Wine investment firm The London Vines collapses into liquidation

Another two companies offering wine investment options have gone into liquidation in the UK, including The London Vines Ltd with an estimated deficit of hundreds of thousands of pounds.

A creditors’ meeting for London Vines, which was formed in 2010 and collapsed into voluntary liquidation at the end of October this year, found the group to have a deficit of £590,000 (US$960,000).

Company assets are believed to be negligible, and the final deficit could still rise once all wine orders are accounted for.

London Vines’ demise follows the collapse of several companies offering wine investment in recent years.

‘I don’t know what the true deficit is yet,’ Joanna Wallace, insolvency practitioner, from Cheltenham-based Findlay James, told decanter.com.

‘Laura Goedhuis, of Private Reserves Ltd, is compiling a list of clients who have not yet received their wine. Some of the company’s clients have their wine, but not all the wine is there. At the moment, I can’t quantify what wine is missing but it may be substantial.’

Many of the investors were of retirement age.

Goedhuis emphasised that Private Reserves Ltd offers wine storage through Octavian Vaults and has no connection with The London Vines Ltd.

Separately, Ethical Elegance Ltd, a company that offered to exchange ‘underperforming assets’ and claimed to exchange ‘wine, diamonds, art, gold and silver’, has also gone into liquidation. The deficit is currently unknown.

Written by Jim Budd