Is it better to invest in sneakers or fine wines?

Trained by the world of resells and sneakers, Gen Z - contrary to the mainstream media narrative - is perhaps the most attentive and competent generation in financial investments. Understanding the mechanism of supply and demand, many young investors have honed and expanded their capital by playing on hyper speculative markets such as cryptocurrencies or the NFT. The competitive advantage lies in the speed of reading trends and in adapting to the market, a capacity that has thus made it possible to create from scratch giants of the tangible goods market such as StockX, today valued at 3 billion euros. However, many of the product categories on which Gen Z invests has very high volatility: a couple of Jordans - such as bitcoin and other cryptos - have very high price fluctuations and do not have a medium-long term guarantee. For this reason, many young investors over the years are broadening their horizons to diversify their investment portfolio and - against all expectations - among these new categories there is also fine wine.

Cantine Antinori

Chateau Cos d'Estournel

Chateau Pontet Canet

Tenuta San Guido

The bottles of fine wine - and by this we mean the great French reds, Champagne and the most famous Italian labels - are in fact numbers in hand an excellent long-term investment: about + 10% in 12 months and between + 160% and + 192% in 10 years, moreover the market has never recorded sudden collapses. The trend is rapidly rising as shown by the numbers of the first three months of 2021, when the value of bottles traded on the Liv-ex (the wine exchange index) grew by +124.8% on the first three months of 2020, and the number of buyers jumped by 45%. Today, thanks to new apps and sites, many are buying a Bordeaux cas sa instead of buying NFT or a Supreme boxologist to secure an asset that lasts over time.

Chateau Cos d'Estourne

Chateau Cos Labory

Chateau Coutenceau

Chateau d'Yquem

Chateau La Fleur Petrus

Chateau La Gurgue

Chateau Maucaillou

Fine wine can be defined as a passion asset, as such it can be compared to art, vintage cars and watches. However, it is a unique product of its kind for its economic behavior, wine, in fact, improves with aging and, due to consumption, becomes rarer. In addition, the production of a specific wine is limited to certain soils and is not like any other product of which more can simply be produced as demand grows. Unlike goods such as sneakers, wine is less influenced by the trends of the moment: to date it is difficult to predict the value of a sneaker also because brands have the power to create scarcity or flood the market (the case of Nike Dunk is evident), equally true for cryptocurrencies compared to legislation. The time span in which, however, it is possible to have a substantial profit is much longer - from 5 to 9, depending on the type of wine - and although it is possible to make deals on the spot by trading especially abroad, wine is - like its production - a reflective investment, which needs time.

The "natural" limit to production explains why in the last 10 years investments in fine wine have consistently recorded higher returns and according to the Knight Frank Luxury Investment Index, an index that monitors the price fluctuations of luxury goods, between 2017 and 2019 that of wine was one of the best markets with a growth of 19%.

How to invest in fine wines?

The world of wine - and in particular - of fine wines has remained for decades a bubble impervious to the outside world. Only those who had the economic means or a deep knowledge of the subject could access the market and find a bottle of Romani-Conti from 500 euros. In addition, the market has been dominated for years by a handful of critics and enologists who had a disproportionate power: a negative judgment would have crushed a wine causing its price to collapse. This kind of uncertainty and difficulty has alienated non-expert investors in the sector until the last few months, when - inspired by the resell market of fashion and luxury - apps and sites for trading fine wine were born. But the landscape is changing: a research by Forbes, tells how more and more women and young people are approaching the world of fine wines, the prerogative, historically, of men over 60 and high income, who on average spend, for a bottle of wine, 75 dollars.  To accelerate the trend, technology, the pandemic and the ongoing social changes, starting from the four reference markets: USA, UK, China and Hong Kong.

Inspired by the success of platforms such as StockX, among the new apps for wine trading is Vindome, one of the simplest and clearest to use that offers the possibility of entering the market quickly thanks to investments through two types of approach. The Collections mode offers the opportunity to access assortments of wines divided by budget and calibrated investment time horizons. A method designed mainly for beginners, which allows you to learn about the wines and the main mechanics of the market and to start creating a balanced portfolio of fine wines. Vindome Live Market instead allows you to operate in a real wine market in real time, browsing through hundreds of labels and where you can buy directly at the market price or make an offer, without minimum investments required.

One of the most interesting services that Vinedome offers is that each case of wine is labeled and sealed with an NFC tag and all transactions are recorded on the blockchain, thus ensuring its total inviolability. Many of the investors, however, would not have the opportunity to properly store their investment (temperature and humidity are fundamental factors for wine) and for this reason Vinedome offers storage in warehouses strategically located near the production regions (Bordeaux in France) and equipped with advanced technologies, capable of guaranteeing ideal temperatures, humidity and safety. As for sneakers, packaging is also fundamental in wine: the value of a bottle is significantly lower when it is not accompanied by its original case. 

In which wines should you invest? 

After so much theory we move on to practice, because the beauty of these investments - unlike financial ones - is that basically you buy a material asset, produced from the ground and people, aged in barrels inside magnificent cellars. A wine crate is an investment that can yield a substantial return. The advice for newbies is to rely on the advice of apps or experts, especially with regard to conservation and maintenance.

Among the safe investments are En Primeur labels - a way to buy the most sought after wines and thousandths when they are still in barriques, thus offering customers the opportunity to invest in a particular wine before it is bottled and available on the market - of the great French Châteaus of the Bordeaux region that at an affordable price offer excellent quality and considerable return on investment potential. These wines have a consolidated international market, some examples are Le Petit Mouton, Echo de Lynch Bages and Les Pagodes de Cos. Turning to Italian wines, in recent years thanks to a somewhat less parochial marketing, the Italian oenology of excellence is approaching that French. The labels to keep an eye on are in addition to Tuscans such as Brunelli and Super Tuscan (Sassicaia, Ornellaia, Gaja), Piedmontese wines such as Barolo and Barbaresco that are experiencing an important international consensus and recording remarkable financial performances.