Is Wine a Good Investment?

Alexander Westgarth of Westgarth Wine Investment Brokers Believes the Right Wine Investment is a Very Smart Market Play.

Their are so many wines on the market nowadays. There is no shortage of wineries in the United States or abroad and so many highly rated wines and even more lower rated wines.

Shelves and shelves of 2 buck Chuck and $7.99 to $12.99 specials from all sorts of diverse wineries and companies that seem to rely on cool names and bottle art rather than particularly quality wine.

I have to say that I had little or more like, no knowledge of the wine investment industry. I do have some friends in the industry and had heard stories of wine fraud that cost some investors a lot of money…

So like most I believe I really had no concept of what the industry was all about.

Enter Westgarth Fine Wine Brokers… I get a chance to speak with Alexander Westgarth who is a fine wine broker of 10 years and only deals with a very small, high quality group of fine wines. Alexander believes that the smaller fine wine market is a safe and stable investment market that can be entered relatively easily and can provide good and stable returns for the investor.

It was great getting to speak with Alexander who sheds much light and information on an industry that claims quite high returns even through some of our worst financial times and recessions.

At any rate, this is a wonderful glimpse into a word few know about and there is enough information here to start to find out if this type of investment may be right for you. – JW

Some of the questions we talk about…

• What constituents a fine wine?
• How much of a return can I expect on my wine?
• How long should I keep hold of my wine before selling it?
• What happens when I want to sell my wine?
• What guarantee do I have that I’m getting what I paid for?
• What’s the minimum investment I can make?
• How are you different from other US fine wine investment companies and funds?
• Is this kind of investment completely tax free?
• Can I drink my wine?
• How will I know when to sell?
• Does wine ever go down in value?
• Where are my wines kept?

Alexander Westgarth

At 31 years of age the company’s founder Alexander Westgarth has already achieved an impressive 10 years of wine investment brokerage in London.  The contacts he has established during this period have opened up access to vast quantities of the most prized wines—including those controlled by négociants, wholesalers and private collectors.

QUOTES ABOUT FINE WINE AS AN INVESTMENT

“Wine is one of the last great commodities in the world to be dragged out of the dark ages and traded on a global index.”

Claer Barrett, The Financial Times, December 5, 2011

“Fine wine is also a better investment than equities and commodities… Wine not only managed to weather the recession and the stock market crash, it thrived in comparison with the others.”

Jeremy Gaunt, Reuters,   March 1, 2011

“Liv-ex’s Fine Wine 100 Index, the London International Vintners Exchange tracks the price movement of the world’s 100 most sought after wines.”

William Lyons, The Wall Street Journal, September 19, 2010

“… a performance analysis of fine wine since 1950 indicates an average annual return of 15 percent.”

William Beck, Financial Times special report, May 20, 2008

“Keeping fine wine stored in a quality cellar like Corsham can add as much as 20 percent come auction day.”

Jamie Merrill, The Independent. January 13, 2012

Westgarth Wine Investment Brokers

Westgarth provides a fine wine brokerage service that brings the high-profit potential of the UK wine market to American investors. The United Kingdom boasts the world’s largest wine commodity market, advanced infrastructure and a government-regulated system that documents wines’ provenance. With these unrivalled benefits, there is no better route for any wine investor wishing to secure maximum returns than via the UK.

We source wines mainly in the UK and France, and bring you storage at the world’s greatest facility in Wiltshire, England. Come sale time, we can connect you with a global pool of buyers to maximize your chances of a quick and profitable sale—thanks to the portal of the UK market.

Our years of experience in UK wine investment put us in a perfect position to guide you to financial success in this proven area of opportunity.