Is there a profit to be made from investing in Sauternes? Rebecca Gibb looks at a young but growing alternative futures market.
Bordeaux’s sweet wines are often overlooked during the annual en primeur frenzy, but a few drops of the golden nectar could be a valuable asset to your portfolio.
The idea of investment in sweet wine emerged with the 2001 wines. Hailed as the vintage of a generation, the returns it offered have created growing interest in Sauternes and Barsac as futures. Robert Parker gave châteaux Yquem and Climens 100-point scores; Rieussec and Suduiraut followed with 99. With such acclaim, demand soared from collectors. Climens was released at £400 to the trade but the only case available on the website of fine wine exchange Liv-ex is now selling for £2,000 – a 500% increase. (Consumers should expect to pay around £2,800). Justin Gibbs, a director at Liv-ex, notes that this represents a better return for buyers than 2005 Bordeaux first growths.
In 2008, Liv-ex studied the performance of the four top Sauternes properties from the six best vintages of the past 20 years: 1988, 1989, 1990, 1997, 1999, 2001 and 2003. It found that Sauternes had not seen price rises on the same scale as the rest of Bordeaux’s fine wine market. The Liv-ex Sauternes Index increased from its base level of 100 in January 2004 to a peak of 160.33 by the end of July 2008.
