The Case for Investment Grade Wine as a Strategic Alternative Asset (2012) [pdf]

Many popular California wineries only sell to those on their list, and often the prices are much below what you can get on the open market.

If you're on the list, every year you get a certain allocation. If the wineries are having a good year, usually you can turn a profit on every bottle. If they're having a bad year (where you would lose money) and you don't buy your allocation, they will reduce it in the future and if you don't buy anything that's when you likely get removed from the list. Sometimes in bad years you'll get an increased allocation, and if you buy it, they will increase your allocation in the future.

The wait times to get onto a list, or even just the waiting list can be substantial. For one winery, my friend has been on the waiting list since 1992 and he said getting on the waiting list itself was an accomplishment. Since my friend truly enjoys wine and is good with people, he's often able to move up in the waiting lists or just convince the proprietor to put him on the list even when there are other people waiting. He's also been able to call them up and convince them to increase his allocation.

He also spends time looking for new wineries that are going to blow up, much like hunting for startups.

My friend could easily make a nice little profit, or even just make enough to pay for his consumption, but chooses not to.

I chose not to do it because I hate wine and it's too much of a time investment. There's also the issue of not legally being allowed to sell the wine privately because it's not old enough. Nobody's going to bust you for a few bottles, but at a certain scale I could see it being an issue.

Actually the bigger problems are storage costs (the back of your cupboard just won’t cut it) and the less than reliable advice you will get buying in the futures market (the number of “vintages of the century” we have had in the last 15 years defies statistical plausibility). Of course if you like fine wine then even if it turns out to be a disaster of an investment you can at least drown your sorrows.