On these pages you will find everything you need to know about investing in wine: the top ten investment brands, top ten traded wines, the best Bordeaux vintages to invest in, the best Lafite vintages, other investment wines, which merchants to contact and much more...
How to invest in wine – do’s and don’ts
Do’s
DO Develop a good relationship with your merchant or specialist wine investmentcompany. Not only will you get better advice, you are more likely to getpreferential treatment regarding highly sought after wines – particularly ifyou have bought good quantities of wine from them in the past. Most seriouscollectors/investors will also develop relationships with several merchants.
DO compare prices. The spread between merchants’ prices for the same wine canstill vary enormously despite greater transparency because of the internet. Toquickly compare prices visit, www.winesearcher.com.Another good place for competitive, real-time prices is Bordeaux Index’sLiveTrade site at www.bordeauxindex.com.Serious investors and collectors who require more current, historical andanalytical price and market information would be well advised to subscribe toone of liv-ex.com’s products at www.liv-ex.com
DO check the provenance and condition of the wine before you buy it.
DO make sure that your wine is stored in perfect conditions so that it willmature properly and predictably. For longer term maturation, wine requires thecorrect temperature and humidity together with a lack of light and vibration.
DO try to buy amounts of three to five cases per chateaux. Larger quantitiesare always more interesting to Trade Buyers.
DO keep the wine in bond with a reputable professional storage company or winemerchant. Make sure that your wine is kept separate from merchants stock and isclearly identified as your own. Make sure that your wine is insured to its fullmarket value.
Don’ts
If you are investing for the medium to long term, DON’T bank on quick returns.You may be lucky (or clever) in that some wines will go up rapidly in value.Generally, wine prices don’t go up in a linear fashion but tend to experiencefairly short periods of upward activity. Timing is therefore everything when itcomes to buying and selling fine wine. If you are speculating in wine over theshort term, you may see some exceptional returns on your investment in thecurrent bull run. But such speculation will always be a much more risky andvolatile endeavour compared to a longer term investment strategy.
DON’T believe all the hype surrounding wine investment. Sections of the presshave had a field day describing meteoric price rises of wines like 82 Le Pinwhich rose from £350 a case to over £30,000. Such wines are not only verydifficult to acquire, they are also extremely unrepresentative of the market asa whole.
DON’T buy wine which you happen to like, hoping it will go up in value. Stickto the tried and tested investment wines. Personal taste is irrelevant and hasno place in investment decisions.
DON’T buy wine en primeur from a new merchant. If the merchant goes bankruptyou could be left high and dry with no wine to show for it.
DON’T try to sell split or opened cases. The desirability and value willplummet unless it has the full dozen in perfect condition in its originalwooden case.
