By Marc Jones

LONDON, (Reuters) – You may be tempted by the temptation to pop corks if your investment in vintage champagne has outperformed other major financial markets assets like bitcoin and Big Tech.

The record volume and huge price moves this year have been due to online trading platforms which allow you to trade desired wine, champagne and spirit vintages.

LiveTrade’s “Bordeaux Index,” which tracks drinks prices, revealed that Champagne accounted for 15 percent of 20 highest price rises in 2021.

Salon le Mesnil’s 2002 vintage led the charge. The producer said that it was “captivating as a samurai blade”. It is currently selling for approximately 11.700 Pounds per bottle ($15,000.)

This beats bitcoin’s 75% increase and is almost five times greater than the 18% achieved by NYFANG+TM stocks index. It includes Facebook, Amazon (NASDAQ), Netflix (NASDAQ), Google (NASDAQ), Tesla (NASDAQ) and Microsoft (NASDAQ), which are responsible for recent global equity market gains.

Taittinger’s Comtes de Champagne 2006 also sparkled, along with Krug’s 2002 and 1996 vintages, with price rises of more than 70%, while the Krug 2000, Bollinger La Grande Année 2007, Cristal Rosé 2008 and Dom Pérignon P2 2002 have seen rises of 54%-55%.

Matthew O’Connell CEO at LiveTrade said that there were many factors which have driven the rise in fine-wine trades this year, including “low interest rates” and the high savings of the wealthy in a series of global lockdowns. He also noted that hard assets are being more important in an era of increasing inflationary pressures.

Champagne enjoyed a boost in 2016 when it was exempted by the 25 percent U.S. tariffs placed on European wines under Donald Trump’s U.S. government. This exemption was then lifted shortly after Joe Biden became president.

LiveTrade stated that Cristal’s champagnes of 2012 and 2013 were the most popular bottles in the entire year, with the second being Lafite Rothschild at 6,450 per bottle.

The prized claret brand’s stellar performance was driven by normally less coveted “off” vintages – namely 2011, 2012, 2014 and 2017 – all of which enjoyed 25% plus sales growth.

LiveTrade saw a record number of bottles traded in this year’s market. The average price per bottle was 230 Pounds ($308.50). One-tenth of all bottles that were traded witnessed their prices increase by 30%.

With 33.8% increase in year-to-date performance, Champagne 50 was the best-performing sub-index of the Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000.

($1 = 0.7455 pounds)