very new

[glcbeaufort]

I would like to get into collecting for investment reasons. I've seen some shows where it looked very appealing to do this. But, where do you start? What wines should I look for? Do good wines start out with a low purchase price and increases when the wine is determined to be a good one or do they start out high in hopes it will be a good wine?

[Jerry D Mead]

Don't do it...or at least not til you know and really enjoy wine yourself. The glories of wine investing for profit are highly overrated, primarily because there are few ways to "legally" sell your wine when you're ready.

Virtually every state requires that you have a license (like a wine shop or liquor store) to be able to sell wine. Some allow estate sales (doesn't do you much good when you're dead)and others allow you to sell through licensed dealers (but of course they want to buy at wholesale).

So the only practical ways are through licensed auction houses (commissions involved) or through trading with other wine geeks (which isn't strictly legal either, but rarely prosecuted).

So assuming you are wise enough to select wines with a track record that are recognized collectables, and they do elevate in value, you can then drink wine that's worth more than when you bought it, or trade a little of it for a lot of something else, or try to find a private buyer who you know isn't an ABC agent working a sting on you.

[Jerry D Mead]

Also, I note you're in the military, which might require moving your collectiop from time to time. Buyers of collectable wines want assurances that the wine has been well stored (cellar like temp and humidity) and that it hasn't been handled/moved around a lot.

[tomstevenson]

If you do decide to invest in wine, only blue-chips like Latour, Margaux, Mouton Rothschild, Yquem and Romanee-Conti will make money for you, but you need a fortune to buy them and should pay to keep them cellared in Bordeaux, selling only at high-profile international auctions after a minimum of 10 years. It's a long haul, but if you look at the stats, you will see that you would have made a handsome profit doing this whenever you happened to have invested in the past, so it's the nearest you'll get to a certainty.