Wine Labs Research · Fine wine / Market / Index
Fine wine trade signals: Q3 2026
Published . Wine Labs trade-signal index. 6 complete weeks in Q3 2026.
In Q3 2026, fine wine merchants sold an average of 1.3% of the bottles they had on hand each week. At that pace, merchants turn about 66% of their fine wine stock in a year.
Price cuts made up 54.0% of price changes. The typical cut was 9.5%. In the week of 12 Oct, the cut share rose to 63.8%, the highest week in the series.
1.3%
Stock sold per week, Q3 average
54.0%
Price changes that were cuts
9.5%
Typical price cut
Sell-through rose into September
Sell-through peaked at 1.6% per week in mid-September. It was 1.2% in the week of 12 Oct.
Share of fine wine stock sold, by week
Published weekly index values. October weeks are darker.
Champagne sold fastest
Champagne sold the largest share of its stock each week. Australia sold the smallest share.
Q3 2026 weekly sell-through by region
Average of published Q3 weeks.
Expensive wine did not sell slower
Bottles above $500 sold at about the same weekly rate as bottles at $75–150.
Q3 2026 weekly sell-through by bottle price
Average of published Q3 weeks.
Discount pressure
Cuts outnumbered price rises in most weeks. UK merchants cut most often: 61.7% of their price changes in Q3 were cuts.
Cuts as a share of price changes, by week
Published weekly index values. October weeks are darker.
Q3 2026 averages of published weeks, by region.
| Region | Cuts as share of price changes | Weekly sell-through |
|---|---|---|
| California | 58.8% | 0.9% |
| Italy other | 56.6% | 1.1% |
| Burgundy | 55.9% | 1.0% |
| Rhone | 55.5% | 1.0% |
| France other | 54.9% | 0.9% |
| Piedmont | 53.4% | 1.0% |
| Bordeaux | 52.9% | 1.2% |
| Tuscany | 52.8% | 1.3% |
| Spain | 52.4% | 1.2% |
| Australia | 51.7% | 0.6% |
| Rest of world | 50.8% | 1.2% |
| Champagne | 50.3% | 1.7% |
The wines merchants sold most widely
The share of merchants listing a wine that sold at least one bottle in the four weeks to 4 October.
Top 15 wines by share of listing merchants that sold. Wines listed by 25 or more merchants.
Questions
How fast does fine wine sell at merchants?
In Q3 2026, merchants sold 1.3% of their fine wine stock (750 ml bottles at $75 or more) per week on average, about 66% a year at that pace.
Are fine wine merchants cutting prices?
Yes. In Q3 2026, 54.0% of price changes were cuts, with a typical cut of 9.5%. In the week of 12 Oct the cut share was 63.8%.
Which fine wine region sells fastest?
Champagne: merchants sold 1.7% of their Champagne stock per week in Q3 2026. Australia was slowest at 0.6%.
Sources and method
Universe: 750 ml offers at $75 or more from about 1,300 fine wine merchants. Merchants that share the same feed count once. Spirits are excluded.
Sell-through is the net fall in stock per line and week, divided by bottles on hand. Merchant-weeks with outages or whole-feed changes are removed. A region or price band is shown only for weeks with at least 30 merchants and no three merchants making half of the sales.
Q3 2026 has 6 complete weeks: 20 July, and 31 August to 28 September. The weeks from 27 July to 24 August had incomplete data and are left out. There is no year-on-year comparison before May 2027.
Price changes between 3% and 50% count. Days when a merchant repriced more than 5% of its lines are removed, because those are currency or feed updates.