LVMH, owner of Dom Pérignon, will acquire half of Armand de Brignac, Jay-Z’s Champagne line known as Ace of Spades.
The luxury giant has teamed up with Jay-Z to expand the champagne house he owns in a bet that the maker of Veuve Clicquot and Krug can help the rapper’s high-end bubbly Armand de Brignac go global.
The 51-year-old musician and entrepreneur announced on Monday that he had sold half of his champagne company to Moët Hennessy for an undisclosed price. The deal caps a successful run for the rapper with Armand de Brignac, who touted its “gold bottles of that Ace of Spade” in a 2006 music video before acquiring the company in 2014.
Through savvy marketing coupled with hip-hop glitz, the brand grew to sell 500,000 bottles in 2019; which usually cost between $300 to $950 with specially made vintages costing $100,000.
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This deal is the latest in a string of deals between celebrities and spirits and wine companies eager to exploit the higher-priced, “prestige” end of the market. Diageo bought Canadian actor Ryan Reynolds’ minority-owned Aviation Gin brand and three other spirits for $610m last year.
In 2017 it bought George Clooney’s Casamigos tequila for $1bn. Rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs has also backed Cîroc vodka and jointly invested in premium tequila brand DeLeón with Diageo.
Jay-Z disputed the idea that Armand de Brignac was a “celebrity-helmed brand”; saying the company had patiently built its fan base through word of mouth, brand ambassadors, and social media.
“If this was a celebrity brand, I’d have been on billboards,” he said. “We don’t cut corners or lean on fame to sell the product. We’ve built it through passion and integrity.”
For LVMH, the champagne partnership with Jay-Z is another example of how the group is searching for ways to expand the audience for luxury goods from Louis Vuitton handbags to premium Hennessy cognac. It recently stepped back from a partnership with business mogul Rihanna on ready-to-wear clothing; but will continue to back her cosmetics and lingerie lines.