European Buyers Become Fine Wine Market’s Main Support After U.S. Pullback

European buyers have become the main source of support in the fine wine market after U.S. buyers pulled back in 2025, according to an analysis released by Liv-ex, the London-based exchange for fine wine trading, data and market insight.

The report, published in London on Aug. 27, said prices fell quickly after U.S. buyers withdrew in early to mid-2025. Liv-ex linked that retreat to tariff threats from President Donald Trump, which it said disrupted buying patterns in the secondary fine wine market. Before that shift, the exchange said, U.S. buyers had helped keep prices elevated because they were able to buy at higher levels while still preserving their margins, adding competition among bidders.

With that U.S. demand reduced, European buyers increased their activity and expanded their share of the market. Liv-ex said those buyers appeared to find value after prices dropped and lifted their nominal spending significantly compared with the first half of 2024. The analysis said the increase was driven more by changes in market structure and new buying opportunities than by currency movements, adding that exchange rates did not appear to have had a significant effect on purchasing.

The report said European buyers now rank just behind U.S. buyers in how closely they purchase to prevailing market prices. According to Liv-ex, that has mattered in a market that has otherwise struggled to regain momentum. European members have been able to bid at higher levels than buyers in the United Kingdom and Asia, especially while U.S. participation remained weak, and that has helped support the recent sideways movement in prices.

At the same time, Liv-ex said Europe is also the market’s biggest source of supply, creating a force that works in the opposite direction. The exchange said European members account for around half of the value sold on Liv-ex and tend to sell significantly below the overall market average. That combination, the analysis said, has helped keep broader prices under pressure even as European demand has offered support.

Sophia Gilmour, a market analyst at Liv-ex, said the market will likely need to work through that excess stock before a stronger recovery can take hold. “European buyers have become the market’s key source of support following the US retreat, but Europe is also the market’s largest source of supply — a stock overhang that will need to be dispersed before a more pronounced recovery can take place,” Gilmour said in the release.

The report pointed to a notable change inside Europe itself. Over the past three years, buyers in Central Europe have taken a much larger share of European purchasing by value, while France’s role has declined. Liv-ex said Central European buyers, mainly from Switzerland, Denmark, the Netherlands, Germany and the Czech Republic, increased their share of European purchases from 10% in 2023 to 35% this year. Over the same period, the French share fell from 75% to 55%.

Liv-ex said part of that shift reflects a broader and more diversified membership base on its platform, but it also described the increase in Central European participation in the international secondary market as significant. The data suggests that demand within Europe is no longer concentrated as heavily in France as it was only a few years ago, and that a wider group of buyers has stepped in as prices adjusted lower.

The analysis also pointed to early signs that U.S. buyers are beginning to return, although slowly. Liv-ex said that re-entry could matter for two reasons at once: it could help absorb surplus European stock and it could restore some of the buyer competition that had previously helped support prices. In Gilmour’s words, “With US buyers slowly re-entering the market, providing both demand for surplus European wine and competition amongst buyers, hopes of continued price stability (and potential upward movement) are improving.”

Liv-ex did not say how quickly that improvement might happen, and its findings suggest the pace of any rebound will depend on how much excess supply remains in European hands. For now, the exchange’s data portrays a market in which European buyers have helped stop a sharper decline, but where the same region’s large volume of selling continues to weigh on prices across the platform.

The report was issued as fine wine merchants and traders continue to watch whether demand in the U.S. normalizes after last year’s disruption and whether newer European buying centers can keep expanding their role. Liv-ex said its membership gives wine professionals access to independent market data and a single point of contact to price, buy and sell wines.