by Giles Cadman
A lackluster Bordeaux En Primeur campaign was not hugely surprising as the vintage faced so many problems with the weather. This means that many people chose not to buy Bordeaux wine, and some of their money has been used to purchase Champagne.
London wine merchants Bordeaux Index – and their peers – are reporting considerable year-on-year increases in Champagne sales.
BI said it had sold almost the same amount of Champagne in the first six months of this year as in the whole of 2012: £5.35m, against £6.5m last year and £2.5m in 2011.
Joss Fowler at Fine+Rare, another London merchant, said sales were up this year by 12%.
Fowler added that there is ‘a definite spreading away from Bordeaux’, for which sales were down 9% this year as compared to the same period last year.
At Nickolls and Perks in the West Midlands, fine wine manager Will Gardener said their sales of Champagne were up 25%. ‘People are not going into Bordeaux lookng for a decent investment, they’re going into Champagne and other things like Port.
It will be interesting to follow the Champagne prices over time, especially as Champagne is usually consumed quicker than Bordeaux wines.
Gary Boom at BI said he attributed the surge in popularity not only to Champagne’s potential for immediate consumption after release, ‘but also to investors’ thirst for portfolio diversity. The Champagnes left to age become scarcer, leaving the great vintages of the most prestigious Champagnes with genuine investment potential.’
