US-based buyers have become the structural centre of gravity in fine wine secondary-market activity in ways that weren't true even five years ago. Liv-ex's 2024 data showed US-based merchants accounting for 35.5% of all platform purchases for the year, jumping to 42.6% in December alone. That marked the first year US-based participation crossed the structural one-third threshold; by late 2026, the share has settled at meaningful levels that continue to define the broader serious-wine secondary-market dynamics. But the structural composition of what US buyers are actually buying has shifted markedly over the past several years — the categories driving the buying have moved away from canonical Bordeaux toward a meaningfully more diversified mix of named producers across regions.
This is our editorial read on what US buyers are actually buying in 2026 and how the rotation has reshaped serious-wine secondary-market activity.
The structural buyer-share data
Liv-ex's regional data tracks the US buyer trajectory clearly. The structural US share of platform trade has moved from approximately 22% in 2020 to over 35% in 2024 to settle around 33–37% across 2025 and 2026 (with month-by-month variation). The compound effect across the past five years has been the structural emergence of US-based buyers as the largest single regional buyer pool on the platform, eclipsing the European buyer pool that anchored the canonical wine-trade conversation through the 2010s.
The US buyer dominance is most pronounced at the named-producer top tier — Bordeaux First Growths, named Burgundy grand crus, named Champagne tête de cuvées, named Tuscan Super Tuscans, named Napa cult Cabernet. The broader serious-wine middle tier shows more balanced regional buyer distribution.
What US buyers were buying in 2018
The structural composition of US fine-wine buying in 2018 anchored heavily on canonical Bordeaux. First Growths (Lafite, Latour, Margaux, Mouton, Haut-Brion) and Super-Seconds (the Léovilles, Pichon Lalande, Pichon Baron, Lynch-Bages, Cos d'Estournel) represented the primary structural categories; Pomerol icons (Pétrus, Le Pin, Lafleur) anchored the trophy-bottle tier. Burgundy positions existed in serious cellars but at meaningfully smaller share than today; Champagne positions concentrated on the major-house tête de cuvées; Italian wine and Napa Cabernet held secondary positions in most US-based serious cellars.
What US buyers are buying in 2026
The structural composition has rotated meaningfully across the past several years. The categories where US buyers have built the largest share growth: Burgundy. Named Côte de Nuits grand crus (DRC, Leroy, Mugnier, Roumier, Méo-Camuzet, Dujac) and named Côte de Beaune Chardonnay producers (Coche-Dury, Domaine Leflaive, Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey) have absorbed meaningful US buyer share growth. Champagne. The named houses' tête de cuvées (Krug Vintage, Cristal, Dom Pérignon P2, Salon, Comtes de Champagne, Pol Roger Sir Winston Churchill) and the grower-Champagne tier (Egly-Ouriet, Pierre Péters, Jacques Selosse, Larmandier-Bernier) have built structural US buyer positions that didn't exist meaningfully a decade ago. Tuscan Super Tuscans. Sassicaia, Tignanello, Solaia, Masseto, Ornellaia have all built meaningful US buyer positions; the 2018 vintage's strong critical reception across the category drove a structural year of US buyer engagement. Brunello and Barolo. The Italian fine-wine tier broadly has built consistent US buyer presence; the recent Conterno Monfortino 2019 trade activity reflects the broader structural shift. Domestic Napa cult Cabernet. US buyers have continued building meaningful Napa cult positions (Screaming Eagle, Harlan, Bryant Family, Scarecrow, Schrader, Bond Estates' single-vineyard bottlings, Realm, Continuum, Promontory), with the structural availability constraints of Screaming Eagle specifically driving broader engagement across the cult tier.
What US buyers are buying less of
The categories that have lost relative US buyer share across the past several years anchor primarily on Bordeaux's broader middle tier. The structural focus on Bordeaux First Growths and the named Pomerol icons has remained, but the broader Bordeaux middle tier (the Saint-Émilion grand cru classés below Cheval Blanc and Pavie, the broader Médoc classified growths, the broader Right Bank serious tier) has absorbed less US buyer share than the past. The pattern reflects the broader rotation away from Bordeaux dominance that's been underway across serious-wine secondary-market activity over the past decade.
Why the US buyer rotation has happened
Several structural factors explain the US buyer rotation. The Trump administration's tariffs on European wine imports. The October 2019 tariffs on still wines from France, Germany, Spain, and the UK structurally compressed retail availability of canonical European wine in the US market; serious US-based buyers responded by engaging more directly with the major auction houses' secondary-market sales rather than retail channels. Generational succession. Younger US-based serious-wine buyers have shown structural preferences for Burgundy, Champagne, and serious Italian wine that compound across years. The broader serious-wine recognition shift. Critical recognition of the named Burgundy and Champagne producers has built consistently across the past decade through trade publications including Wine Spectator, Decanter, and Antonio Galloni's Vinous; the structural visibility has reshaped what serious US-based collectors prioritise. Wealth concentration shifts. The post-2020 expansion of the US ultra-high-net-worth buyer pool has driven meaningful new entry into the serious-wine secondary market, with structural preferences for the named producer tiers that didn't exist at comparable scale a generation ago.
What the rotation means for serious-wine secondary-market activity
The compound effect of the US buyer rotation has been a structural rebalancing of how serious-wine secondary-market activity functions. Bordeaux remains the largest single category by trade value, but its structural dominance has loosened from the canonical pre-2010 levels. Burgundy and Champagne have absorbed the structural rotation. Italian wine has built consistent secondary-market presence. The broader serious-wine secondary market in 2026 looks meaningfully different from the canonical Bordeaux-dominant version of a decade ago.
The pattern most serious collectors converge on is engaging with the rotation deliberately rather than reactively — building meaningful Burgundy and Champagne depth alongside structural Bordeaux positions, with selective Italian, Napa cult Cabernet, and Northern Rhône additions for stylistic variety.
The honest framing
US-based buyers remain the largest single regional buyer pool in serious-wine secondary-market activity, but the structural composition of what they're buying has rotated meaningfully across the past several years. The categories driving US buyer share growth — Burgundy, Champagne, serious Italian wine, Napa cult Cabernet — reflect broader serious-wine collector preferences that compound across years. The categories where US buyer share has compressed — Bordeaux's broader middle tier — reflect the broader rotation away from Bordeaux dominance that's been underway across serious-wine secondary-market activity over the past decade.
The cellars built across the next decade will likely benefit from engaging with the structural rotation deliberately. The named producer tiers across Burgundy, Champagne, Italian wine, and Napa cult Cabernet have built secondary-market positions that the canonical pre-2010 conversation didn't anticipate; the structural shift continues to shape what serious cellar building looks like across regions. The cellars built around the named producer tiers above are typically the cellars best positioned for the structural serious-wine market the rotation has built.
Stefanos Moschopoulos
Stefanos Moschopoulos founded The Luxury Playbook in Athens and has spent the better part of a decade following the auction calendar, the en primeur releases, and the watchmakers, gallerists, and shipyards the magazine covers. He writes the field guides and listicles that anchor the Connoisseur section — pieces built on Phillips and Christie's results, Liv-ex movements, and conversations with collectors he has met across Geneva, Bordeaux, Basel, and Monaco. His own collecting habits sit closer to watches and wine than art, and it shows in the level of detail in the magazine's coverage of those categories. Under his direction, The Luxury Playbook now publishes long-form field guides, market-defining year-end listicles, and the Voices interview series with the founders behind the houses and the brands.
