I admit, I thought the great wine correction was going to take place in 1Q 2008, and it has taken until now for the data to support the ongoing correction.
The wine market is breaking down, but the data is hidden. My analysis of 1982 Mouton shows that single bottles are off 20% from a year ago, but market averaged data shows no change. The most often cited data averages in all bottles regardless of provenance or owc status. The facts are that an owc of '82 Mouton has stayed the same, because the ultra-rich can still pay $17,000 for a case. Smaller speculators who trade in one and two bottle lots have been getting crushed, and the data is getting buried. When a single bottle sells as lot #1, and case sells as lot#2, the single bottle becomes 1/13th of the "average auction price" -even though it represents 1/2 of all actual sales.
Here are the prices for 1982 Mouton:
2Q '08 = $950 (single bottle), $1450 (x12 for owc)
3Q '07 = $1200(single bottle), $1500 (x12 for owc)
My data includes sales from Sotheby's, Bonham's, Hart Davis Hart, Zachy's, and Acker.
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