Fine wines

: a study of financial returns with a focus on the Covid-19 pandemic and key implications of wine frauds

Abstract

This dissertation investigated how fine wines can be a valid asset class and how they have performed in terms of returns in the past 6 years, with a focus on the COVID-19 pandemic.It analyzed the extensive literature around fine wines and the definition of fine wine and attempted to link the fine wine phenomenon to relevant notions in the literature on strategy and management theory. Qualitative data gathered through expert interviews aimed at validating fine wines as an asset class and to understand better what influenced price increases of fine wines, as well as how fake wines may limit the market and hamper growth. Fine wines were confirmed to be a valid asset class, recently gaining more interest due to the Covid-19 pandemic and the growth of fine wines into Asian markets. Experts further acknowledged that fake wines are a serious threat and that investors should always be careful, especially when buying from China, and buy directly from producers or trusted sales representatives to avoid fakes. Quantitative data used from the eWibe proprietary database, to analyze price trends and study price behavior. Fine wines have demonstrated the ability to deliver, on average, a 60% gross return over 6 years, which can increase up to an average 90% by selecting the fine wines produced in the two best performing regions, namely Burgundy in France and Piedmont in Italy. Finally, by comparing these two, we found that the April 2021 adverse weather had an average impact on Burgundy’s prices of 12%.

Date of Award	25 Oct 2022
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Peter V. Rajsingh (Supervisor)