Wine is a better investment than shares, conclude two Swiss economists, after a comparison of the development of wine prices and the (American) share prices in the period 1996-2009. The economists created a wine index based on 400,000 trade prices for wine in the thirteen years from 1996 and 2009. This they compared to the evolution of the Russell 3000 Index, that follows the share prices of the largest U.S. companies. The wine index beat the share index. Especially the credit crisis had less impact on the evolution of wine prices. From mid 2008 the wine index lost seventeen percent of its value, compared to nearly fifty percent for the Russell 3000 index. The study was published in 2009 on the website of SSRN and is now re-published in updated form as a working paper van de American Association of Wine Economists.
Masset, Philippe and Weisskopf, Jean-Philippe, Raise your Glass: Wine Investment and the Financial Crisis (August 19, 2009). Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1457906