Wine Labs Research · Wine prices / Fine wine / Buying
The same bottle, different prices: UK, US, France and Hong Kong
Published . Wine Labs merchant offers extracted 4 November 2026. 19 matched wine-vintages; USD per single 750ml bottle, excluding VAT and US sales tax.
Hong Kong had the lowest matched price index in this 19-wine sample. It also had the lowest country median for 8 of the 19 wines. France was lowest for 6, the UK for 4 and the US for 1.
Each comparison uses the same wine, vintage and 750ml bottle in all four markets. We excluded cases, auctions, pre-arrival offers and bottles flagged as in bond. Prices exclude UK and French VAT and US sales tax; shipping and import costs are outside the comparison.
This is a small basket of widely traded fine wines, mostly Bordeaux. It tells you how these particular bottles were priced in the sampled merchant offers. It cannot rank the price of all wine in a country.
19
Matched wine-vintages
76
Wine and market comparisons
3+
Independent merchant groups per cell
2,078
Eligible offer rows after deduplication
A price index built from the same bottles
With the four-market average set to 1.00, Hong Kong scored 0.92, France 0.99, the UK 1.00 and the US 1.10.
For each wine, we divided its country median by the average of its four country medians. We then averaged those ratios, giving every wine the same weight. A first growth therefore gets the same weight as Château Talbot, and a country with more listings gets no extra weight.
These are prices for bottles offered by merchants in each country. A merchant’s location does not establish where the bottle is stored, how quickly it can arrive, or the cost of getting it to a buyer abroad.
Matched fine wine price index
Four-market average = 1.00×. Equal weight per wine-vintage; median of independent merchant medians within each country. Ex VAT and US sales tax.
The full same-vintage wine price comparison
Every row below is one wine and one vintage. The price is the median of the merchant-group medians in that market. The number in brackets is the number of independent merchant groups behind it. All prices are in USD, shown to cents for reuse; they are calculated medians rather than individual offers you can necessarily buy.
We checked 22 wines against five candidate vintages: 2016, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022. For each wine, we chose the vintage with the strongest coverage in its least-covered country, then the greatest total coverage. Château Montrose, Château Pichon Baron, Dom Pérignon Brut did not pass the four-country requirement.
4 November 2026. USD per single 750ml bottle, ex VAT and US sales tax. Brackets show independent merchant-group counts. 19 wines; every cell has at least 3 groups.
| Wine | Vintage | UK: USD (merchants) | US: USD (merchants) | France: USD (merchants) | Hong Kong: USD (merchants) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Château Lafite Rothschild | 2021 | $752.24 (4) | $787.43 (18) | $695.86 (13) | $669.11 (21) |
| Château Mouton Rothschild | 2019 | $666.94 (4) | $729.99 (41) | $770.74 (19) | $571.15 (19) |
| Château Margaux | 2020 | $513.12 (4) | $735.00 (27) | $679.02 (11) | $651.93 (16) |
| Château Haut-Brion | 2022 | $718.52 (4) | $749.88 (37) | $716.52 (21) | $758.32 (9) |
| Château Cos d’Estournel | 2016 | $267.09 (5) | $329.50 (32) | $311.61 (9) | $229.96 (16) |
| Château Pontet-Canet | 2020 | $110.64 (7) | $139.95 (49) | $130.54 (23) | $111.81 (21) |
| Château Lynch-Bages | 2019 | $223.50 (5) | $179.99 (36) | $143.68 (11) | $132.56 (19) |
| Château Pichon Comtesse | 2021 | $147.63 (6) | $224.25 (18) | $181.93 (13) | $177.16 (19) |
| Château Léoville Barton | 2021 | $101.69 (4) | $88.99 (19) | $85.52 (16) | $95.59 (11) |
| Château Branaire-Ducru | 2019 | $59.32 (3) | $75.99 (19) | $55.51 (10) | $57.35 (7) |
| Château Talbot | 2019 | $84.41 (7) | $109.99 (35) | $73.17 (8) | $69.03 (16) |
| Château Palmer | 2021 | $423.73 (4) | $315.00 (25) | $344.49 (12) | $327.19 (19) |
| Château Rauzan-Ségla | 2019 | $110.64 (3) | $126.99 (16) | $106.66 (10) | $112.79 (12) |
| Château d’Issan | 2019 | $73.89 (3) | $88.00 (19) | $64.38 (7) | $67.55 (7) |
| Sassicaia | 2022 | $290.07 (17) | $299.99 (129) | $317.73 (12) | $253.86 (14) |
| Ornellaia | 2021 | $240.70 (3) | $297.97 (45) | $279.52 (4) | $245.35 (10) |
| Tignanello | 2022 | $167.77 (18) | $179.99 (131) | $176.61 (6) | $159.31 (13) |
| Opus One | 2019 | $466.02 (4) | $420.00 (68) | $485.89 (9) | $386.89 (18) |
| Louis Roederer Cristal | 2016 | $304.78 (32) | $349.99 (131) | $275.60 (41) | $286.76 (19) |
The lowest-priced market changes with the wine
The US had the highest overall index, but its $315.00 median for Château Palmer 2021 was the lowest of the four. The UK median was $423.73. A market average can point you towards a search; it cannot choose the best offer for a particular bottle.
Château Talbot 2019 showed a different pattern: $69.03 in Hong Kong and $109.99 in the US. The US median was 59.3% higher on this price basis. That gap excludes the costs and taxes of moving a bottle between markets.
Château Palmer 2021: same wine, four market medians
USD per single 750ml bottle, excluding UK/French VAT and US sales tax. Shipping, insurance and destination import costs excluded.
Why the tax basis matters
Wine is subject to 20% VAT in the UK and metropolitan France. We used the stored prices before VAT, and kept UK and French offers only when a separate gross-price field confirmed approximately that 20% difference. This removes many otherwise usable offers, but avoids treating a price including VAT as equivalent to one before VAT.
US prices are before sales tax, which depends on the transaction. Hong Kong has no wine duty, VAT or GST. Domestic alcohol duties already embedded in a retail price remain in the comparison; this is not a calculation of prices before every possible tax.
Buying across a border can add delivery, insurance, duty, import VAT and other costs. Check those costs alongside provenance, condition and the merchant’s terms. The figures here do not establish a cross-border saving or a delivered price.
How much coverage sits behind the figures?
A chain or website can list the same bottle several times. We first collapsed repeated source listings, then combined locations with a shared chain identity or website into one merchant group. We took a median within that group before calculating the country median.
The count below adds merchant groups across wine-vintages. A merchant carrying several wines contributes to several cells. It is not a count of distinct businesses in a country. Chain and website grouping reduces duplication but cannot establish every ownership connection.
Coverage across the matched basket after size, stock, tax and condition filters.
| Market | Matched wine-vintages | Merchant groups summed across wines | Eligible offer rows |
|---|---|---|---|
| UK | 19 | 137 | 143 |
| US | 19 | 895 | 1,356 |
| France | 19 | 255 | 267 |
| Hong Kong | 19 | 286 | 312 |
Questions
Which country has the cheapest fine wine in this comparison?
Hong Kong has the lowest equal-weight price index in this 19-wine matched sample, and the lowest country median for 8 wines. France is lowest for 6, the UK for 4 and the US for 1. The sample does not rank every wine sold in each country.
Are the wine prices compared including tax?
The table uses prices excluding UK and French VAT and US sales tax. UK and French listings need a separate gross price that confirms approximately 20% VAT. Hong Kong has no wine duty, VAT or GST. Embedded domestic duties remain; shipping and destination import costs are excluded.
Are these the same wines and vintages in every country?
Yes. Each of the 19 rows matches one exact wine and vintage in single 750ml bottles across all four markets, with at least 3 independent merchant groups per country. No country is represented by a different regional or vintage mix.
Use this research
Download the main comparison table or the headline chart. When citing a finding, include the data date and link to this report so readers can check the sample and method.
Download the comparison table (CSV)Download the credited chart (SVG)
Suggested citation: Wine Labs (2026). The same bottle, different prices: UK, US, France and Hong Kong. Published 4 November 2026. https://winelabs.ai/insights/same-wine-prices-uk-us-france-hong-kong
Sources and method
Snapshot extracted 2026-11-04T15:49:24.171Z. The source is Wine Labs’ live merchant-offer serving data, queried read-only. The view retains offers checked within seven days. Eligible observations in the saved basket were checked between 29 October and 4 November 2026. These are asking prices, not completed sales.
The editorial candidate list contains 22 widely traded fine wines. Candidate vintages were 2016, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022. One vintage per wine is selected by the highest minimum country merchant count, then the highest total merchant count, then the newer vintage. Wines need at least three merchant groups in every country. This coverage rule is applied before looking at which country is cheaper.
The merchant channel follows the serving ignore-list exclusion and removes flagged price outliers. Personal trusted-merchant lists are user preferences and were not pooled into a purported global quality rating. Grocery and wine-shop channels were excluded so that all countries use the same merchant source. Offers must quote the market’s local currency: GBP, USD, EUR or HKD respectively.
Each accepted listing must have standardized bottle format and reported pack count of one. We reject raw formats and stated capacities inconsistent with 750ml, including explicit litre sizes, along with known larger formats. Explicit multi-bottle counts in titles or packaging, assortments and vertical sets are excluded even if the source marks them as a single bottle. OWC alone is packaging, not a pack count. An empty raw format is accepted only with standardized bottle format; bottle capacity and pack counts still depend on the source mapping.
Listings with auction, en-primeur, pre-arrival, in-bond or by-request flags or text are excluded. All condition fields must be blank or Standard. Positive inventory and recognized available statuses qualify. Blank inventory is accepted as a live offer with quantity unreported, following the serving convention; it is not a guarantee of stock. Other explicit inventory statuses are excluded.
Repeated source-offer IDs are collapsed within merchant, preferring source priority and the most recent check. Merchant independence uses chain ID first, normalized website domain second, and merchant ID if neither is available. The median of all eligible listings in each merchant group is taken before the country median.
UK and French rows require a positive gross-price field and a gross/net ratio within 0.005 of 1.20. The comparison uses their stored net prices. US rows exclude sales tax; Hong Kong rows carry no VAT or wine duty. Shipping, insurance and destination import costs are excluded. Source tax labels and merchant location are not independently audited at checkout.
Prices use the serving database’s USD normalization at extraction. Its FX reference stores local-currency units per USD, despite its from/to labels, so local amounts are divided by the stored rate. Quotes may reflect different conversion dates; this is not a constant-FX experiment. Reference rates and unrounded cell medians are retained in the snapshot.
The index normalizes each wine’s four country medians by their arithmetic mean, then averages the normalized prices with equal wine weights. Rounded display values are not used in the calculation. The sample is concentrated in collectible Bordeaux and excludes wines and vintages without sufficient four-market coverage.