As a fine wine expert I feel you’re definitely the right person to ask,
what are your tips for investing and collecting Bordeaux wines?
We need to start by splitting those 2 things separately,
collecting and investing;
it’s almost like not mixing
business and pleasure.
If you’re talking about collecting, so you’re collecting predominantly
for what you like, for what you want to drink in the future,
for what you’re buying maybe for your kids, for your kids birth years
etc. There’s some wines which might be sold in the future
and some of my clients who say 'I bought it for myself
and now it’s 10 times the price
from the original,
I better sell it' and if you’re
talking about investing, you’re purely looking from
an investment perspective. It’s difficult because
from my own experience on myself, I could
say sometimes when you’re investing in wine and you’ve got a
sweet spot for a specific producer. But are they really
worth buying for investment?
Well, it’s a big question. So basically first tip,
you need to split very separately; what is collection
and what is investment. Ok.
It feels like maybe collecting is more personal and
investing is more rational. So, then what would be your tips for building my cellar? If, say, I have a cellar.
But what would be your tips for building a cellar?
First we got to start with where you’re going to keep your wines.
So, if you going to keep them at home
will it be in a fridge? Or maybe you have an underground cellar?
Another option is will you decide to keep your wines
in a professional wine warehouse?
Or could be both. Some people because of a
lack of space in their own home,
they keep a certain amount in a bonded warehouse.
In the UK we are very lucky to have a several very,
very good, bonded warehouses,
where wines are kept, the temperature and humidity are controlled. After that
you are filling up your wine fridge or cellar at
home when it’s needed. So that would be a
first step. Location? Location.
After that, if you’re talking about collecting wines
for yourself
and for how long you want to keep
those wines. One of the tips I would say also
when you start collecting and again I saw
from my own experience and my friends, and my clients.
You know when you start collecting and you like
certain wine, i had one client,
he was really in love with wines
from Australia.
1 year later, 2nd year later,
his view about the
wines start to change. He started to
get more interested in more subtle wines from Bordeaux
and Burgundy and his cellar was full up to
the ceiling with Australian wines.
So don’t let that passion go over
too much, you know. Keep a balance. As a collector?
As a collector, yeah. Things change in life.
We change what we wear, we change what we think
and the cellar will also change. So don’t buy
too much of the same wine.
Keeping a balance as well in your collection don’t go just, let’s say
for reds, just for whites. Because
it will be different in seasons, so in summer
you might drink white wine, you might drink rosé.
In the winter you tend to drink more red wine
when it’s cold outside, you know. Also having
some wines when you are having bigger parties,
when you’re guests are arriving in your home! Its worth having
wines at a different price points. Ok. So keep enough space
for future, mix up the colours
and have party wine.
These are great tips! Martyn, what would be
your top tips for spotting a good value wine?
One of the categories, I would say for really good value wines are 'Second Wines'.
Of the famous Châteaus. We’ve got an example here,
Château Palmer, there second wine is Alter Ego.
Other kind of good value second wines, is
Reserve De La Comtesse. Thats made by Pichon
Lalande, Croix Canon made by Château Canon
or Le Petit Smith Haut Lafitte made by Château Smith Haut Lafitte
So those are basically wines that are made by
one of the best producers not only in that region but in the
world. So they are using that expertise, they’re using
their facilities, they’re using the same vineyards
predominantly what they would use for their best wine.
Just the second wine is usually maybe from a
younger wines or some
barrels of wine that they made which is not
performing at the super level,
so they get de-classified to a second wine.
Like this you’re paying 3, 4 times less
than for a grand one but you get
all of that expertise, all that love and everything,
pretty much for a grand wine.
So this is one of my favourite value for money Bordeaux
and this is what we really like at ELICITE. The second
tip I would say for really good value good wines,
is smaller châteaus, maybe not from famous appellations
who are owned by
really good producers.
So, we got Château Potensac, it's based in the Medoc,
but is owned by Château Léoville-Las Cases
one of the best producers. So again all expertise
goes in to this small property
producing really good wines,
or Château Sénéjac made by the same people
who make Château Pontet-Cane.
So, you know. I’ve followed your advice I have this beautiful cave, this cellar
and I’ve enough space for my future collections and a mix of red
and white, and I have some party wine ready to go.
But obviously, my wines are ageing
and Ive presumed there’s a best peak for
reds on average and maybe the same for whites.
How do I know when the wine is actually ready to drink?
That’s quite a good question and quite complex I would say,
because as I explained all wines are quite different.
When they are ready to be drunk it will be at a different time.
So it’s important to either mark on your cellar in a specific area.
Some of my clients what they like to do, they
separate the wines; this is for drinking now,
this is for in 5 to 10 years and this,
just just forget for another 15 years.
You can lay your cellar like that and afterwards when you walk in,
in the middle of your party, you know those different sections.
I can grab a bottle,
and this is definitely ready to drink now.
and whether it's drinking now or to keep,
it really depends on the wine, on the vintage.
Right, so the bottle doesn’t just go, “I’M READY!”
No unfortunately not.
So you were talking about storing the wine and having a cellar
and obviously some people probably have 100s of
metres of cellars under their houses and some of us
have an apartment if we’re lucky. What are the best conditions
for storing a wine?
We need to look at 3 factors; so it’s light,
there has to be no direct sunlight,
either you need to keep it in an underground cellar or you need to keep
it in a fridge. Ideally there is no
light at all. 2nd is the temperature,
I guess ideally we are
looking at about
14 / 16 degrees temperature,
it could be a little bit less, it could be a little bit more.
The most important factor is no big
variations. It doesn’t need to be completely the same,
because if you look at the natural cellars where
producers are keeping their wines, in Burgundy, Bordeaux
anywhere around the world, they're natural cellars.
They are quite deep under the ground but
variation between summer and winter, it fluctuates.
But when there’s fluctuation from 8
degrees to 18 or 20
that’s not good because wine contains water.
The high temperature is increasing
the lower temperature is decreasing, so what is happening
basically the wine could start to come out through the cork
and oxidise. So fluctuation is not good
and after is humidity; if your cellar is very
very dry, you are at risk for the cork to dry
and basically when a cork dries, your wine
will oxidise. Some air will get inside the wine,
so the three main factors but storage is
very very important for wine. You know you can buy
one of the best wines in the world, you know and if you’re not storing
perfectly, well a few years later, it’s not
going to be one of the best wines in the world.
What about the provenance of the wine? I’ve heard the word provenance, what does that actually really mean?
So, provenance is basically where a wine effectively comes from.
And it’s very important when you
buy a fine wine because we need to consider
where the wine was stored before
as we learnt storage if very very very important
because you might buy 20 years old wine, and that bottle
or that case of wine wasn’t stored perfectly,
So, the wines will be ruined and you’re in big danger you know keeping that special
bottle of wine for that special occasion and on a
day you open and you go ‘oh my God, this is really really
disappointing.’ So, that’s very important.
Also really expensive wines are being faked.
So, it’s very important from who you buy those wines, so you buy
from trusted, reputable
wine merchants. This is, you know, to make sure that those wines are well stored and not fake.