LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton's vineyard unit Estate & Wines knows how to prevent slowing economic growth from stalling sales - sell expensive bottles.

Demand for wines that cost US$15 or more has risen, even as higher crude oil prices and the United States subprime-mortgage crisis prompted the European Central Bank to cut the region's economic growth forecast for this year and next.

The company, which sells wines produced outside the traditional European vineyards, is to stay focused on that top 1 percent of the market, Bloomberg News said.

"Asia is performing extremely well, Europe very well and Latin America is booming," said Xavier Ybarguengoitia, chief executive of Paris-based Estates & Wines.

He said consumers were willing to pay a premium for quality.

A growing penchant for quality wines drove the Liv-ex 100 Index, which tracks prices of top Bordeaux, Burgundies and Rhones, 51 percent higher this year. The opposite is true at the cheaper end of the price spectrum.

The European Commission is paying farmers to uproot their vines to cut off the supply of inferior wines.

A bottle of wine sells for an average US$8 in the United Kingdom and less in parts of continental Europe and in wine-growing areas.

Only 5 percent of wines sell for US$10 or more, according to Ybarguengoitia. "We follow a totally different model from the rest of the industry."

Estates & Wines's focus on top quality and premium-priced bottles mirrors its parent company's approach in selling luxury goods including Louis Vuitton leather bags and perfumes.

The strategy's paid off. Estates & Wines had "double-digit growth" in the past six years, outpacing that of LVMH's broader drinks division, Moet Hennessy. Sales by volume are expanding between 5 and 7 percent a year.

LVMH's wine and spirits division accounts for about 20 percent of the company's sales throughout the world.