Is Investing in Wine Worth It?

In 2023, Sotheby’s Wine & Spirits broke a record when worldwide auction sales reached a new high for the third year in a row. The auction house facilitated nearly $160 million in sales, including over $100 million in single-owner sales. 

The makeup of these sales was as experts predicted: The top three producers, accounting for close to 40% of sales, came from France’s Burgundy region, renowned for its Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. 

At the surface level, the purchases, sales, and investments are easy to understand for those involved in the art of wine investing or collecting. Like any other commodity, the laws of supply and demand apply. And because the supply of any particular wine goes down over time — generally because we drink it — demand for the best bottles goes up. 

“Wine, unlike art or watches, is always going to be a diminishing supply,” says Marc Smoler, who until recently was a senior vice president at Hart Davis Hart Wine Co., a Chicago-based auction house. 

But it takes more than rolling up to a winery and buying a few cases of your favorite bottles to start investing or collecting. According to the people who collect, and the consultants who help them build great collections to drink or sell, if you’re looking for a return it’s important to understand which wines are in demand and what they’re worth. 

What wines are worth investing in?

“The benchmark classics are classics for a reason,” says Smoler, using Champagne as a benchmark example for sparkling wine. “They tend to have the most demand. It’s hard to say, ‘Hey, this new wine is the greatest thing in the world and collectors are going to clamor for it and it’s going to double in price.’It’s not going to happen.” 

Logistically, buying, selling, and pricing wine as an investment is pretty opaque to the average enthusiast. On the secondary market, the value of wine is subjective, and the price can fluctuate based on who you’re buying from and how much they’re selling it for. The same goes for sellers, and often, Smoler says, retail prices listed on marketplace websites like Wine Searcher never materialize for investors. 

“If they’re going online and seeing full-on retail offer prices, like, ‘This place is selling my Screaming Eagle for $3,000 a bottle, I want [to be paid] $3,000 a bottle — it doesn’t work like that.” 

Instead, major wine sales are usually handled by one of the large auction houses, including Sotheby’s and Hart Davis Hart, and prices fluctuate depending on countless factors, including the overall economy.

For example, according to Smoler, “During Covid, things got really, really hot and prices went up fast. People were consuming and buying with nothing else to do. It was a real bubble.” 

For instance, a collection of wine from Del Posto, the now-closed restaurant from disgraced chef Mario Batali, “did unbelievable,” at auction, says Smoler. “Things were selling more than retail prices in the auction.” 

That kind of success is unusual, but not unheard of under the right circumstances. Besides pent-up lockdown demand, the fact that the collection came from a single-owner cellar helped boost the price. 

A wine’s provenance, where it comes from, who owned it, and how it was authenticated and stored, matters a lot on the secondary market. For example, a wine that’s traded hands multiple times and flown from France to London to Hong Kong and back again is worth less than a bottle that’s sat in a restaurant’s wine cellar for decades. This is because simply moving a bottle can affect its quality, not to mention temperature fluctuations and other variables that come with travel. 

To drink or not to drink

Another challenge to wine-as-investment, for both producers and people who enjoy drinking it, is that wine is fundamentally created to be enjoyed, not shelved like an antique.

“I know most producers of wine, including the wine collected by millionaires and billionaires, ultimately want people to drink their wine,” says Sara Sparks, a consultant who has worked in Sotheby’s retail wine sales, and as a bartender at New York City’s Le Bernardin.

“Champagne producers [for example] are sick of seeing their wine that they sold for $100 being sold at auction for $3,000,” says Theo Lieberman, a private consultant and wine director at New York’s Delicious Hospitality, who has crafted wine lists at buzzy restaurants like Charlie Bird and Pasquale Jones. 

As a consultant, Lieberman prefers to work with collectors who have an interest in building a unique and personalized collection full of bottles they’re excited to enjoy, as opposed to those who are buying up bottles in pursuit of profits. 

It’s a romantic notion, to be sure. But wine is a legitimate investment, and some are working to democratize the practice — or at least make it easier for anyone to get in on the potential monetary returns. 

Anthony Zhang, the cofounder and CEO of VinoVest, an online platform for wine investing, created a system in which clients can commit as little as $1,000 to their online wine portfolios. VinoVest uses a mix of human sommeliers and computer algorithms to source and purchase wine. The company also stores and insures bottles on behalf of clients. 

VinoVest was founded out of Zhang’s frustration with his own wine-investing experience. “Working in technology, I was seeing how easy all my other investments were, except for wine,” he says.  

Zhang likens investing in wine to investing in tech startups. Both require significant time to pay off, at least seven to 10 years, he says. In other words, wine is not crypto — in a good way.Zhang says most VinoVest users don’t actually drink their investments, but it is possible for a VinoVest investor to dip into their own stash for special occasions. 

“It’s more like a cherry on top, that it’s actually real, you can drink it,” he says. “You can’t redeem your Apple stock for a laptop — this is a real thing that you can do because it’s a real asset.” 

Online platforms aside, investing in wine on a smaller scale is possible with the right mindset.

“If you’re smart, you can take $1,000 and turn it into $1,200 and then $1,800 [or] $3,000,” says Thatcher Baker-Briggs, a chef-turned-sommelier, consultant, and owner of Thatcher’s Wine in Los Angeles. “But if one bottle of wine costs $15,000 and all you have is $15,000, that’s not a diversified portfolio.” 

“Wine always appreciates if you buy correctly — if you’re buying smart, at a good price with good provenance, and storing it correctly,” he adds. “I’ve made people 400–500 times their investment.” 

Of course, like any investment, nothing is truly guaranteed. When it comes time to sell, is the average collection really worth what its owner thinks it is? 

“It’s usually less,” admits Baker-Briggs.“Everyone has to make money to sell the wine.” He notes that the actual cash return for a seller is at least 25% less than the lowest retail price listed online after everyone involved in the sale takes their cut.

“If you’re trying to sell a $5 million collection, you probably don’t know the person that’s going to buy it,” he says. “If you do, great, sell it to them. That’s amazing.” 

Or, you could drink it. 

Rob Moose, a musician and wine collector from Southern California, started his personal collection, with no intent to sell, over a decade ago after falling in love with a bottle of 2010 Patrick Piuze Les Preuses Chablis. But when Moose learned some bottles he bought ten years prior had appreciated significantly — six times the cost of what he paid — he got nervous. So  he reached out to friends in the trade for advice. 

Enjoy it, they told him. 

“They all said, ‘Of course we could sell it for you, but those are great bottles,’” says Moose. “his is what you’ve been waiting for.”