Yes, We Simply Loathe Inflation

Pop another bottle of bubbly, dahling, and book the next Concorde flight to Paris.

The cost of living it up isn’t going up.

An annual survey by champagne makers Moet & Chandon found that the cost of a dozen luxury goods and services rose at a rate of 1.8% in 1992. By comparison, the government’s consumer price index, the standard measure of inflation, rose 2.9%.

“This means that luxury items, like imported chocolate or fine champagne, are becoming increasingly affordable to the American consumer,” said Fred Alger, head of a New York financial consulting firm that bears his name, which helped prepare the Moet index.

Eight of the 12 items tracked by Moet showed no price increase last year, based on their cost in New York City.

That included a bottle of Cuvee Dom Perignon champagne, which stood at $83; an ounce of Petrossian Russian Beluga caviar, $59; a pound of Teuscher Imported Chocolate Truffles, $40; and a round-trip ticket on Air France Concorde from New York to Paris, $6,388.

Of the items that did go up in price, the most dramatic increases were in the cost of a Rolls-Royce Corniche IV Convertible, up 10.7% to $251,000, and a ticket to the Broadway show “Cats,” up 8.3% to $65.