Champagne

Champagne is about 34,000 hectares farmed by some 16,000 growers, most of whom sell grapes to about 370 houses that make and sell roughly 70% of the region's 300 million bottles a year. The Comité Champagne publishes the permitted yield each harvest and reference grape prices are widely reported, making Champagne the wine region with the most public input costs. The collectible tier — prestige cuvées like Krug, Dom Pérignon, Salon and Cristal — has grown fastest of all regions on the secondary market since 2015.

How the economics work

Champagne's supply is managed. Each summer the Comité Champagne sets the maximum yield (in kilograms per hectare) that may be pressed for the appellation, adjusting it to expected sales and to the reserve that houses hold. Grape prices are negotiated between growers and houses and reported per kilogram; at recent levels of roughly €6–7 per kilo, and about 1.2 kg of grapes per bottle, grapes alone cost a house around €8 a bottle before pressing. Houses hold years of reserve wine and aging stock, so working capital, not land, is the large financial burden.

Land

SAFER's reported average for Champagne AOC vineyard has been in the region of €1.1–1.2 million per hectare, with the grands crus of the Côte des Blancs and Montagne de Reims above that. Because grape prices are public, Champagne land can be valued as an income asset in a way no other region allows — and at recent grape prices the yield on land at €1.1 million a hectare is low single digits.

The collectible market

Prestige cuvées were long priced as luxury goods rather than traded as collectibles; that changed in the 2010s as the secondary market discovered that top Champagne, released after years of cellaring by the house, appreciated steadily with low volatility. The 2008 vintage — Dom Pérignon, Cristal, Salon, Krug — is the reference vintage of the modern era.