There is investing in wine to drink, investing purely to sell on and then a probably healthier, happy medium. As a rule of thumb you should buy wines that you would be comfortable drinking. At Tanners we have not used the term ‘investment’ to sell wine since the 1966 vintage!

People who make spectacular returns on odd cases will tell you about it, but they will keep quiet about the modest performance of the rest. Wine prices on the secondary market are very volatile. They are highly responsive to downturns in the economy and reputations are easily destroyed by the verdicts of one or two very influential journalists. You should think long term and take an overall view, keeping wine as part of a balanced portfolio of investments.

Many of our customers enjoy buying their wine early En Primeur (Lying Abroad) when they have the pick of the harvest. Long term, over a number of vintages, customers should have paid less for their wine and they will have enough of the best to cover their future drinking. Some wines increase in value over their lifetime if they have a distinguished reputation, are produced in limited quantities and have become rarer as they get older – the basic principles of supply and demand on the marketplace.

Wines for investment are best stored with us ‘In Bond’ which gives good provenance and importantly allows you to sell them ‘In Bond’ to other wine collectors. Find out more about Wine Storage.