Why is it that wine investment causes many wine lovers to get so out-of-joint?

“I’m uncomfortable with wine investment on a number of levels. Most wine people (generally those with enough money to buy and enjoy wine, but not enough capital to buy with any thought of resale) get truculent when it comes to this subject. I’m no different. Why on earth would someone buy wine to speculate on its value? Why would someone go out to buy a book with the notion of selling it on later? It gives you the sort of feeling you might get on learning your daughter has just got engaged to a professional online poker player. I mean, I know that’s a legitimate enterprise and, quite frankly, most of us would like to work from home but, darling, really?

It is one of the rare instances where the wine world can show some display of bolshiness. Yes, it would be remarkable to see Jancis Robinson MW or Eric Asimov stand on a chair at a UGC (Union des Grands Crus) Bordeauxtasting, Das Kapital in one hand, raising the other fist to the roof to decry the pig-dog western neo-liberal elites and their fetishism of fictitious capital, but it never quite goes that far.

The simple reason for this is that speculation (or investment) is relatively well accepted and understood in the wider context. Given that much of our economy is built on it, there is also tacit understanding that in some way we rely on it for our pensions. Complicit, we are. To a degree.

I recently met up with an old university pal and, while talking about one of his old friends, he told me they had lost contact. Why? Well, this guy had set up a business with some friends that speculates on the price of grain. He was using his capital to destroy some of the world’s poorest communities. It was literally playing with peoples’ lives. That was too much for me, he said, we had an argument. He hadn’t heard from him since.

Now we could argue that speculation of wine has taken a decent chunk of good wine out of the reach of the average consumer. It feels remarkably crass to say that after the previous paragraph, but one could make a good case for it. And indeed speculation in commodities will be as controversial as the vitalness of that commodity. Food, housing, etc. Great wine is, I’m afraid to say, not vital.

Or is it? The first point we should wrestle with is whether or not it is important that your average wino is able to drink great wine once in a while. I’d argue that for a full appreciation of wine, it is, and that speculators are stunting the growth of wine amateurs. But we shouldn’t get too hung up on this without answering the parallel question: can you find just as good a wine elsewhere, or for a fraction of the price? This is just as debatable but, if you look purely at the scores, there are clearly just as many — if not more — wines that are just as good as (but considerably less expensive than) the dream wines of your run-of-the-mill oligarch.

Thus the simple truth is that there is nowhere near enough speculation in the wine world.

Basically, rich investors are woefully unimaginative when it comes to buying wine for investment. We talk about mavericks or entrepreneurs or the progressively beneficial and unstoppable progress that capitalism (and the investments of capital) brings, and yet wine investment has remained “fine” since the first Englishman sniffed an “Ho Bryen” (Haut-Brion) and said “I’ll buy the lot”. While investment does creep in to Napa or China, you have to marvel at the fact that a fair few “blue-chip” New World wines are run by, or have connections to, Bordeaux. Investment in Port is rarely talked about (it used to be a thing), and it is telling that it seems somehow revolutionary that speculators have hooked into Burgundy in a big way lately. Way to go, moneyed trailblazers.

There are so many wines that are truly great out there (some of which remain crazily priced, most of which are within reach) and some regions that could really do with even a touch of speculative dollar, that you really have to question investors when they say they take on a “risk” when they invest. NB: risk is what is being referred to when investors say that if it doesn’t work out, they’ll drink their investment.

As a further aside, I have ignored the central truth of great wines: that the label is worth more than the contents. This is true of most luxury goods (to paraphrase someone on Twitter recently: you don’t buy a Hermes scarf because it keeps your neck warm) but because I’m being snobbish about taste, I’ve basically ignored it.

But it plays hugely into what, essentially, drives investment: the secondary market. People want to buy old bottles of wine. Whether it shares their birthday, an anniversary; whether it’s an iconic wine that everyone who is anyone wants to taste (Mouton ’45 anyone?); whether it got 100 Parker points, and so on. I’m sure some of the wines in a Christies auction catalogue taste very nice — in fact I can vouch for a few of them — but we’re not really talking about taste are we? As any expert on fraudulent blue-chip wines will tell you, taste is absolutely no way to detect an interloper.

And furthermore, let’s face it, if you want to acquire wines with more developed, secondary, tertiary, or uncommon aromas and flavors, you can go to your nearest Natural Wine bar. And I’m not saying that to be disparaging of Natural Wines — quite the opposite. It is strange that lovers of aged wines get snooty about Natural Wine when both categories deal in the less straightforward, not-so-primary profiles that one would find in their more commercial counterparts.

No, the stark truth is that wine speculation is spectacularly unimaginative, as minimal risk as is possible in such a commodity, incredibly small, and reassuringly unrelated to taste. It is a shame that it has denied certain categories from the reach of the average wine lover but let’s be honest, there is a lot of very good, affordable Bordeaux better made than the First Growths that were speculated on 40–50 years ago. If I’m honest with myself, the reason I’m sad I can’t afford these top wines comes from the same desire as that which drives secondary market.

If wine writers are serious about ending the evils of speculation as it stands, they should stop writing about these older, blue-chip wines — they should stop fuelling their cachet. (I don’t say this without a pang: Michael Broadbent’s Vintage Wine remains a cherished tome and I will forever retain fond memories of Serena Sutcliffe’s tasting notes in the Sotheby’s catalogues.)

But, to be really honest, we should actually encourage investment elsewhere. We should encourage the buying of birthyear wines and anniversary wines a lot more. Just not from a blue-chip auction catalogue. Dance like no-one’s watching, invest like there is no secondary market. There are any number of reputable wine critics who can guide your choice in the wines of wider France, Spain and Italy; beyond to Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Hungary, Croatia, Portugal, England, Lebanon, Israel, Canada, the US, Chile, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa, India, China, Australia and New Zealand. The choice is so vast that I know I’ll cop flak for the countries I’ve missed out.

Furthermore, even without regional specialists to guide you, I can almost guarantee you that when it comes to drinking a wine made in your wedding year on your 40th anniversary, just like with those who pop the cork on a ’45 Mouton, the flavor is not going to matter all that much.

Website: https://cwinex.io/

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