Additionally, virtually all serious investors pay to store wine in a temperature-controlled bonded warehouse to ensure that it remains in perfect condition and to avoid VAT and duty. The flat-rate costs involved can be particularly significant for lower-value wines. For example, Berry Bros & Rudd charges £10.80 per case of 12 bottles per year and Farr Vintners £8.50 per case, per year.

An alternative to holding fine wine directly is to invest via an unregulated collective investment scheme like the Wine Investment Fund or the Vintage Wine Fund. With minimum investments typically around £10,000, these can secure a greater spread of risk for a modest outlay than direct wine investment and have demonstrated some impressive track records. For example, the Wine Investment Fund has produced average returns after charges of more than 14 per cent, per year in the nine years since its inception.

Such funds have certainly appealed to their fair share of self invested personal pension (Sipp) investors but are hardly flavour of the month with the FSA, which is currently proposing to tighten restrictions on the marketing of unregulated collective investment schemes in the UK.

Edmund Tirbutt is a freelance journalist