How to Invest in Fine Wines: A Step-by-Step Beginner's Guide

Bloomberg

23-06-2025

Strategies to build a wine portfolio that could make you money and give you something delicious to drink.
By
Illustrations by Rose Wong
In 2012, Domaine Armand Rousseau Chambertin Grand Cru Burgundy, vintage 2010, was released at £5,000 ($6,638) a case. Ten years later it was selling for more than £60,000.
Would-be wine investors get stirred up by numbers like these—a 1,100% increase. After all, the number of bottles of a top wine is finite. As people drink them up, ever-increasing scarcity drives their value higher. You just have to have good taste and be patient, right?
Like a great cabernet, the reality is more complex.
Passionate collectors buy wines they love and plan to drink, yes, but to invest you have to select the right ones at the right price at the right time—if you have access to buy in the first place—and have them maintain their value. To decide when to sell, you need data and a good grasp of the current wine market. Higher interest rates, inflation, consumer confidence and geopolitical events all affect it. Right now, the threat of tariffs has caused US buyers to take a sharp pause.
Still, cases of wine are tangible and won't disappear in a market crash—unless you need to drink them to take the edge off. A 2024 study of 50 US wealth managers by UK-based WineCap Ltd., which designs customized portfolios, found that 1 in 3 high-net-worth investors look to fine wine for stability in the face of stock market volatility.
The advent of commercial wine auctions in the US in the mid-1990s gave wine lovers a way to buy and sell rare bottles. But it wasn't until 2000 and the introduction of Liv-ex, a sort of global fine wine stock exchange, that investors had a transparent way to track the value of individual brands and vintages.
Technology has further transformed the wine investment space, with trends including blockchain tracking for authenticity, fractional investing schemes and digital sales platforms. Liv-ex may be only for merchants, but LiveTrade from London-based Bordeaux Index Fine Wine & Spirits, for example, is open to collectors as long as you store your assets in a UK or European Union in-bond warehouse. Sotheby's auction house even offers an 'instant' 90-bottle investment cellar for $25,000.
It's a good time to get in. 'Wine prices go in cycles of rising, falling, going flat, then rising again,' says Justin Gibbs, Liv-ex co-founder and deputy chairman. 'We've been in a down period, and we're closer to the bottom than two years ago.'
Tom Gearing, co-founder and chief executive officer of UK-based investment company Cult Wines Inc., says, 'Fine wine prices are approaching a five-year low. Château Haut-Brion 2021 is available at $315 a bottle.' That's about half its release price in 2022. But because the 2024 harvest in France was the smallest in modern times, future supply will be squeezed, pushing prices back up.
So what are some industry leaders buying? Matthew O'Connell, CEO of LiveTrade and head of investment at Bordeaux Index, sees the price dip in Burgundies and grower Champagne as a big opportunity. Some almost impossible to obtain grands crus can now be had, many at prices lower than they were two years ago. Rising trading has Anthony Zhang, CEO of Vinovest Inc., 'poised for cautious optimism' in 2025.
A reckoning is coming for Bordeaux futures, which used to be a big part of wine investment fund portfolios, Gibbs says. 'Release prices have been so high that if you bought a case of each of the top 50 Bordeaux châteaux when they were released as futures for recent vintages, you would have lost money.'
Investment Grade 101
Only a fraction of wines qualify as truly worth investing in. To be in that tier, a wine should …
① Be consistently made to age for 15 to 20 years or more.
② Have a long-established reputation for quality.
③ Be distributed globally.
④ Have a track record of appreciation.
⑤ Earn high critic scores.
⑥ Come in a case lot of 12 bottles, each (usually) costing $100 or more.
'The concept of what's collectible and investment grade is changing,' says Cult Wines' Gearing. 'The problem with up-and-coming producers and regions is they don't have the same liquidity as most blue chips.' Ample supply and demand makes blue chips easily tradable.
Those include Bordeaux, especially first-growth Lafite Rothschild, Mouton Rothschild, Latour, Haut-Brion and Margaux; Burgundy grands crus; prestige Champagnes; the Rhône's great Château Rayas; Italian Super Tuscans and Barolo and Barbaresco reds; and California cabernets.
Top names from Spain and Portugal have begun to gain traction, especially among younger collectors in search of value and quality. According to Liv-ex, Vinovest and Gearing, Spain's Vega Sicilia Unico was one of the successes of 2024.
'There's a lot of opportunity in other major regions,' Westgarth says, 'like Trimbach's Clos Ste. Hune riesling, from Alsace.' The Loire and Germany are also in the mix.
Benchmark Wine Group founder Dave Parker calls Oregon 'the new Burgundy' and has seen price growth for Washington state's Quilceda Creek, which has received 34 100-point scores from seven different respected critics.
As with stocks and bonds, spread your risk by investing in several regions and countries. And seek out older vintages from classic labels in classic fine wine regions.
Four Steps to Start
① Check your expectations
Ask yourself: Do you want to drink part of your collection, or are you in it just for the profits? Are you conservative, in search of blue chips with higher liquidity, or adventurous, looking for riskier up-and-comers?
Remember: Investing in wine is a long game. Even though sometimes rare, exclusive brands can be flipped quickly for profit—from January to September 2022, for example, a case of 2012 Salon Le Mesnil Champagne soared 232%, from $4,670 to $15,485—for the best gains, you really have to wait. Hold for at least 3 years, preferably 5 to 15, when enough bottles have been drunk to lower the supply, thus increasing prices.
② Research the fundamentals
Browse Bordeaux Index, Cult Wines, CultX, Vinovest and WineCap for general info, and Wine Market Journal for auction prices. Liv-ex's many indexes, from the Fine Wine 100 to Bordeaux Legends 40, track the most traded wines. Both Cult Wines and Liv-ex regularly issue reports on the investment potential of different regions. A newish Substack, In the Mood for Wine, features a very basic series on investing with detailed spreadsheets to get you started.
Although this shouldn't have to be said: Attend tastings and drink wine—and plenty of it!
③ Find a trusted adviser
Most top platforms, like Vinovest, offer a variety of ways to invest, from self-directed to managed portfolios. Some, such as CultX, LiveTrade and Vint, include trading marketplaces, and many, like Cult Wines, offer a one-stop-shop approach: strategy and selection; sourcing (provenance is huge); storage, insurance, market analytics and valuations; and experts to authenticate bottles.
Your budget helps determine which to choose. Portfolio plans at Vinovest start at $1,000, but LiveTrade's O'Connell says $10,000 is more realistic, because a single case of top Bordeaux or Burgundy could easily surpass $3,000. Alexander Westgarth, founder and CEO of WineCap, suggests $10,000 to $50,000. Remember to factor in fees, such as insurance and storage.
④ Store it
Keeping wine at the correct 55F temperature in a cool, dark place is essential. Experts agree that the value of wine kept in a well-known third-party bonded warehouse such as Octavian Wine Services Ltd. is higher than for bottles stored in your own cellar, and the best advisers offer it as part of their service. The annual cost to store a case of wine in the UK is about £15 to £20, Westgarth says. Find out if an expert checks a bottle's provenance.
The Big Five Regions
for a Balanced Portfolio
① Bordeaux
Bordeaux's long-held crown is slipping, says Liv‑ex's Gibbs. 'In 2010 its crus classés accounted for more than 70% of Liv-ex trades. But that's dropped to the 35% to 45% range.'
Despite the current downturn, says Vinovest's Zhang, some vintages of certain brands are good bets, such as 2005 Château Margaux, which has appreciated 12% annually. A solid buy now might be 2021 Château Lafite Rothschild. The UK merchant's 2022 release price was £5,800 a case, and in late May it was selling for about £3,900.
② Burgundy
Prices for red wines from this renowned region started soaring in the mid-2000s, with a peak in October 2022. 'Whites are now taking the top growth spots, suggesting a shift in collector preference,' Gearing says. Domaine Leflaive Chevalier-Montrachet, for example, bucked 2024's overall downward price trend, rising 8.1%; Vincent Dancer Bourgogne Blanc led with a 26.7% increase.
Consider regional or village bottlings like Chambolle-Musigny, O'Connell says, as well as hot micro-producers such as Kei Shiogai, whose wines can cost $1,000 a bottle. As for grands crus such as Romanée-Conti's La Tâche and other blue-chip grands crus? 'Prices will go up again, and perhaps before too long,' he says.
③ Champagne
Broad interest in Champagne started a decade ago, when investors realized great examples such as Cristal were undervalued. Despite 2024 declines of 11.2% on average, even for top-tier brands, high-end vintage and smaller-production prestige cuvées are still bubbling. One standout: Bollinger PN VZ16, up 10.7%.
④ Italy
'Italy is the strongest investment category right now,' says Benchmark's Parker. The number of Italian brands in the Liv-ex Power 100 more than doubled from 2018 to 2024. Gearing reports: 'Barolo and Barbaresco are outperforming many Bordeaux and Burgundy reds.' (Bruno Giacosa Barbaresco was up 7.5% from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31, 2024.) Elsewhere, Biondi‑Santi Brunello di Montalcino 2010 continues to hold its value.
⑤ California
In 2020, 200 different California wines traded on Liv-ex, an 809% jump from five years before. Napa Valley cabernet—Harlan Estate, Screaming Eagle, Dominus and Opus One—and Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello from the Santa Cruz Mountains are the main game. Also gaining traction: Sine Qua Non, MacDonald, Hundred Acre and Futo Estate.