In the first half of the year 2007 when the sub-prime crises occurred, the behaviour of the group of buyers, who see Fine Wines as a term of investment, changed. Wines of best quality sold cheaper.  Petrus, Lafleur, Le Pin, Ausone and the Premiers from Medoc also lost in value. Most merchants reduced their stock and even private collectors tried to get a reasonable yield for some of their wines and sold these rare items on eBay.  Prices dropped steadily until the beginning of this year. When the first 2005s of Bordeaux were sold at extremely high prices a change took place. En Primeur bought Cult Wines were offered and sold at eBay and achieved even higher prices than the dealer price around the corner. The first bottles of Petrus 2005 auctioned in April 2008 on eBay sold for Euro 4005.—Even other PGCCs were sold for Euro 1000,00 and more. The crises (at least in the wine world) was over. Even the Liv-ex 100 (London International Vintners Exchange) which keeps track of the price of the most traded wines, has outperformed stock markets in Europe. And the demand for fine Wines is rising.


No crises for fraud

Record prices for vintage 2005 on eBay

Fraudulent offers of the best wines of the world had high season on eBay. Newly opened accounts were used to sell wines that did not exist in the property of the seller. A bold try of betraying customers was observed in April this year. 14 bottles (a very odd number for wine) of high classed Lafite Rothschild 2000 were auctioned by an eBay member with Turkish origin in Berlin/Germany. The answer to my question where the bottles are from was really ridiculous. He inherited quite a number of these wines from his grandfather in Turkey! Wow! A Moslem with a Fine Wine Cellar!  That´s as incredible as finding a Chateau Petrus in the drugstore next door. Further investigations proofed that the eBay account was a fake as well as the bank account he sent me. The security team of eBay and the criminal investigation department in Berlin took care of the case. The account was closed and to my surprise a few days later a similar auction started with a new account. This time 10 Lafite Rothschild 2000 were auctioned. And believe me he had 12 bids in the first 24 hours! Of course the account was deleted again. How careless some people get, when greed for rare wines is a motive!