Fine wine has drawn plenty of attention as a "passion investment", but a measure of prices for some of the greatest wines declined slightly in 2015.

Well, the data is in. Investors in the world’s most renowned wines from regions such as Bordeaux didn’t make money in most areas last year, although this won’t necessarily reduce the thirst to take a punt on fortunes of the noble grape just yet.

Liv—ex, the online exchange tracking prices fetched at auctions for fine wines, says that its Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 benchmark of auction deals was down 0.1 per cent in 2015, and has fallen 29.15 per cent over the past five years. The narrower Liv-ex Fine Wine 50 measure is down 33.96 per cent over five years and fell 0.73 per cent last year. The Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000 measure did a bit better, up by just 0.6 per cent last year, but is down over five years.

To some extent, the slippage of last year isn’t as severe as the performance of mainstream equity markets, so this might – just – give some credence to the idea that fine wine investments can diversify a portfolio, although it does not necessarily reduce asset class correlations all that much. The MSCI World Index of developed countries’ shares was down 0.9 per cent in 2015.

Consumers hoping that some of the astronomic prices fetched by renowned houses might be coming back towards Earth have some cause for cheer. Liv-ex says in its commentary that the Liv-ex Bordeaux 500 index fell 10.7 per cent from 2010. Last year, Bordeaux’s share of the total fine wine market fell to levels not seen since 2004 before the China-led bull market and the sharp boom, and then bust, in Bordeaux prices. Elsewhere, Italy, Champagne and the rest of the world have all seen their percentage of trade share increase. So looking ahead, there may be some grounds, Liv-ex says, for seeing this as opportunity to re-enter the Bordeaux market.

As Liv-ex notes, China has been a large driver of spending on fine wines in recent years; the worries about the country’s stock market and some deceleration to its GDP growth might dent demand for wine from that quarter, although price changes may have already anticipated some of that eventuality. The “Asia factor” in wine remains quite a potent one, at least as far as some firms are concerned. As reported recently, the UK-headquartered firm Cult Wines has set up an office in Hong Kong to exploit continued demand for wine and associated investment.