Investors savour how wine prices weather market storms Back in 1776, when James Christie held his first auction of jewellery, furniture, art and other valuables, up for sale were also some bottles of wine. Even then, wine for some was more than just drink - it was an investment. Last night, Christie's staged its fist wine auction in seven years in Hong Kong. In the days leading up to the sale, the auction house claimed interest had been active in the 245 lots of blue-chip wines - especially for a selection from the reserve cellars of Chateau Latour that is estimated to be worth HK$10 million. The sale was the latest in a series of wine auctions this year that signals a growing interest in fine wine as an investment in Hong Kong, and in Asia in general. In May, an auction by US company Acker Merrall & Condit fetched HK$64 million - at that time the highest for any wine auction ever held in Asia. It seemed everybody was talking about wine as a safe haven for savings as the world headed for a recession. It was hailed as a liquid asset in all senses of the word, and one with the advantage of being historically weakly correlated to other markets such as stocks and property. But the past few weeks have shown that even wine is not quite as immune to economic forces as those selling it would have us believe. Last month, the market finally succumbed to the pressure, with Liv-ex, the leading fine-wine exchange, recording its largest monthly fall since the index was first calculated in 2001, dropping 12.4 per cent. Sales were also down. Even Bordeaux, considered the safest and most stable in prices, took a tumble of 25 per cent from a peak in August. Analysts blamed the fall on investors seeking to cash in on profits accumulated last year to compensate the losses they sustained on the stock market. As one noted: 'If you've just lost your job, what are you going to sell? Your house? Or your wine?' Earlier this month, Acker Merrall & Condit's second Hong Kong sale took in HK$52 million - 18 per cent less than the May auction. But those involved in the trade are optimistic and say that in the long term, wine has always proved its worth - gaining on average 12 per cent a year in value - and that it has bounced back after similar falls in past recessions, including the Asian financial crisis of 1997. The Liv-ex index last month was down 7.6 per cent on the year to date - though much less than the 50 per cent fall recorded by the Hang Seng Index in the same period. Acker, Merrall & Condit's auction director John Kapon said: 'Wine has always held its value. In my 10 years in business, it has gone only one way, and that's up. It's just a question of buying from the right producers and the right vintages.' By 'right producers', Mr Kapon means well-established producers - the favourites being French Bordeaux and names like Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Chateau Lafite Rothschild, Chateau Latour and Chateau Margaux. The reason why Bordeaux is such a good investment is the simple economics of supply and demand, said Angelina Teh, Hong Kong-based senior portfolio manager of Singaporean wine brokerage company Premium Liquid Assets. 'The supply of these wines is finite and strictly controlled by the European Union and the French government. These chateaux, which we call first-growth chateaux, are not allowed to produce even one additional bottle from the quota they are given,' she said. 'On the other hand, demand has grown exponentially. The market has boomed in Asia. Demand has grown worldwide but the supply can't be increased; that's why the appreciation is exponential.' Supply decreases with time - a bad harvest produces a low quota, wine gets drunk or damaged - but demand remains stable and even grows, pushing up prices, she said. The Financial Times reported in May that there had not been a five-year period in the past 20 years when fine wine would have yielded a negative return. As an investment class, wine appeals to all, said Ms Teh, not least because it is a 'real asset' and more transparent when compared to fine art and vintage watches. 'Our total customer base is in the region of 3,000 or so. We have clients who have invested millions of dollars and we have clients who have invested in just one case because they want to diversify their investment portfolio. I have also noticed a younger set in their late 20s or early 30s. They are more investment-savvy and more open-minded, and look for alternatives that are not correlated to market forces,' she noted. Contrary to the notion that Asia is new to wine, Hong Kong has long been home to many serious collectors, said Greg De'eb, general manager of wine storage company Crown Wine Cellars. According to Mr De'eb, some in Hong Kong have been building up their collections for about 30 years. As a result, Hong Kong collectors now own around 1 million cases of rare or fine wines - 15 to 20 per cent of the world's total. 'Hongkongers are very investment-savvy,' he said. 'Our clients come from a massive variety of backgrounds, from the creme de la creme of the business world to people who are retired and doing this for fun.' Mr De'eb bases his optimism on experience, statistics, a passion for wine and the success of Hong Kong sales and auctions. 'Definitely, they are down about 20 per cent from the peak and there has been a correction in prices...but they seem to be holding their value very well in the current climate,' he said. 'It's claimed that all the top 40 investment wines in the world have outperformed stocks by 10 to 11 per cent a year in the past decade. Seeing the state of stocks now, I'm convinced that figure is correct.' The optimism is shared by Anthony Hanson, senior consultant with Christie's wine department, who believes fine wine remains a good investment option, with the recent depreciation making it a buyer's market. 'There's no doubt there are going to be bargains,' he said. Andrew della Casa, director of the London-based Wine Investment Fund, agreed. 'Our own worst-performing portfolio has dropped by no more than 5 per cent,' he said. 'This is a far cry from the drops seen in the equity and debt markets, and confirms the weak correlation of fine wine as an asset class in relation to those markets. 'If past experience is anything to go by, after prices for fine wine softened, as they did following the Asian crisis in the late 1990s or during the recession of the early 1970s, the market recovered quickly and strongly.' Ms Teh said those looking for investment opportunities should see wine as a strategic investment in the current climate. '[Americans and Europeans] have been buying wine for centuries. Right now they are in need of cash so they are liquidating their investments,' she said. 'But nothing will stop them from buying when times are good again.'