Investors returned to the fine wine market with aplomb in August after a brief hiatus and helped to push up prices of Bordeaux. However, not all wines performed equally, with premier marques form Mouton and Margaux losing value. The fine wine market recovered last month from the small dip in prices in July. The Liv-ex 100, the fine wine benchmark, was up 0.9% and the Claret Chip, an index of Bordeaux First Growths, was up 1.6%. The indices were up 27% and 35% respectively, year to date. This compared with a fall in the FTSE 100 of 3% during the same period.

The Wine Investment Fund said that the slight fall in the market in July, the first in sixteen months, was "probably a blip". Andrew della Casa, director of TWIF, said: "The usually subdued market at that time of year, coupled with sales by major merchants contributed to the falling away of the impetus given to the market by the high 2009 en primeur prices."