Some of you may have heard of some very exciting alternative investing opportunities. From crowdfunding small businesses to Gold IRAs, everyone is looking to diversify their portfolios. There’s a lot of sense to that approach: between inflation and volatile markets, it’s in your best interest to find safe and profitable ways to invest your money.
One of the investment opportunities that has usually only been available to the ultra-wealthy has been fine wines. Some fine wine portfolios have increased over 10% year over year. And now everyone has access to that world thanks to Vinovest.
Vinovest is a platform for everyday people to get involved in the world of fine wines. And one of the best parts, you can actually partake of your portfolio. To mix metaphors, you can have your wine, and drink it too.
Why Wine?
According to Forbes, wine is an exploding investment opportunity. It has significantly out-performed the stock markets, and there are well-established wine exchanges that have tracked the best investment wines for years.
When recognized financial publications like Forbes and Morgan Stanley are talking about investing in fine wines, you know it’s not a fad. Thankfully, Vinovest has come along to put fine wines into the reach of everyday people.
Who is Vinovest?
Founded in 2019, Vinovest is run by people from a diverse set of backgrounds. The co-founders have venture capital and start-up experience, and they employ a team of dedicated wine experts, from sommeliers to winery executives.
All this means that not only does Vinovest have the financial chops to determine a good investment from a bad one, and the technological know-how to run a good company, but they also have the expertise necessary to make sure they’re picking good wines.
One of the biggest hurdles to investing in wine is knowing what a good investment is. And with a case of fine wine running into the thousands of dollars, it can be expensive finding out if you were wrong or right about your investment.
Vinovest has eliminated that guesswork. You can rest assured that you’re selecting from a curated list of fine wines that not only suit your taste, but will appreciate in value, as well.
How Does Vinovest Work?
Investing with Vinovest couldn’t be easier. It’s a simple three step process that’s designed to be straightforward and even a little bit fun.
The first step is to create an account and finish a quick survey. This survey will help them build an investment plan that suits your goals. Once you’re signed up, the second step is to choose your wines. Vinovest says they can have most portfolios selected in 2-3 weeks. After that, you own all the wines in your portfolio.
A Note On Ownership: This is not an IRA, which means you do own your wine. While there are more traditional ways to invest in luxury items, those avenues mean you can’t physically possess your assets. For instance, if you invest in precious metals with a Self-Directed IRA, you can never hold or trade your gold yourself. Vinovest has a different model. You can have your wine shipped to you whenever you like.
The third step is perhaps the most fun—watch your investments grow. You will have an online dashboard that shows you details of your investments, and you can call Vinovest any time with questions or advice. You can also have your wine shipped to you to enjoy at your leisure.
In the meantime, Vinovest will store and insure your wine for you. Part of their fee structure goes toward storing your wine assets in secure facilities that make sure your investments are safe.
How Does Vinovest Choose wines?
Because fine wines are a multi-faceted market, Vinovest uses highly tuned tools to approach your investments. The basic prongs to their approach are their proprietary algorithm and their expert sommeliers.
The Algorithm
Utilizing their expertise from the tech world, Vinovest has put together a market-analytics program that takes millions of data points into consideration when choosing wines. Their program looks at what critics have said about the wine, but it also looks at past market performance, the vintner's brand value, and even what the wine has sold for in secondary markets.
This algorithm ensures that your investment isn’t being made using someone’s “gut” reaction to the market, or worse, only picking a wine based on the name on the label. While the clout of a producer means a lot, it’s not everything, and Vinovest takes weather conditions, global trends, and modern tastes into consideration.
Expert Sommeliers
Of course, a computer program can’t drink wine. And really, the proof of a wine is in the drinking. That’s why Vinovest has taken on a board of advisors with specific and detailed knowledge of wine—how it’s made, how it’s stored, how the grapes are grown, and yes, how the product tastes.
By taking the human expert opinion into account, and melding it with the computer analytics, Vinovest has created a truly remarkable model, where the data and the taste hold weight, and both help Vinovest curate a unique investment portfolio.
What Does it Cost?
Vinovest has four tiers of investment, each with their own perks and fee structure. These tiers are determined by how much you’d like to invest. And remember, you can always add to your portfolio.
The fees are structured annually, and range from 2.85% down to 2.25%. These fees cover all the work Vinovest does for you behind the scenes, including storing your wine. As for the quality of your wine storage, their UK facilities share space with the Royal Family’s wine holdings. Impressive, to say the least.
Reasons For and Against
Why We Recommend Vinovest
The world of fine wine can be mysterious and risky. Not to mention expensive. Finally there’s an approachable, low-risk way for people of almost any walk of life to invest in fine wines: Vinovest.
We recommend Vinovest for the simple reason that you can not only enjoy the returns on investment, but also enjoy the wine, too. With other diversification models out there, you don’t really get to enjoy the product you’re investing in. With a gold IRA you can’t hold the gold and with crowdfunded investments you don’t get any perks from the business or property.
But with Vinovest you can have wine shipped to you whenever you like, for any reason. And on top of all that, Vinovest is looking out for you to become a more savvy wine consumer. They have constantly updated education tools and articles for you to broaden your wine knowledge and grow your portfolio.
Why Vinovest May Not be Right for You
Investing in fine wine is definitely not for everyone. Not the least of which is the aforementioned cost. The minimum to invest with Vinovest is $1,000, and that’s alos the minimum deposit.
Another reason to perhaps be wary is the risk. Not every wine is created equally, and while the folks at Forbes and Morgan Stanely have noted that wines in general have performed very well, that doesn’t mean every bottle has.
If you’re risk averse, or if you need absolute security in your portfolio, then investing in wines may not be right for you, no matter who it’s with.
Pros and Cons
Conclusion
We recommend Vinovest to anyone who wants to diversify their portfolio, or even to anyone who likes to enjoy fine wine on occasion. If you find yourself spending even only $100 a month on fine dining, then you can easily see how $1,000 a year investment in fine wines is not only reasonable, but even a great deal.
With the ability to not only realize growth on investment, but also the chance to drink some of your portfolio, we can’t see the downside to giving Vinovesst a visit.
FAQs
No one can exactly predict the wine market, but Vinovest has seen over 10% growth in the market, and Forbes has seen wine out-perform the S&P 500.
Yes. It’s your wine, you can do with it whatever you want—drink it, trade it, give it away.
Vinovest is Beta-Testing an exchange similar to the stock market, but for wines. You still need to create an account with Vinovest, but there are no minimum deposits. Keep in mind, though, that this is still in beta.
Because you are buying through a bonded agent (Vinovest) and storing in their bonded facilities around the world, you do not pay taxes until the wines are removed from their warehouse. You would need to contact an agent about specific tariffs and taxes when it comes to a specific wine you own.
When you create your account, you can adjust their algorithm to be as aggressive or conservative as you like, based on your preferences and risk aversion.