Problems We Solve
Wine investing is broken. Here's how we're fixing it.
Last updated
Wine investing is broken. Here's how we're fixing it.
Last updated
As wine enthusiasts and investors ourselves, we launched WineFi to solve the endemic issues that we saw as plaguing the industry. In our view, these are the factors that have prevented fine wine from becoming a mainstream asset class.
Investing in wine is a costly endeavour. As well as the purchase price of the assets, market incumbents often charge annual (~2 to 3.5%) and performance fees (10-20%) based on the value of a portfolio at a point in time.
In many cases, they will also mark-up the assets prior to selling them on to their customers. This effectively starts the investor "underwater" prior to any additional fees being charged.
At WineFi, we charge a flat sourcing fee of 10%. This covers the storage, insurance and management of the assets for five years -- equating to just 2% per annum.
Investors in our wine investment syndicate will gain exposure to a variety of wines at a far lower cost of entry (£3,000) than owning the individual bottles outright. More information is available below:
When you buy wine from a merchant, you have no sense of what the merchant has actually paid for them. This has led to a common practice of "marking up" to what they deem to be fair market value prior to selling them on to their investors. We see this as very unfair.
At WineFi, we use the Liv-ex Market Price as our benchmark. This is the best-listed price for a wine in the secondary market for trade-only buyers (e.g. what wine trade insiders can acquire them for). Where we can find discounts to this price, we pass those straight onto our members. We also use this price as a benchmark for performance.
Private Clients will receive receipts of purchase with your investment, proving both your ownership and the price at which we acquired the assets.
It is no secret that wine investment is a specialist topic. Many investors who are otherwise knowledgeable about mainstream asset classes may know very little about wine. Unhelpfully, there is also a culture of "take our word for it" that permeates the wine investment landscape.
As a result, less knowledgeable investors sometimes end up with portfolios filled with wines that are unlikely to appreciate or for which there is no secondary market at all.
Our job is to simplify the experience of investing in wine. Our Investment Committee selects and sources assets based on their anticipated return profile, and we provide a full write-up on why certain wines were chosen.
The wine industry is very much an "old boy's club" and the experience of investing in wine has often reflected that attitude. It can be difficult to independently assess what a portfolio is really worth with a lack of data to back it up.
All of our investment decisions are data driven, and members are able to track the performance of their portfolios in real time.
