Looking for investment wines

[hotwine]

I don't recommend purchasing wines for long term investment. The main reason is provenance: by that I mean proving to a future buyer that your wine has been properly stored and cared for since you purchased it from a reputable dealer. Proper storage means storing it on its side in a cool (55-57 degrees) damp (70-80% humidity) dark place, free of vibrations. And the bottle would need re-corking by a professional sometime around the 20-year point. How do you go about proving proper care over a 20-30 year period? You could pay a wine broker to store it for you, and show the buyer your receipts for monthly rental payments, but that seems a bit extreme. You could buy one of the upright electric "wine cellars" that are quite popular now, which provide proper storage and look almost like furniture in your home; but how would you prove to a future buyer that you had kept the wine in that device for the period of years, and that it had functioned properly during the entire time?
Peronally, for long term investments, I stick to real estate and a few quality common stocks. The longest period that I have kept a wine was 20 years, and since I wasn't able to properly store it that whole time, the fact that it was still intact was blind luck. (It was a 1980 Chateau Lafite Rothschild; we drank it last September on the Wall Street Journal's declared "Open That Old Bottle Night". I had bought it while visiting Europe on business in 1986, and although 1980 did not turn out to be a good year for Bordeaux, it was still superb.)
I recommend real estate - it'ss a lot less hassle.