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Wine Investment from a Latin American Perspective
In today’s market, despite these times of crisis, there is a lot of money looking for a safe home. Given low global interest rates, depressed stock markets, and collapsing property values, fine wine is undoubtedly an interesting investment, and as the top “New World” (Chile, Argentina, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand) wines continue to improve and compete with the previously dominant Bordeaux and Burgundy wines, there are an ever-increasing range of options. As with any investment, one needs to be aware of the risks and possible traps and take qualified counsel. So here are some basic guidelines to wine investing, some rules that anyone thinking of investing in fine wine should pay close attention to:
Serious investors might be interested in subscribing to www.liv-ex.com, the London International Vintners Exchange, which tracks the value of the top internationally traded wines, and through which a large amount vintage wine is traded. A disproportionate amount is vintage Bordeaux – of the top 10 traded wines on Liv-ex in 2008, nine were Bordeaux (of which the top 5 were the ever present Bordeaux West Bank 1st Growths, Latour, Lafite-Rothschild, Latour, Margaux, and Haut-Brion, followed by Petrus, Cheval Blanc, La Mision Haut-Brion, and Carruades de Lafite. In tenth place came the sole Burgundy, the super-exclusive and massively limited production Domaine de la Romanee Conti.
Argentine Wine Harvest: 2010
By Daniel Karlin
Argentina, due to its terroir, is known for only having good years and great years. The consistencies of the climate - dry, high altitude, porous soil, and fresh run-off water, make Argentina the workhorse of the wine world. With that being said, 2009 was not such a good year for wine production, but we are happy to report that 2010 is looking up.
From the one billion kilograms of grapes produced in 2009 about 12.1 million hectoliters of wine were made and about 30% (2.9 million hectoliters) of that wine was exported. In 2010 these numbers are expected to be 13.2 million hectoliters of production and 3.4 million hectoliters exported which represents respectable growth for Argentina in the world market.
Fine Wine Investors Thank Latin America for a Healthy Profit
Prices for the world’s most famous wines are rocketing, particularly those from the famous French Estates, providing investors with a relatively new and lucrative way of diversifying a portfolio’s asset base.
A Truly Personal Investment in Argentina and Wine
On November 3, 2004, only 36 hours after stepping off a plane from Los Angeles to Buenos Aires, Daniel Karlin met the girl he was going to marry. They just got married in July.
In the interim, Karlin, with the help of his wife Lourdes, started Anuva Wines, a company that sources, imports, distributes and markets boutique wines from Argentina for the U.S. market. The original impetus for the business came from a simple observation that tourists to Argentina fell in love with Malbec and Torrontés—the quintessentially Argentine varieties—just like Karlin did when he arrived. The problem was that they had virtually no way of getting more of these rare gems in the U.S
Torrontes: The Next Malbec
Since 2004 no other country has seen the meteoric rise in volume, value and market share figures that Argentina has in the import segment of fine wine to the U.S. Over the last two years, while all other segments of imported wine have been down in both value and volume except for Argentina’s across the Andes rival Argentina has seen value increase in 2008 by 26.6% (U$ 500m) and volume by 15.6% (18.1m 9L cases), and through 3Q 09 value was up 8.8% and volume 8.9%. (It’s important to note that over 50% of all wine sales in the U.S. are done in 4Q of any year due to the Holidays.)
