Is fine wine really a good investment?

　　It might be. But before you pull the trigger -- or, I suppose, cork -- on this, make sure you read the label closely. A bottle of claret is not the Holy Grail。

　　The facts, to date, look pretty impressive. If you had invested $100,000 eight years ago in compiling a typical cellar of the finest wines in the world, your investment today would probably be worth about $230,000. That's a return of about 11% a year。

　　That's based on the Liv-Ex 100, an index of top wines (most of them Bordeaux) tracked by Liv-Ex, a firm based in London。

　　The same amount invested in Wall Street over that period, largely because of last year's market mayhem, would be worth about $109,000. An intermediate government bond portfolio would be worth about $150,000。

　　Furthermore if you had invested in wine over this period you would have made your money with far fewer sleepless nights than the investor in shares. During the bear market of 2000-03 the biggest decline in the Liv-Ex 100 was about 7%. During the recent financial crisis it fared worse, but its worst drop was still only about 20%. That was a lot better than most other investments. Nor is wine's recent performance a one-off. Several academic studies have found fine wines have produced good investment performance during other periods in recent decades。

　　Since its launch in early 2003 the Vintage Wine Fund, a British fund that invests in wine, has reported a 22% return. The first five-year partnership set up by The Wine Fund doubled investors' money before dissolving, with happy timing, near the peak last August。

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　　Bullish points for wine: Outstanding wine is scarce and it has value to drinkers. There's only so much capital chasing it. Pension funds and U.S. mutual funds aren't bidding up prices. Furthermore, it is something of an 'uncorrelated' asset, meaning it won't necessarily rise and fall in line with everything else。

　　But before you jump in, here are some caveats to bear in mind。

　　The past isn't the future. Just because wine has outperformed over the past decade does not mean it 'outperforms' as a general rule, let alone that it will in the future. Recent outperformance either means it was undervalued before, or it is overvalued now. One factor that drove prices much higher this decade was a flood of buying from newly rich Asian investors. This is akin to the Japanese 'art boom' in the late 1980s. Who knows whether it will last?

　　While wine fared much better than many other assets during the financial crisis, it wasn't immune. And panicked and forced sellers still drove down prices and made it hard for anyone else to sell at a reasonable price。

　　Wine is liquid, but the market isn't. You can sell your stock portfolio in seconds. It may take months to sell a portfolio of wine。

　　The costs can kill your returns. Shipping and storage is expensive. And professional funds often charge hefty fees, including a big slice of the profits。

　　Look out for 'shrinkage' in your portfolio too. The two people I've known who tried investing in wine never made a penny out of it. They kept drinking it。

　　You really need to know what you are doing. That's true of any market, but probably more in wines, where expertise can be developed over decades, than in many others. The really smart money in the wine market is going to cream the dumb money。

　　Finally, investors in fine wine who take comfort to think they are buying something 'real' should think twice. Consumers may put a high price on what they enjoy. But then again, they may just say they enjoy what has a high price. A hilarious study of more than 6,000 blind tastings published by the American Association of Wine Economists last year found that people in general did not prefer more expensive wines. If anything, they tended to prefer the cheaper bottles. Prices for 2008 Bordeaux just jumped maybe 30% simply because uber-critic Robert Parker said he liked it. Ridiculous。

　　精品葡萄酒真的是一个好投资吗？

　　也许是吧。不过在你打算出手，或者打开瓶塞之前，务必要仔细阅读酒瓶上的标签。葡萄酒瓶可不是全能的圣杯。

　　到目前为止的数据还是相当惊人的。如果你在八年前花10万美元搜罗了全世界最为经典的精品葡萄酒，到今天这些酒的价值大约已经高达23万美元了，年回报率为11%。

　　这一计算的依据是伦敦国际葡萄酒交易所(Liv-Ex)编列的Liv-Ex 100顶级葡萄酒(多数为波尔多葡萄酒)价格指数。

　　Getty Images而如果同时期把同样多的钱投在华尔街，现在的市值大约只有10万9千美元，这在很大程度上得归因于去年的金融危机。如果投于中期政府债券，市值则是15万美元左右。

　　而且，假使你在这段时期投资的是葡萄酒，那你要度过的不眠之夜比起那些股票投资者来说要少得多了。2000至2003年熊市期间，Liv-Ex 100指数的最大跌幅在7%左右，最近这次经济危机中其表现要糟糕得多，不过最高的跌幅也就是20%上下，要好过多数的其他投资。葡萄酒的良好表现不仅仅是在最近，多项学术研究都表明，在过去几十年间，精品葡萄酒都不失为一个好的投资项目。

　　英国的顶级葡萄酒基金(Vintage Wine Fund)创立于2003年年初，致力于葡萄酒投资，到如今已获得22%的投资回报率了。葡萄酒基金(The Wine Fund)设立的首个为期五年的合伙制基金在最好的时机，即去年8月份高点时期散伙，投资者的资金整整翻了一番。

　　有关葡萄酒的乐观数据：精品葡萄酒数量有限，备受酒饕们的珍视。目前投资葡萄酒的资金就这么多，养老基金和美国共同基金尚未介入，所以价格也还没涨上去。而且，它是一种“无关联”资产，也就是说，它的价格不会随着其他各种投资品的价格而波动。

　　不过在涉足葡萄酒投资之前，切记这些警告。

　　过去不代表未来。过去这十年来葡萄酒表现优异，并不代表它现在也会表现优异，遑论未来。最近的表现优异说明要么是过去我们低估了葡萄酒的价格，要么就是现在我们高估了其价格。这十年来葡萄酒价格飙升的一个原因是新富的亚洲投资者开始纷纷购入葡萄酒。这种情况跟20世纪80年代日本的“艺术品热”相类，有谁知道这种好景能维持多久呢？

　　在经济危机期间，葡萄酒的表现要好过其他很多资产，那也不是说它就是坚不可摧的。当恐慌的卖家不得已以低价抛售葡萄酒时，其他人也就很难把酒卖到合适的价格了。

　　葡萄酒是一种灵动的液体，葡萄酒市场却没那么灵活。你可以在几秒钟之内卖掉股票投资组合，出手葡萄酒投资组合却需要好几个月的时间。

　　这其中的费用会抵消你的回报。酒的运输和存储耗资巨大，葡萄酒投资基金还要收取巨额的费用，包括很大一部分的收益提成。

　　你还得警惕投资“缩水”的情况。我认识有两个人就是投资葡萄酒却没有得到一分钱的收益。酒都被他们自己喝光了。

　　你必须对自己的投资行为有着非常清醒的认识，任何市场都是如此，不过葡萄酒市场尤甚，因为在过去几十年间，这个市场已经发展得非常专业。在葡萄酒投资市场上，傻钱总会被聪明钱卷走。

　　那些认为买入葡萄酒就等于买入“货真价实”的物品的投资者要三思了。美国葡萄酒经济学家协会(American Association of Wine Economists)去年发布了一项有趣的研究结果，6000多名试验者品尝了葡萄酒，但他们并不清楚这些酒的贵贱，结果显示，多数人对于贵的葡萄酒并无偏好，很多人甚至还更青睐那些便宜的酒。而在品酒大师罗伯特•帕克(Robert Parker)说自己喜欢2008年的波尔多酒之后，其价格便迅速飙升了30%左右。简直不可思议。