Asset bubbles? Champagne overtakes Big Tech and Bitcoin in 2021

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LONDON, December 24 (Reuters) – You might be tempted to pop the caps if you’ve invested in vintage champagne this year – the most coveted bottles have outperformed every major asset in the financial markets, from Big Tech to bitcoin.

Online platforms that allow you to trade sought-after wines, champagnes and spirits, as well as stocks or currencies, have seen record activity and exceptional price movements this year.

Data from LiveTrade, which manages the ‘Bordeaux index’ of drinks, showed champagne accounted for 15 of the 20 highest price increases on the platform in 2021.

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The charge was led by the 2002 vintage of Salon le Mesnil, described by its producer as “captivating like a samurai sword”. It has jumped over 80% in value in 2021 on both LiveTrade and another Liv-ex wine platform, and currently sells for around 11,700 pounds a bottle ($ 15,700).

This beats the 75% rise in bitcoin and is nearly five times more than the 18% achieved by the NYFANG + TM stock index (.NYFANG) of Facebook, Amazon, Netflix, Google, Tesla and Microsoft, which recently fueled. global stock market gains.

Taittinger’s 2006 Comtes de Champagne also shone, as did the 2002 and 1996 Krug vintages, with price increases of over 70%, while the Krug 2000, Bollinger La Grande Anne 2007, Cristal Rosé 2008 and Dom Pérignon P2 2002 saw increases of 54%. -55%.

LiveTrade CEO Matthew O’Connell said several factors fueled a boom in fine wine trade this year – “low interest rates and high levels of savings accumulated by the rich during many lockdowns global, growing focus on durable assets in the face of growing inflationary pressures ”.

Champagne took advantage at the start of the year as it was exempted from the 25% US tariffs imposed on European wines by Donald Trump’s US administration, which were then suspended shortly after the takeover. power of Joe Biden.

The 2012 and 2013 Cristal champagnes were the most traded bottles of the year overall, LiveTrade said, followed by top quality wines, the 2014 Lafite Rothschild at 6,450 bottles.

The outstanding performance of the popular Bordeaux brand was driven by normally less coveted “off” vintages – namely 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2017 – all of which saw sales growth of 25%.

A record 220,000 bottles were traded this year on LiveTrade at an average price of around 230 pounds ($ 308.50) each. A tenth of the bottles sold have seen their price increase by more than 30%.

The Champagne 50 index is the best performing sub-index of the Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000, up 33.8% since the start of the year.

($ 1 = 0.7455 pounds)

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Champagne surpasses big technologies and bitcoin

Reporting by Marc Jones; Editing by Pravin Char

Our Standards: Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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