Hedge Fund Managers Wine Collecting Club

Filed in archive on January 8, 2007

A recently published book, "Keys to the Cellar: Strategies and Secrets of Wine Collecting" by Peter Meltzer has become popular among hedge fund managers and other investment bankers who like to collect high priced vintages.

For instance, a case of Mouton-Rothschild 1982 cost about $400 (or $33 a bottle) when it was first available for sale. At a recent Sotheby's auction, 50 cases of the wine were sold for $1.05 million - or $1,750 a bottle, Meltzer said. A single bottle of Chateau Latour 1955 sold with commission for $28,440.

Wow, that's one way to invest I'm sure. But I'm guessing the resale value must drop severely once you actually drink the stuff.

Then there's buying the whole vineyard, hedge fund mavens interested in purchasing a Burgundy vineyard or expanding their investments, have the opportunity to invest in "domaines" There are about 4,000 of these "domaines" and 59 types of soil beneath the Cote d'Or's 50-kilometer (31-mile) stretch.

"Owning a domaine is a venture capitalist's dream, high in risk and if the weather is good and you're really lucky, you might make a 4 percent return. But owning a domaine is the greatest lifestyle imaginable." Says Wasserman, a vineyard owner in his own right.

It takes three years after the first harvest for the wine to be ready for market," says Wasserman, who has been a Burgundy wine trader for 40 of his 62 years. "You're not making a cent for three years, and then your buyers must wait a minimum of three to four years after that before they can drink it. Perfection wouldn't appear until the wine is six to eight years old.....The land will cost you $6 million, and that will produce 90 casks of approximately 25,000 bottles of wine."

Wholesale, the wine would fetch between 15 euros and 30 euros a bottle, the price more dependent on media hype than quality. On the shelf, the wine would probably retail for $50 to $55 a bottle.

"Your first sale on a $10 million investment at best would net less than $500,000 after three years,....And you're not going to sell all 25,000 bottles."

Oh, well. I wasn't really going to buy it anyway.