wines for investment

My best advice would be to not do it. First of all, the people you're likely to encounter here are wine _drinkers_ who, if they cellar wine, do it with the intention of consuming it, not reselling it. Investors are, quite bluntly, our nemeses, as they drive up wine prices for no good reason. That reason aside, though, wine is still not a good investment vehicle for most people: its prices, like any commodity, are very volatile and there is a high initial investment in storage conditions needed for high quality wine. Moreover, not all wines appreciate in value and those that routinely do do so in part because of their scarcity. The only way to obtain many of those wines is either to get onto a mailing list (that may take years) or to develop a good relationship with a retailer (that may take tens of thousands of dollars of expense). Another concern is counterfeit fine wines, a growing problem that was the subject of a recent thread here.

If, after all that, you still want to do it, your surest bet is to buy First Growth Bordeaux (Lafite, Latour, Margaux, Haut Brion, Mouton) as futures from a reputable retailer, place them into a professional storage facility for 10-15 years and then resell them on the auction market. In most years, that will realize you a profit of 100-200%[1] (~10% APR). Of course, the auction house will take their cut, so your actual yield will be lower. Looked at in that light, the stock market looks not half bad, no?

Mark Lipton, Pierce, Fenner and Smith

[1] Current auction values for e.g. Lafite from selected past years: 1995 $307 (up from $239 in first half of '06) 1990 $349 (up from $303 in first half of '06) 1989 $278 (up from $239 in first half of '06)

original retail prices for these wines:

1995 $175 1990 $75 1989 $80 (futures prices would be ~60% thereof) [Data courtesy of Wine Spectator April 7 issue and Wine Advocate]

"David Hallam" wrote in news:46022c60$1_1@mk-nntp-

2.news.uk.tiscali.com:

Why should we? the readers and posters at alt.food.wine love wine for its primary point of providing pleasure by drinking it. The only thing we do not need is an increase of demand from people that do not know a word about wine and want to take the best wines out of the market, to keep them a couple of decades in awful conditions and then try to make a profit selling cooked wine at high prices.

S.

No. Real estate. Stocks. Gold. Wine? HAHAHAHA!

Mark Lipton wrote in news:etu5nn$otd$ snipped-for-privacy@aioe.org:

My Father was a VP at a major investment broker. I once brought up the profit potential of investing in wine (this was the 90s when wine prices were just exploding). He said that wine was not very liquid. I pointed out that wine was a liquid.

On a more serious note, just don't do it. There is a story about traders that kept trading tins of oysters. They made a lot of money trading them back and forth. One day one of the traders was very hungry and ate one of the tins of oysters. When his friend returned he said "I ate one of those tins today and the oysters were great." His friend said "Those oysters are not for eating, they are for trading!"

Do not look on wine as a potential investment. There are way too many potential problems. The costs of selling and storage eat in to any profit very quickly. The return on investment is not in the wallet. I get good bargains and store the wines for many years to get good wines at inexpensive prices, not to make money at them. I have several cases of wine (1990 Sociando-Mallet) that go today for over $100 per bottle that I paid $23 per bottle several years ago. I could net about $70 if I sold it. The storage costs over the years hardly makes it worth it. I did better in the stock market. Being able to drink over $100 per bottle wine now at a reasonable price that I paid years ago sure is sweet.

Fred.

I agree that wine is for drinking and enjoying, not to make money, but if you stored the wine at your house, the storage cost is zero. Even if you calculate the cost of the square footage of your cellar as related to the cost of owning your home, let's face it in reality it did not cost you a cent, you would have had that (empty) storage place even if you had not bought those bottles...

Yes, do not invest in wine.

Mike Tommasi wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@mid.individual.net:

I paid a little less that $2,000 about 10 years ago for my cellar. My storage costs are not zero but it costs me no more to store 501 bottles versus 500. Amortizing all of my storage costs over all of my bottles it is not zero per bottle. It reminds me of a friend of mine that would leave one cookie in a box because she would think that all of the calories in the cookies might be in that one cookie. Business 101 says that the cost of a unit is total costs/total units.

Fred.

to the cost of owning your home, let's face it in reality it did not cost you a cent, you would have had that (empty) storage place even if you had not bought those bottles...

You have empty space in your cellar?

Jose

I have a case of 89 latour and a case of 90 mouton. both at $100/ a bottle in early 90's. not a good investment. I have a lot of 89 and

90 grand mayne at about 35 or so a bottle. all lousy investments. I have some 70 and 77 ports. they sell for less than the current parker rav e vintages.

I had some 88 and 89 cru burgs. richbourg and stuff like that. sold them in chiacago. made big bucks on that. a true accident.

better buy>Can anyone give advice on good fine wines for investment.

Theres too many to list! Depends on your budget. Penfolds Grange is one of my favorites to collect.

Those must be some bad years for grange. Other years are going for many times that amount.

The thing about wine is that very little of it is collectible. Unlike rare coins, they can always make more. there is often little to distinguish one year from the next, so if a 1964 is too expensive you acn always get a 2004 for much less. To be sure, some wine is collectible, but that is only a tiny percentage.

I just checked 89,90,91&86. 250 seems to be a going price. that's a pretty long bad string, 86-91.

not much around.

Don't know why grange prices do seem to be down. Just a few years ago prices were double that amount.