It had to happen. Chateau Lafite, the Bordeaux worshipped by mainland Chinese wine collectors, has finally fallen from grace. Top wines plummeted in value by 12 per cent over the 12 months to September 2012, according to the Liv-ex 100 index. Chateau Lafite had such a stranglehold on the market it was actually the largest component of the index.
Now that its bubble has been burst by increasingly confident Chinese wine buyers who are no longer afraid to stray beyond Bordeaux, the other varietals are rising up the charts. If you need evidence of this, check the prices Henry Tang’s collection of burgundies achieve when auctioned in a week or two. A few years ago burgundy would not have attracted nearly so much interest, but with education comes confidence and collectors of all categories behave less like sheep and follow their own hearts.
Property no longer king
That old paradigm about property performing best over time and bricks and mortar being the safest investment still holds good. Or at least one would think so, looking at Hong Kong’s soaring property prices and people’s willingness to sink millions into even daft projects like hotel rooms, with no guarantees whatsoever. But High Net worth Individuals behave differently to the rest of us mortgage slaves. Of course they have property everywhere, but according to China’s Hurun report, quoted before in this column, 64 per cent of mainland millionaires also invest heavily in collectibles. And I don’t just mean handbags and watches.
And the rich in emerging markets seem to choose to spend their cash on items they can enjoy, as well as banking on things will go up in value. The crash of 2008 seemed to mark a turning point and after that the over-concentration on financial markets ended and the super-rich started spreading their investment net to real estate and beyond.
