we sell in 80 countries worldwide. It goes to this, this, this, and this. But actually, who is the end customer and who's actually getting it? and if it is all concentrated in maybe two or three or four places then it's kind of a little bit misleading in a way and I think that is one of the frustrations of the fine wine supply chain which is you have a lot of this fragmentation and you have a lot of this inefficiencies. I think that's why going direct is makes a lot of sense because you are missing out the middle men but you are still doing the job that the producer wants you can you know still have the conversations about where the wines can be sold it also gives the option of doing you know go going and doing events and clients visiting the wineries and having a much more personable relationship with um with the the producers yeah as you say missing out the the middleman yeah so you must have been very fortunate to visit a lot of different regions around the world i have i have it's definitely a perk of the job right what's this what's the what's the what's the top top three for you top three uh south america number one number one yeah because i actually because who did you get invited you went on like some incredible trip yeah that would that was unbelievable that was with um with hatch but who was no who was the producer who put the producers uh it was quite a few we saw senia we saw a razaras we saw yeah we saw quite a lot it was a very full-on exciting trip to have the opportunity to to go um and didn't you did you travel between countries and yeah you went into some like in the on the hillsides and i think i remember you showed me some photos it was just like spectacular right yeah it was a a really interesting experience because it's not every day you get to go to south america so yeah it was good to have that have that um second i would say champagne right i just love champagne um i just you know i could go there anytime um and i mean i bordeaux is always close to my heart yeah um spend quite a lot of time there you know visiting the the chateaus and and just understanding more and more about you know their wines and everything yeah but that's just a few places yeah i mean i have to echo your comments around champagne i was there recently um last month and yeah it's just such a such a fantastic place to visit especially in the summer and you know it's beautiful and so well set up i think that's probably the thing for me it's you know you look at these different wine regions and how they kind of welcome guests and tourists and how well structured they are but I think, you know, champagne is one of those places that is, you know, incredibly well set up for visitors.

17:56Jonathan Stevenson:And you just have such an amazing time there. Obviously, the wines are fantastic. But, you know, the ambiance, the environment, the food that you can have, the restaurants, it's absolutely superb. And if you're on the UK and you're from London, you can drive there. And I actually left London. We drove and it only took us like five hours door to door. And you think to yourself, well, that's actually closer than Newcastle. So factoring all of that stuff in, you'd say champagne. Well, listen, that's, I mean, Newcastle is still worth a visit. but you'd factoring all of those aspects in in terms of you know to our listeners you'd say champagne is your top pick in the summer for me for me not necessarily my top pick I was just saying the convenience the convenience of living in London and being able to drive to Le Chateau in an hour and a half half an hour train two hours to Rens and be in champagne like leave at nine you're there by 3pm like that's that's incredibly convenient there's no other wine region that's that accessible for the uk no there is there is like no everywhere else is obviously a plane ride away it's a little bit further obviously bordeaux is a short plane journey but i just think that there's something unique around accessibility to it so let me maybe just ask um just quickly so going back to kind of the complexities of wine distribution like what in terms of like traditions or quirks do you think since you're you know you've been in the market for a long time do you see that there has been a noticeable change in some of these aspects do you think the market is evolving do you see kind of further changes that you would like to see or want to impact in terms of improvements to maybe in some places like tom said i think there's there's kind of a growing feeling that in many places in the in the fine wine market given this past period of correction the market has been through that there's probably parts in the in all parts of the the market that need a you know a bit of a facelift so to speak um do you see anything obvious that stands out in the sort of distribution sense that you think could improve i mean i think something that has massively improved um over the years is transparency and i think that goes on both sides it goes on the you know producer's side and the you know the negotiants and the suppliers but also transparency for our customers because they have now access to a lot more data that they didn't have before so you know for example wine searcher they're able to go on and have a look to see what you know global prices are for certain wines and i think in the past everyone wanted to be very sort of quiet about the the wine trade whereas today i think it's really important that people talk about it especially in a downturn market i think people need to be able to discuss and almost sort of work as a collective to try and you know rebuild the the wine trade to where it has been in the past and i think transparency is a really big part of that if um someone's listening at home or watching um a couple of questions for you what advice would you give someone who wants to get into the industry in the same way that you kind of did 11 years ago is there any sort of tips you would give to try and break break your way in um let's just ask that first of all i i'd like to see more women in the wine trade i think it is getting there are more and more um but i think it is a really interesting career especially if you want to get into the buying side of it um i i think you've got to be curious you've got to enjoy the sort of analytical side of it but also be passionate about wine so you can you know you can do both and i get to do both in in in my job daily um i think just you know go in i started as an intern as i said it gave me sort of a view of both sides of it i don't think there are that many interns now but um i think just sort of go in with an open mind and there's so many different roles that you can do in wine um so i think yeah i mean i love my job so what's the biggest misconception people have around your job um that i just drink wine all day yeah i was gonna say i was in my head i was like i know what you're gonna say i just drink wine all day yeah yeah just uh just when you're podcasting well exactly that's just that's just your job yeah and like and like specifically being a buyer like what what skill set you think someone needs to have to be a good buyer um well i would being a buyer i'd say sort of there are three aspects of my job there's analysis there's relationships and then there's strategy and all three of those fall under being a buyer analysis is you know an offer will come past my desk i'll have a look at it i'll look at prices i'll look at the producer i'll look at um you know critic scores i look at price changes for that particular wine make a decision you know based on those whether or not i then want to have a conversation with the sales team to see if it's something they think they can sell from that you have the relationship so that is when i would have to do the negotiate negotiating with either the producer or the supplier to sort of say the wines that we are interested in so you have to be good with numbers do you think you have to be good with numbers and you have to be good on excel yeah for sure um and then you think with stuff like ai that's that's going to be as an important part of the role do you think that's always going to be there i think it will always be there yeah i think ai obviously is you know is always handy and i think a lot of people can use it but i think the main i suppose you're talking a lot around like sort of the kind of relationship side of things so communication is important right hugely important and communication yeah relationships be okay to hear no i think you know that that happens a lot um and then the final part is the strategy which is you know making decisions it's it used to be a lot more reactive so an offer would come and then you would decide if you wanted it whereas now it's a lot more strategic in that you look to down the road to what you want to sell when you want to sell it um so i think so you're sort of building as you go basically so yeah in order to think about the future allocation for something else you're thinking about how much volume to take on this particular one yeah i think it's really interesting and i think do you find as well that obviously you know your approach has changed over the years as well because naturally when you then get more experience you start to work closer with certain people that you realize and i imagine obviously it's a relatively small world you know because of like you said the communication aspects around who has what and you know when you're going to need to push certain buttons with certain people is that that i'm sure is something that you just get more more akin to over time yeah and it's also knowing who has what you know who who will offer italian wines or who will offer some french wines it's you know not everyone has all the regions so you've got to have quite a good sense of of suppliers and of yeah of pre-planning the strategy interesting looking ahead well look thank you very much for your insights around the buying side of the market i think it's been a really interesting and insightful conversation so we really appreciate you lifting the lid and um telling the world a few of the kind of secrets of the wine world yeah well i think it's fascinating so yeah i'm sure everyone at home will absolutely agree cheers to that thank you very much yeah cheers do we are we going to cover the wine very quickly that we're drinking uh you chose it so yeah i think you can uh lead the way uh yeah so we are obviously just thought that a riesling was a nice change of pace um we've had some uh some good reds and i thought that um i mean this has been very good i think it's the what is the summer months isn't it yeah it's nice i would usually say this is quite this is typically quite a warm room but actually today it's it's relatively cool relatively cool you come on a good day before yeah before it's been kind of roasting yeah i'd say it's maybe the more yeah it's still it's warming up i think yeah as as is the wine but no it's it's um yeah a really good expression i think of riesling i think riesling perhaps is a i would say having a bit of a a good few years in terms of people's access going back to what we've discussed I think it strikes me that there are a lot more Rieslings around available now getting a lot more coverage yeah good price points typically yeah it's a nice change of pace if you haven't if it's I think maybe my sort of previous conception of Riesling was that it wasn't as well known people weren't quite sure about whether to go you know dry or whether to you know not it's a more challenging and more complex region right so i just think um but i think that's that's probably been the biggest um to watch i mean obviously change goes about the same but i think that's the the big thing with riesling which is you know go back 20 years ago and i think maybe 70 80 percent of riesling producers either semi-dry or sweet um and actually this whole movement towards producing dry riesling whereas today i think it's probably almost swung the other way where the majority of rieslings produce today is dry riesling i think that what the german producers recognize is they have incredible they have you know vine age of you know 40 50 years plus you know obviously they've got the infrastructure they've got the the knowledge and the expertise and the know-how and i think comparatively you know it is one of those great varieties that you know you talk about riesling of course there's some great expressions in australia there's some great expressions in the us but i think everyone understands and appreciates the home of riesling is in germany and i think that's quite unique for a great varietal to kind of have that um and i think that the german market especially over the last 10 years i think the dry rieslings are just really you know really getting to a level where they're competing with the best you know whites from from burgundy and i think that you know the the age ability the wines is incredible as well the acidity is obviously extremely high that's incredibly important for aging and so be it you know to be able to have you know dry rieslings or rieslings that are sweet or semi semi semi dry that are you know 50 60 70 even 100 years old is is not unheard of um so i think it's i think you know they've really you know rode this wave and i think that you know it's you know as you said today it's good value it's really good value how much is this per bottle it's yeah about 30 quid a bottle retail i mean it's an absolutely brilliant wine it's a grand cru as i can see from the from the label and i just think it would surprise a lot of people as well i think if you just hadn't you didn't know where to start with rooting that's a great start point you know price wise the the dryness the acidity is And I think it's the sort of wine that quite a lot of people would go for if they knew what that tasted like, if that makes sense.

28:34So, yeah, no, it's a good one. Shall we move quickly on? Yeah. Conscious of time here, but I know that, Tom, you've got some really interesting, or we've got some really interesting things to discuss around the half yearly report. Yeah, so obviously we're in the summer recess, as it were. Exactly that.

28:54Jonathan Stevenson:Time to look back. And from Hermione's perspective, it's a great time of year because everyone in the wine industry goes on a leave for a month. So it's a good time for you to relax. So I will just be drinking. Even if you wanted to buy wine, you can't. I will be drinking wine all day. Exactly. Yeah. So, you know, we're working on and producing and have produced a half yearly report. I think the main differential between what we've produced this year and what has been produced in the past or by other commentators is we've looked solely at transactional data. So, you know, for us, we've looked at all the transactional data from the last five years and we're really looking at sort of the trends between what happened in 2024 and what happened in 2025.

29:36Jonathan Stevenson:So just to put that into perspective for people listening at home, you know, we have access to transactional data from exchanges, platforms, publicly available data like auction houses. We also have our own marketplace, Coltex, where people are buying and selling wines every day. We also have our wholesale trade side of the business where, you know, we're selling into hotels, restaurants, but as well as into importers, distributors, merchants all over the world. So amongst all of these different venues of exchanging and selling wine, we're collating all the transactional data. So that underpins this report.

30:08Jonathan Stevenson:We're looking at all the transactional data. And to put that into context for people at home, that database of information is around£280 million worth of transactions over the last five years. So we're looking at that data and we're looking at the trends of wine. So for the half-year report, we've just evaluated and looked at what are the price trends we've seen in the first half of 2025 versus 2024. So there's been 15 ,000, this is a very specific number, 15 ,638 trades year to date within that database. That's covering 2 ,774 unique wines. I think the first thing to say is, we're going to make a lot of comments around volumes and we're going to make a lot of comments around price.

30:49Jonathan Stevenson:So the general takeaway from 2025 is that prices have continued to fall, but we are seeing rising activity. So to put that into context, if you look at all of the wines in the uh that i just mentioned on average the transactional prices are seven percent down so an easy way to describe this is the wine market is seven percent down in 2025 but on the other hand trading volumes are up so we are seeing wines change more frequently we are seeing volumes traded higher than they were last year and currently year to date we're 6.3 percent higher in 25 to 24 and i think that's a really important point because if prices were falling and we weren't seeing a pickup in activity we weren't seeing trading activity or volumes picking up then i would be concerned around that because it would suggest that even though prices have come down there still isn't enough people willing to buy at these new lower price levels which is a bit like where we were last year obviously yeah and i yeah you know i i think if it was this time last year and we were looking at 23 versus 24 to your point we might be looking at something where we know prices went down from 23 to 24 probably sharper than that seven percent but we probably would have been looking at volumes of trading that were lower right so you know that's that's something to to really think about the other thing to think about is kind of like the frequency of trading so we actually tracked how many wines are trading on a monthly basis and we're up uh 4.8 so it's 585 wines that are trading monthly and actually on a weekly basis we're 38 up this year so at the moment there's 86 wines that are trading on a weekly basis um so look i appreciate that i'm just throwing uh just many many stats at you guys um and not letting you have an opportunity to jump in but what's your initial takeaway on like the broad top level stats there you know effectively prices are down you know prices are trading lower than they were last year but volumes are up is that the type of thing you're seeing in the market what's your takeaway from that yeah I think from from my perspective I think it's and I'm sure H you would agree that we've been through quite a probably a slightly fragmented start to the year in good and bad I think the start of the year we saw a lot more trade out to Asia which has been which had been in the last couple of years a lot more difficult to see in terms of the volumes and then we've obviously in a macro sense been hit with a little bit more sitting on hands we've had the interest rates haven't come down perhaps as much as we expected.

33:19We've seen the tariffs that have caused people to slightly freeze on things. So I think just anecdotally, I think I felt that there have been more trades. There has been more volume of trade. And I think to Tom's point, I think the fact that pricing on those trades has come down by only 7 % and has increased as much as it has in terms of volume does start to show that clearly prices are finding a point where people are willing buyers. you must see similar when you're negotiating on price right i think it's i mean it it's definitely interesting from my perspective looking at pricing and i i would say that a lot of people are more open to you know reducing the price of certain wines to be able to you know to make sales which obviously then is why we're seeing wines being traded at lower at the lower end um but the volume is still you know is is gone up because people still want to sell i guess it's a it's a buyer's market at the moment um so we are definitely seeing prices coming down yeah no and i think um yeah i i just think it's like anything it's it's it's been a case in the last you know period where as tom mentioned i think it's when you're not seeing the volume being picked up at those price points obviously to find those buyers the price has to continue to come down i think it's definitely been notable in certain areas certain wines that things have started to stabilize and obviously what what we're looking at here in terms of these numbers i think does start to to lean towards that being the case i don't think it's necessarily been a turning point overnight but i think over the course of the next few months if we see a continuation of these numbers over the the rest of this year that would put in mind you know kind of where i'm expecting things to to head in terms of volumes continuing to increase maybe prices settling a little bit more closely to to

35:15Jonathan Stevenson:current market levels yeah i think you know the headline figures are always going to be around price and look at the end of the day prices are down seven percent as i said on all the average transactions of wines that have traded this year and last but actually let's dig into the data let's dig into the numbers and we give you some examples and and maybe this will kind of get the juices flowing a little bit so let's look at bordeaux first you know we talk about bordeaux being the biggest part of the investment market there's 865 wines that have traded in both 24 and 25 so from a negative perspective 80 of those wines have actually traded on average at a lower price than they did last year with only 20 of those wines trading at a higher price this year than they did last year and i think that kind of you know fits with with the general trend in fact actually bordeaux is performing slightly worse than the total across all regions which is 74 percent are trading down so 80 versus 74 so you can still see the border markets in a slightly um more suppressed slate but let me just give you one example okay so you look at you look at the surface level stats and you say okay doom and gloom numbers are down more wines are trading down average prices are down okay i get it understand that kind of looks bad but let's look at the trading data mutton rosschard is a really interesting example so far year to date there's been 453 transactions recorded for Mouton Rothschild in the market and that's versus 614 for the whole the whole of 2024 right so on a comparative light for light basis we are on target to be 26 % up so you know just looking at how much Mouton is trading the market we're 26 % up year on year and probably the best illustration of this is Mouton 2016.

36:52Jonathan Stevenson:2016 incredible vintage for Bordeaux So I think Mouton 16 is a triple 100 point wine. Very much regarded as probably one of the best ever Moutons produced. And I suppose coming up to almost 10 years of age, right? Not bottle age, but certainly 10 years since the vintage was created. This year, that wine has traded 102 times. 102 times already in the half year. Last year, that's 71 % more than it was trading last year. So we're seeing the trades go up 71%. but the price is down 10%. So the price is now under£400 a bottle. It's£397 per bottle. So what does that tell you? I mean, what is your immediate reaction to those type of data points?

37:39Well, I think there's a lot of ways. I think it's a really interesting foundation of data. I think there's like, my immediate thought goes towards, okay, well, regionally, where are these trades being impacted most? as I mentioned I think we all were aware that there was a much bigger presence in Asia ahead of Chinese New Year at the start of this year versus last year maybe that's had an impact so I think the core data there is really quite interesting I think it maybe speaks into the age of the wine speaks into the profile of the vintage like you said it's a multiple 100 point scoring wine you'd expect that those sort of more trophy and celebrated wines are the ones that people will immediately look to for value first so when they see a price point that they're currently happy with for that wine versus a wine that maybe hasn't got quite as much global cachet or steer whatever um it's where you know the the biggest what's the saying that the bigger the bigger they are the harder they fall you know that that type of notion for the biggest best wines of the market are the ones that perhaps saw the biggest drop off but are going to be the ones that are most attracted to to being bought now when the prices are good yeah um we'll have a

38:50Jonathan Stevenson:little game what do you think's the best performing bordeaux wine this year and when i say best performing we've looked at all the vintages that were traded and we worked out how many vintages have traded higher in 25s and 24s this is top of the charts more vintages have traded at a higher price this year than last year to give you a number six vintages out of 15 have traded higher than last year nine are down so that just shows you the state of the market that the number one producing one the number one performing wine is at 40 but what would you guess that is any ideas which quickfire I would go Mouton Rothschild oh I just said that it was one of the worst before I should have been listening I'm going to go with Bechabell hopefully people are listening at home I'm going to go with Bechabell Bechabell you can get one more go okay Ponte Cane Ponte Cane good guess Chateau Monroe's Chateau Monroe's 40 % of vintage of Monroe's have traded higher than they did last year any immediate thoughts around why i mean that's that's quite surprising to me i haven't thought of monrose as being necessarily a wine that's as favored as others so that would be my reaction would be surprise yeah and then hot on the hills of that are the likes of darmiak razon segla and lival barton all clocking over 30 of vintages in positive territory but i think this goes to what you talked to me about and i think monrose does fit this bill well i mean what do you say to me before to podcast um i think that value elements at hand yeah so i would it's perhaps maybe my misconception over the last few years but i always held monroe's uh uh dizzy m class a right yeah yeah second growth um i i perhaps held it in slightly higher esteem than like a damiac or or a barton okay but hermione if you're buying monroe's right and you compare it to say the prices of pichon along second growth do um okay palmer's not second or it's a third grade but let's say it's not super seconds category do crew monrose versus those wines in terms of price point what do you know what would you be looking for how would you compare them how would i compare them um i mean i think it's much better value right much better value yeah i mean i think even cause for example yeah i think monrose is is yeah i think it is excellent value i think it's a really great wine and i think it is one that you know that there's good volume out there it's quite widely available um so yeah it's a relatively easy one to pick up all right i've got a final stat i've got a final stat for bordeaux which vintage do you think has a highest increase in volume of trading 21

41:31Jonathan Stevenson:2015 and that is why she's seen you a fine wine buy it is 2021 you've actually nailed it so 2021 across all four first growths obviously Latour hasn't released this year has traded 93 percent more than in 2024 so almost 100 increase in trading for the 2021 vintage but it's also the cheapest 21 vintage. I mean, we heard reports recently around sort of Johnson Robinson, quite negative about the quality of the vintage, some commentators talking about, you know, 21, you know, maybe not living up to expectations in terms of the quality of the wines. But once again, this is quite a good example of yes, pricing might have come down a little bit, but clearly there's a lot of people in the market trading these wines.

42:11Jonathan Stevenson:I mean, what would you put that down to? I mean, I personally really like the 21s. I think it's a much more approachable vintage than you know some of the the ones previous to 21 so i think it is it's a wine that people who aren't necessarily really savvy about wine or want something that is going to sit in the cellar for years but something that can be you know drunk earlier and it's approachable and yeah i mean i i personally think 21 was a was a great vintage yeah i know we i know we're talking about border a lot but i just want to i just wanted to finish on one last data point for this because i think it really does um illustrate the opportunity in the market but kind of where we are so if you look at hope on 2021 that is officially the cheapest vintage of any first growth that you can buy on the market that's an in bottle this year it's traded 24 times already in the first half of the year which is 50 up on last year so 50 increase year to year the average price has actually fallen 8.6 but the average transaction price what do you think the average price a bottle of hope rion first growth hope rion has been trading for in 2025 average price per bottle yeah 390 325 235 pounds per bottle wow wow that's in bond so last year was trading at 257 or 3086 per 12 and this year it's been and trading on average, those 24 transactions have taken place at 2 ,820.

43:40Jonathan Stevenson:I mean, that is, I think, the perfect illustration of where this market is right now. I think people are looking at that and they can't see anything else but incredible value. You look, I mean, I think that's still a 95 point scored wine, right? So it's still well-scored wine. I think it was probably wine in the vintage for 21. As you said, 21 is accessible, it's refined, it's a classic vintage. So for me, that's the perfect example where we are in the market, which is opportunities like that. And that's why I think trading's up because I think there's just people in the market that look at that and go, how can you not see value in a£237 bottle of...

44:11We should all be buying Hope Rihon 2021.

44:13Jonathan Stevenson:It's mad, yeah. Imagine just having a case of that in your cellar and coming back to taking five or six years time, having some friends around for a dinner party. You know it's going to be good. And pulling out a Hope Rihon of five, six, seven, eight years of age and knowing in the back of your mind that's only cost you£250. Yeah. I mean, you're going to look like an absolute king. Yeah. First of all, everyone's going to think you're that biggest baller of all time. Yeah. But in the back of your head, You know, you've been down Tesco's finest. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think it's just, like you said, I think it's a really crucial thing that needs to happen.

44:45We talked about communication and transparency and these are all the words why I think it's so imperative at the moment that the whole wine market is delivering these type of stats because even we weren't aware exactly of that level of value for Haute Brion. And if you look into the detail and the story of Haute Brion and the first grocer Bordeaux, these are the best wines made in the world. and that really isn't a price even if you're someone with um a tighter budget that you not you know most people that like wine can probably think about affording a bottle of that if they want to for a special occasion and it inevitably is going to be worth double the price in in you know 10 years time i think the other thing with with bordeaux in particular is they make good wine even in bad vintages they still make good wine so you know 21 obviously isn't a stellar vintage but it is still good wine you know there are very few bad wines made out of bordeaux so you know you're always on for a winner um and you know the access the volume i think it's just to your point rather than labouring bordeaux too much i think it's just yeah those those examples are the ones that really should be made aware of because you know

45:51Jonathan Stevenson:that is just a crazy price actually i mean just before we finish i know we're spending loads on bordeaux but just last game what do you think is the best performing wine from bordeaux and actually just give me some stats because when i say best performing it has actually been pretty stellar this wine is up 22 in trades from year to year and the price and this is going to give you a bit of a clue but i think that will be helpful in 2024 it traded on average at 1067 pounds per bottle per case and this year it's trading at 1302 pounds so it's about 20 increase i think it's just over 20 % increase.

46:25Jonathan Stevenson:Up 22 % in trading and yeah, what do you think? What do you think it is? Bordeaux. Yeah, Bordeaux, yeah. Best performing wine from Bordeaux. Up 22 % year to date. First half of the year. Trading's up. Pricing's up. Let's get positive. What is it? 1 ,300 currently trading, yeah? Yeah, 1 ,302. The average price for all the transactions this year is 1 ,302 pounds. Last year it was 1 ,067.

46:54Jonathan Stevenson:H, lead us off. I have no idea. Do you want a clue? Do you want a clue? Go on. It scored 100 points. It got given 100 points this year. This year. This year. Should give you a clue. Why would any... What vintage got re-scored this year? I'm going to say it's a... Older vintage that was revisited. No. Okay. Newest vintage. Newest vintage, right. Newest physical vintage. 22, Bordeaux. Yeah, but I'm just struggling for which wine. Ponte Cano? No. Calm's Hobreon. Oh. Calm's Hobreon. So, you know, there is pockets of light in this market. So, look, I'm just going to rattle off all the regions quickly just so listeners at home know where we are.

47:38Jonathan Stevenson:So we went through Bordeaux. Best performing in terms of price change is Champagne. Only dropped 5.4 % across all transactions. Next is Burgundy at 5.9%. Then rest of the world at 6.2%. we can talk about that a little bit later on because i think some really interesting trends in the rest of the world category italy uh minus 7.2 percent um usa minus 10 we can talk about that because i think it has been hit pretty hard um and finally the rhone which is down the worst on average the wines that were traded this year and last year from the rhine valley have gone from 16.50 per 12 to 14.20 so that's minus 14 percent um so probably the worst worst performing out of all the categories um so that's that's where we're in terms of the numbers but you know volume volumes are trading up in certain areas rest of the world is up 15 percent 15 percent in terms of volumes of transactions yeah um it's nice to hear exactly um so just looking at burgundy quickly i think what's interesting when we look at the data is especially in bordeaux and burgundy we are seeing the vintages that are performing the best a little bit older high quality so if i look at burgundy for example the top three vintages in terms of percentage of wines that are trading up 2010 2012 and 2009 yeah and the bottom three vintages in terms of performing the worst in terms of the most amount of wines trading down 2021 vintage 22 vintage and a 2017 vintage what does that tell you seeking quality again same thing like prime vintages good vintages um the most attractive to be buying right now because they've you know been at their previous peaks and they've come down the most yeah how many for you i mean does that say anything to you in terms of where the trends are in the market i mean i think you know 17 and 21 are definitely considered you know off prime vintages which is where we are seeing yeah a lot of you know a lot of trades they had a lot of stock as well which they didn't sell at the time just given the the vintage and it you know it wasn't as popular as some of the others so i think there is a lot more wine at the you know there was a lot more wine before it's now all been bought but at the the chateaus themselves and you know i think certain merchants were big buyers of those vintages and you know able to sell now at a pretty discounted price yeah absolutely um champagne we talked about that one of your favorite regions somewhere i've visited recently um champagne again sort of treading water a little bit in terms of volumes are traded quite similar to last year price has come down a little bit but actually the best performing in terms of price performance it's actually interesting when you start looking at sort of the individual performance one of the best performing wines from champagne is actually Egliorier.

50:35Jonathan Stevenson:Is that any surprise to you to see that name up there? No I think it's it's quite interesting at the moment I think people are moving away from some of the Grand Mark and moving closer to some of the grower champagnes where there's definitely value and phenomenal phenomenal champagnes are being made so it doesn't surprise me at all. Yeah and when I just anecdotally I just think whenever you hear grower champagne one of the first names mentioned now obviously in our office as well as i think other conversations is egg lioria i think they've done a really good job of putting themselves forward is almost like the bigger name of yeah the rest type thing so yeah it doesn't surprise me and it's great wine yeah and like just to paint the picture as well and i think this is kind of um aligned with what we've seen in the other markets we talked about the first growth and some of the trends around them then the mouton example so here's a really good example louis rodera producer of cristal 11 vintages have traded this year all 11 vintages are trading at a lower price but the volumes are just up significantly on the last couple years and actually compared to 2023 we're kind of at about 65 percent higher than where we were in 2023 so yeah prices have dropped off which is interesting to see the volume of trading really really pick up and on target to be at least 20 to 30 percent above where we were for 2024 i mean how what is that i mean in a way i kind of look at brands like cristal and domperion and crew it's kind of in a way kind of been the bellwethers of the champagne market are you surprised to see those stats at all no i mean i don't think i am i think it is just it is changing we're starting to see a big change shift in in what our customers are wanting to buy and what people are looking at yeah i think there is just a shift and that's where we are at the moment um so no it it doesn't it doesn't surprise me yeah and i think if you look again it's always about the context of we're looking at now but what's gone before and obviously champagne as an index has been probably one of the most linear upward trending like graphs to look at in the market for for a long time so i think again you can look back at previous vintages of the top grand marks and just see such great performance for such a long time that inevitably if people have big volume they might have been more willing to release a bit causing this perhaps a little bit more oversupply in the market so i think it's again a great time to be looking into those areas it's almost with all of this data now available in the marketplace it's important to just keep savvy to okay yes there's the new the new big thing like your egg liorio but also don't don't overlook the fact you can still go back in time and pick up some fantastic vintages of the great you know the great grand marks at good good levels yeah i look i think the the overall takeaway for me is is very similar to what we're seeing in bordeaux and burgundy and i think it's a positive takeaway which is look yes headline figures are for the top champagne houses whether it's krug whether it's louis roderer you know generally seeking bollinger you know we are seeing wines trade lower this year and last but volumes are up in all those categories you know those wines are trading more often but not one percent two percent three percent more we're talking about significant double digit volumes higher and for me if you think about how any market works which is demand suppliers buyers and sellers in the market we knowed in 23 and 24 we had too many sellers in the market and not enough buyers and we know that pushes prices down and we know what we're seeing this year in the first half of the data is that buyers are still getting good deals but more buyers are willing to come to the table and there is an inevitability that our equilibrium will be found.

54:07Jonathan Stevenson:And once that equilibrium we found, we'll start to see prices stabilize and we'll start to see things come out the other way. I know I put you both on the spot significantly with my questions in the last round, but I will be doing it again. There is one wine that stands head and shoulders above any other in Champagne in terms of performance. Let me reel off some stats and that hopefully will guide you a little bit. So this wine, there's three vintages available in the market. it um the 98 uh vintage of this wine is up 14 and a half percent year to date um it's traded quite a few times um i'm just trying to see what the price is it's gone from 3 300 to 3 800 in 2025 um the 2003 vintage is up six percent and the 2006 vintage is up 7.1 so in three of the vintages of this wine that have traded multiple times this year it's up significantly and way way better than the market.

55:02What were the vintages again?

55:03Jonathan Stevenson:96. Yeah. 2003 and 2006. And it, you know, it's not like some very obscure wine. No. Because it's traded quite a few times. Crude. I was going to say Crude because I was going to say Salon but then don't think so for 2003. So yeah. I'm matching you on Crude. Dambonet. It is Dom Perignon P2. P2. No way. Yeah. Yeah, P2, which, I mean, Hermione, you probably can talk to us a little bit more on that, maybe explain what P2 is, but effectively it's been aged longer on least versus the vintage, I mean, you probably know, right? Yeah, it's just extended aging. So you've got P2 and P3. It's, yeah, it's just been extended.

55:48That's a juggernaut performance. Yeah, but then I think that sort of, that ties in a lot of the aspects of then, okay, well, how are we looking at this data? Because it's like, well, that is at the very, I think this is encouraging actually for the market to be honest because a lot of the stuff we've talked about is like okay well there's people buying bigger volume in off prime like 21 Bordeaux for value but then if you're talking about something like this which is at probably the polar opposite end of the spectrum for champagne it's a lot rarer it's like you say it's longer lease in terms of the access and there's and also like we're not talking about small numbers like the 98 traded 12 times this year versus last year was

56:23Jonathan Stevenson:6 right so it's not like oh one's traded here and there and someone's paid a slightly higher price you know there is actually a good level of substance to the data here that this is actually increased in value by almost 15 in the first half of the year but if we said the trend that we saw maybe in bordeaux and burgundy was around value around people willing to pay for quality and for age because we saw okay as i read out earlier vintages like 09 10 in bordeaux vintages 2000 2005 2009 2010 have outperformed the average again similarly in burgundy we're saying the same sort of vintages outperforming like older high quality i was thinking to myself well actually p2 in a way kind of has that inherently in the wine because it has been aged longer on lease it's been in the cellar longer it has a more complexity it's ready to listen less of it it's mature it's got complexity to it but you know it's released onto market you know only in the last few years but after no 10 years probably on on aging so we know that that kind of is representing you know what we're seeing in a way in the trends elsewhere do you think that's kind of i'm reading too much into that no no i don't yeah i think i think that is the case and i think that's what i found really interesting digging a bit more closely into some of the data um briefly earlier this week we were looking at patrouse and vintages of patrouse and i think what's been fascinating to me that we've been able to dig deeper in than we perhaps have before with what previously was available is looking at these older more mature vintages but prime vintages nonetheless that definitely are in this category right i mean the the 89 patrouse was one that i was quite surprised by in terms of how it scored and how how it's performed and all of the metrics that we consider versus you know some of the modern vintages which it it makes a lot of sense i think when we talk we talk about how wine doesn't appreciate in a linear fashion and i think there's right and wrong times to approach even back vintages and i think now is a good time to be approaching back vintages yeah i think we're also seeing you know potentially from covid a lot more people wanting to you know enjoy and drink these wines that perhaps they wouldn't have been you know drinking previously i think especially with champagne i think you have a lot more consumers um who who aren't just drinking champagne for you know to as a celebration but actually just purely for enjoyment yeah purposes i think there's also something to think about kind of in a down market you know are the older more mature higher quality vintages effectively more resilient mainly because maybe there's less supply of those wines maybe because of the maturity and people's willing not willingness not to sell those and obviously in a down market we're seeing an over correction maybe in younger vintages to the point like that example i gave earlier 21 hope brown is it what sub 250 per bottle that feels like an over correction i look at like bordeaux 2019 probably the worst performing vintage of all the vintages in bordeaux it's a great vintage it looks incredible value you look at burgundy 2019 arguably going to be one of the best ever vintages ever made from burgundy and again that's actually performed quite badly in terms of the proportion of wines that are trading lower so i think one of the takeaways maybe from the half year report is kind of saying in a down market we are seeing more resilience and more kind of price resilience in those higher quality more mature vintages and similarly in a down market we're seeing younger vintages may be over correcting so that can might actually represent you know when the market starts to stabilize more opportunities in these younger vintages that have over corrected yeah like buying up volume in value and buying up opportunistic in in aged vintages that are good yeah and to segue beautifully on from that point i just wanted to give you another example um and i'll just we haven't got a huge amount of time left so i just want to go run through a couple of examples so i do think they are interesting our report is available and it you know goes into a huge amount of depth there's a lot of data to get involved with so i do encourage people that have been interested by this podcast to get access and a copy of that um online um but tnlo for example right we looked at the older vintages at 09 10 11 12 13 compared to younger vintages so 14 15 16 17 18 and 19.

1:00:27Jonathan Stevenson:that wine for the 20 uh in 2025 for the older vintages they've increased in price um over 10 percent so they're at 1400 pounds versus um just sub of 1300 per 12 uh in 2024 so actually again older vintage tnl were showing quite well whereas on the flip side the younger vintages have dropped quite significantly so the younger vintages have gone from 1381 in 24 to 1230 so again i kind of think it's like the perfect illustration of that point where in this current down market we're seeing those older vintages kind of actually you know have some price appreciation and those younger vintages maybe being slightly oversold into the market which is an interesting trend I think kind of illustrating that point and visibility of older vintages as you said like in an upward trending market less likely people are going to willing to let go of some of those more cherished vintages that are older whereas now you can see them you can find them and they tend to be a bit better value than you might have thought and you go okay why not but then equally to your point younger vintages maybe it's maybe it's a bit of sign about sort of patience of buyers yeah apathy towards you know on premier and futures buying younger vintages bigger volume getting bought up perhaps for restaurants and stuff you know it's not often you see as as many wine lists decorated with with good older vintages i think maybe there's that yearning for like just more mature stuff that people haven't maybe had a chance to buy but now they can because it's cheaper yeah i just wanted to quickly finish on the rest of the world category because i did mention it at the very beginning it's been a real uh standout performer hermione mentioned the rest of the world category and one of her favorite places or favorite trips she ever went on to in terms of South America.