Invest In Cristal Rosé: Rare, Exclusive And Extremely Investment-Suitable

Cristal Rosé - World-class Wine For The Terrace

We have on several occasions reported that we more or less have a firm recommendation on Louis Roederer's prestigious cuvée, Cristal. However, Louis Roederer holds on to another gem, namely Cristal Rosé. Even though the "ordinary" Cristal belongs on the absolute top shelf among the biggest power brands, the rosé version is simply in a class of its own. Cristal Rosé represent everything that the “ordinary” Cristal stands for and even more of everything; the extravagance, the exclusivity, the quality and not least the investment potential!

Why Invest In Rosé Champagne?

With investment in top of rosé Champagnes you get many of the same strong properties as with regular Champagne, but it does not stop here. In fact, the pink bubbles also often come with slightly higher scores from the greatest critics. But this is actually not what is most interesting about rosé Champagne.

The rosé versions are produced in extremely limited quantities, compared to their regular Champagne counterpart. While Louis Roederer Cristal is produced in approx 400,000 bottles in vintages strong enough to qualify for a Cristal, there is far greater uncertainty as to how many Cristal Rosé are actually being produced. Although it is undoubtedly Roederer's smallest cuvée.

To put things into perspective, one can look at how small the proportion of sparkling rosé wine is, compared to regular sparkling white wine.

More than 80% of global sparkling wine production was white in 2017, while just 15% was rosé. Approx 2% was sparkling red wine. The world's largest producer of sparkling wine is Italy. By this you can say that once the proportion of Italian and other French sparkling rosé wines is deducted, the total production of rosé Champagne is considered to be extremely limited.

This means that even if current consumption is lower in the category of rosé Champagnes, compared to regular Champagne, far fewer bottles must be consumed in order to lower the global supply, and today mature rosé Champagne is extremely difficult to obtain and is therefore an obvious investment if you are looking for something exclusive and rare.

The exciting thing here is that the 2012 vintage of Cristal Rosé is in really good company and is only a single point from the already legendary vintage 2008.

Champagne Prices Will Rise

The world's perhaps leading wine media, Decanter, recently published an article describing some of the challenges champagne producers face today. Bottom line, it is about the fact that the cost of production and the prices of raw materials have risen exponentially in recent years, while the price of a single bottle of champagne has not followed the same development.

At the same time, the Corona crisis has led to a temporary decline in sales of champagne, particularly caused by closed restaurants and nightlife.

In the short run, the filled cellars of champagne and the temporary oversupply may lead to lucrative buying opportunities, but the current situation is not considered to affect Champagne's real challenge in the long run. The result of a sharp rise in production costs, while sales prices have not kept pace, creates an economically unsustainable situation where the only solution on the part of producers seems to be to raise prices - and this is good news for the champagne investor.

Cristal Rosé Among The World's Best Champagnes

In late August, the respected wine-media Tastingbook published a top 100 of the world's absolute best champagnes. The list was created by professionals within the industry who have taken up the impossible challenge to make a list of the world's 100 best champagnes.

Unsurprisingly, the list is full of well-known investment prospects and could just as well be any champagne lover's final bucket list.

What is also not surprising is that Louis Roederers Cristal is quite well represented on the list, both as rosé and white. It gets really exciting when we look at the very top of the list where we find 2008 Cristal in 3rd place while 2008 Cristal Rosé has occupied 2nd place, surpassed only by Bollinger's legendary single field champagne Vielles Vignes Francaises from 1979.

Comparing the critics' scores on respectively the 2008 vintage and the 2012 vintage of Cristal Rosé there is only a single point difference.

The point of all this is solely to illustrate the format of Cristal Rosé and its reputation, while the 2012 vintage, which is the current vintage of Cristal Rosé, purely in terms of points, is at the very top.

RareWine Invests Opinion

We have high expectations for champagne as a category in the future and with these expectations also come high hopes for rosé champagne.

The best rosé champagnes have all the characteristics that usually characterize a strong champagne investment, where extremely high quality and limited production are two of the most important headlines.

When it comes to Cristal Rosé, as an investor, in addition to the above, you get tailwinds from one of the largest champagne brands in the world, which is also driven by one of the largest players in the champagne market, namely Louis Roederer, who only works for one thing - to make their wines even more coveted.

If champagne connoisseurs and lovers want something very special, Cristal Rosé will often be a place to look and those who can offer perfectly ripe bottles will be rewarded.

We have on several occasions had the pleasure of being able to offer Cristal Rosé for investment and there has always been a rift over the sparse quantities, which is why we recommend acting quickly if you want to invest in world-class terrace wine.