Wine investor Tom Gearing has seen his fair share of nervous wine collectors trying to get into investment-grade French wine for the first time. Collectors often feel as though they need to spend thousands of dollars on the top wine estates in France in order to get decent profits from their investments, but this isn’t…
Bordeaux has enjoyed a long, prosperous history as France’s great wine region, but after 2011, wine collectors around the world were cautious of investing in the region’s bottles. The reason? In the early 2000s, Chinese wine enthusiasts became obsessed with all things Bordeaux, going from investing in an average of 12,000 hectoliters of wine…
Today, wine collectors consider Mouton Rothschild synonymous with premium Bordeaux, but this wasn’t always the case. The 1855 Classification in France passed over the estate in its first round of surveys, refusing it the title of Grand Cru. Despite the estate’s centuries-long history of viticulture, and its growing reputation as a role model for fine…
Thomas Jefferson once wrote, “I think it is a great error to consider a heavy tax on wines as a tax on luxury. On the contrary, it is a tax on the health of our citizens.” At the time this quote was written, Jefferson was in an intense fight against British taxation in the United…
The London International Vintners Exchange (Liv-ex) can teach collectors a great deal about the 1855 Classification, including what these old classifications mean in the modern wine market. As Liv-ex released its latest update in September, we find patterns in the organization’s findings that tell us more about the market value of top Bordeaux blends, and…
An old man I once spoke to in the beautiful, ancient village of Margaux told me that the Greek owner of Chateau Margaux, André Mentzelopoulos, had been captivated by the Ionic columns of the building at the Chateau because they reminded him of his homeland. Whatever the cause of his fascination, the Greek entrepreneur…