Sergey Glekov
Senior financial analyst
The Alti Wine Exchange Indexes are a family of equal weighted indexes which trace price performance of fine and rare wines and shows equal weighted average returns on them. The indexes are subdivided by most important wine countries:
- Argentina
- Australia
- US (California)
- Chile
- France
- Germany
- Italy
- Portugal
- South Africa
- Spain
Wine investors had a great year in 2021. All indexes showed a robust growth in the last year with Californian and Argentinian indexes among two leaders. This trend continued in 2022 even despite the fall in the stock market (The first half of 2022 has been painful yet historic for stocks. Going back to 1950, the S&P 500’s -20.6% decline through two quarters this year is its third-worst start on record, behind only 1962 and 1970).
US inflation rose 9.1% in June, even more than expected, as consumer pressures intensify. It is expected that annual inflation across the eurozone would peak at 7.6% in 2022. However, as wine maintains its value during economic instabilities, the value of investment grade wine may increase with the rise in inflation – due to the limited supply and increasing demand.
Among trends of 1H 2022 are worth to mention:
- Prices across all regions rose in the first half of 2022, but at a slower rate than in the second half of last year. However, considering stock market sell-off in 1H 2022, wine returns are substantially outperformed the stock market in 1H 2022.
- The list of the best performer subregions is dominated by Burgundy and Champagne. This trend is backed by the rising demand for blue chip wines among high-net-worth collectors in the US and Asia.
Chart #1 – Alti Wine Exchange Indexes vs Key European Stock Indexes since June 2016
Chart #2 – Alti Wine Exchange Indexes vs Key European Stock Indexes in 2022
