Champagne continues to hold appeal for wine investors in the early weeks of 2021, at a typically quieter period on the secondary market for the region’s wines. Bucking the usual trend, the volume of live bids and offers on Liv-ex for Champagne has remained robust during January and early February, with just a slight softening from the usual Q4 festive period peak in demand. This year’s data shows a marked increase in trade in Champagne compared to the norm demonstrating sustained levels of demand for the investment wines of the region.
The Liv-ex Champagne 50 index measures the trade and values of the most recently physical vintages for twelve Champagnes and has been the best performing regional benchmark over the last year seeing 8.6% growth.
Currently the 2008 Champagne vintage is attracting the highest level of trade closely followed by 2012 in terms of volume and value on Liv-ex.
Champagne and Italian wines offer performance, diversification potential and a highly accessible price point for investors in fine wine. Dom Perignon and Louis Roederer were ranked sixth and tenth in the ranking of the top 100 most powerful fine wine brands by Liv-ex in 2020.
In the same Power 100 Report, Italian wines were well and truly labelled as some of the most exciting wines for collectors and investors to add to their portfolios this year. Piedmont’s Gaja was ranked third, and the Super Tuscans; Sassicaia fourth, Ornellaia sixth and Masseto ninth in the top ten of the Power 100, 2020. Ornellaia saw the highest move up the rankings year on year moving from ninety-one in 2019 to sixth in 2020. We referred to Sassicaia in our earlier blog on the Italian Investment Wines and neighbouring estate Ornellaia was also capturing headlines with the announcement of their 2018 vintage label artist.
Ornellaia has adopted a similar strategic relationship with art to Mouton Rothschild and in 2009 launched its Vendemmia d’Artista project, showcasing the 2006 vintage label. The estate selects a contemporary artist each year to create a unique artwork to best illustrate the wine-maker’s one word description of the character of the vintage combined with their perception of Ornellaia. This is then used to create a limited-edition label which adorns one bottle in each wooden case of six (x 75cl) and 111 large format bottles. The limited-edition bottles are numbered and signed by the artist and these have a global collector following. Some are sold at an annual charity event to raise funds for the Arts projects sponsored by Ornellaia. The Ornellaia 2018 vintage label has been designed by Belgian artist, Jan Fabre and will be released later this Spring.
Champagne and Italian wines are important additions to fine wine portfolios offering stable growth and the ability to diversify a collection including the blue-chip Bordeaux First Growths and Burgundy Grand Crus. To find out more contact our expert fine wine investment team on 0203 384 2262.