The fine wine market has started on the road to recovery after suffering badly in the second half of 2011 when the world economy entered a rocky phase.

The Live-ex 100 of fine wines - mostly French vintages – rose by 1.2 per cent in February after having dropped 16 per cent in 2011. In January, the index rose by nearly 4 per cent after six months of consecutive losses.

Andrew della Casa, director of the Wine Investment Fund, an investment scheme focused on the Bordeaux region, highlighted measures taken by the Chinese authorities to support its economy, which is crucial to the fine wine market. He also suggested that China might be nearing a liberalisation of its capital markets, that would be likely to lead to a rising renminbi. This in turn would be "very likely to have a positive impact on wine prices,” he said.

It is worth noting that whether or not and in what way China is moving towards liberalisation of its capital markets is a heavily debated subject and is likely to remain unknown until after the change of leadership has taken place towards the end of the year.

Della Casa also highlighted a revival of the US market and said that Thailand is beginning to garner attention as a potential future market.

Wealthmonitor, an intelligence firm covering the high net worth market, published an industry survey last month in which a majority of the respondents said they expect the fine wine market to start rising again this year. The market is worth $4 billion a year equally distributed between Asia, Europe and the Americas, according to the survey.