Decanter World Wine AwardsWealthy wine investors ‘not out for financial gain’
- Monday 20 August 2012
In a global survey of over 2,000 people worth at least £1m each, most cited wine last in a shortlist of ‘treasure assets’ – including fine art, classic cars, precious jewellery and antique furniture – that they’d regard as alternatives to standard investments.
Most wine collectors said they do it for enjoyment, consider their cellars ‘priceless’, and would not even bequeath them to their children.
Respondents from only two locations – Singapore and Hong Kong – mentioned wine among their top three choices for alternative investment.
‘We're hearing a lot about “SWAG” (silver, wine, art, gold) assets that people are supposedly buying and holding,’ said Greg Davies, head of Barclays Behavioural Finance and Philosophy, who helped with the analysis published in Wealth Insights – Profit or Pleasure?
‘We wanted to determine their genuine motivations. Are they doing it because they think these are great investments, or for enjoyment, or other reasons?
‘Overwhelmingly, the evidence came back that the other classes of motivation trumped the purely financial.’
Gary Boom, managing director of Bordeaux Index, was not surprised by the report, saying: ‘Every time the Financial Times runs a comparison of alternative assets – modern art, furniture, guns, stamps, you name it – wine always comes out on top.
‘But the PR machine for modern art, for example, is extraordinarily strong, while wine as an asset has not been well-marketed.
‘A lot has been promised but not delivered. And it’s true that there aren’t many who have made it easy for people to invest in wine.’
Have your say!
harry
August 24 11:02
This is not true - There are very good returns to be made from this market
Sandra Shoji
August 21 11:43
Older British wine people were smart. Buy 3 cases. One to taste over time to see if the wine was clean, how it was maturing, and to use to top up wine if the wine needed re-corking. Then one case to drink when it was perfect. The third case to sell to support your wine habit. They also had wine cellars in their basements and daily drinking wine was bought by the barrel.
bruce nichols
August 20 14:04
I just read and re-read through the 58 page report, and I wonder if the author (Maggie Rosen) and I were looking at the same report. The manner and spin on which she has chosen to interpret this study is very misleading right from the opening statement "Wine isn't seen as a worthwhile investment..."
Perhaps I didn't see that very pointed statement, but my takeaway was more from the camp that wine, like other treasure investments are purchased more for emotional reasons, not for investment. How Ms. Rosen chose to interpret this as she did is disingenuous and a classic example of selling negative news.
Perhaps she would be well served to do a little research on wine investing. Albeit that wine investments have retreated in the last year, the comparative returns overwhelmingly rest in wine's favor over equities in particular.