WineAdvise is taking a look at the current market for both wine and whisky. We have broken our analysis up into 4 shorter posts that we’ll send over the next four-day period to help collectors make sense of what is going on now, what we may expect and how we can help.
Background on the Market
It has been five weeks since the coronavirus was officially declared a worldwide pandemic, on March 11th. The wine and whisky market have been affected in a significant way that will have long lasting effects. To get a reference point, we need to briefly look at the trajectory of the wine and whisky market before the pandemic shut the world down. The wine market in 2019 was slowed a bit overall with auction sales reaching $521 million, a 9% rise over 2018 that saw $479 million. Whisky surged with record sales highlighted by the $1.9 million sale of The Macallan Fine & Rare 60-Year Old 1926 during the Sotheby’s October sale, jumping past the $550,000 estimate. This was part of the Ultimate Whisky Collection sale, which reaped just under $10 million, a new record. However, The Wine Market Journal’s broad indices showed a slump overall of 5% compared to 2018. This trend slowly changed in Q4 2019 and into the early part of Q1 2020 with gains of 2% to 10% in all major wine regional categories.
During the first quarter of 2020 there were 16 auctions, which collectively earned $51 million, a large drop off from total sales of $122 million in first quarter of 2019. The contrast clearly demonstrates the effects of COVID on the marketplace. Auctions in the first quarter of 2020 were headlined by Acker’s $9.6 million bicentennial auction on February 7th and Zachy’s La Paulee on March 6th that sold $9.8 taking the top spot. The Acker auction in NYC on March 7th was the last live auction in the US for wine. The US market through April has shown resiliency and maintained steady sales in part due to the 25% tariff still in effect, boosting domestic sales for French wines.
Even as the pandemic began to take hold, the spirits market saw two major whisky auctions that showed collectors’ continued willingness to purchase on the high end of the market.
Whisky Auctioneer – The Perfect Collection Part 1 in February that did $4.3 million headlined by The Macallan 1926 Valerio Adami 60-Year-Old that sold for $1.072 million, an online auction record.
Sothebys – Finest & Rare Spirits on March 18th that totaled $4.63 million with a 91% sell rate highlighted by a record $435,000 sale of the Karuizawa Zodiac Rat 52-year-old and $530,000 for the full Six Pillars Macallan set showing steady strength and willingness to spend on the higher end of the market in the early days of the virus.
As the pandemic took hold, auction houses were forced to switch to an online only platform which for the most part was a smooth transition as the auction houses have added weekly online auctions on a regular basis over the past several years. The Sotheby’s March 18 sale illustrates this transition as 50% of bidding was online and 100% of the Whisky Auctioneer sale was online.
In Part II, we look at industry shift and current auctions.