Collect Wine, Cut Tax

 Start Your Own Classic Wine Collection

 One of the many times a little wine knowledge reaps dividends is knowing what will get better with age and what won’t. Whether you’re planning to sell it on or simply drink it at its most delicious moment, seeing a wine’s future by looking at the style and year it was produced (the vintage), will mean not drinking a great wine so young that it’s horrible and being able to buy bargains that will blossom if left for a while.

The good news for wine lovers is that as well as having a growing collections of delicious drinks and feeling more cultured, investing in wine can offer certain tax advantages under UK law. According to HMRC, wine is considered a ‘wasting asset’ with a predictable life not exceeding fifty years, which can make it exempt from Capital Gains Tax (CGT) under specific conditions.

What to look for?

To age well, wine needs the perfect balance of fruit ripeness, naturally high acidity and structure, which means tannin if its red and concentrated flavours if its white. The issue these days is that wines that need time to mellow are so often sold very young - and when you do find them, they’re expensive. Cellaring time is money! It has therefore never been a better time to start curating your own wine collection. Find the best bottles you can afford that are still young but also, be aware that larger formats like magnums take longer to age than 75cl versions and half bottles get there even quicker. This does mean you can experiment more and enjoy them earlier though. Bonus!

Key tips for storing wine: Invest in proper storage if you can afford to, especially if you intend to sell wine on. Temperature-controlled wine storage not only preserves your wine’s quality but also protects its value and marketability. Whether at home or in a professional facility, this is essential for maintaining the investment potential. If you are simply keeping it at home, always keep wine away from direct heat or sunlight, store wine on its side so corks don’t dry out and the let air in and try to keep the temperature as stable as possible – ideally between 12–15°C (53–59°F) if you can.

By starting a wine collection, you’re blending the art of fine living with smart financial planning! Here are five classic wine styles to get your cellar game started:

Red Bordeaux Blend

Every wine cellar should have a red Bordeaux in it, whether it’s from the Right bank or the Left bank of the famous river Gironde. The Cabernet Sauvignon-dominant Left Bank wines will often be concentrated, cool and mineral, softening up and developing complex cassis, cedar and tobacco flavours over time.

TRY: Chateau Palmer, Alter Ego de Palmer Margaux 2019, The Little Fine Wine Company, £49.95 HALF Bottle link

Premium Chardonnay

Chardonnay is a grape that ages particularly beautifully over time, especially if there is a bit of oak involved. The most famous region for this style is Burgundy, France. Look for village names like Puligny-Montrachet, Corton-Charlemagne or Meursault. Some new world regions are well worth looking at too as they can offer particularly good value, especially if their stars are rising. Such places are Napa, Sonoma and Oregon in the US, Tasmania in Australia and the high-altitude vineyards of Mendoza, Argentina.

TRY ‘White Bones’ Adrianna Vineyard Chardonnay, Catena Zapata, Mendoza, Argentina 2021. Hedonism Wines £100 link

Vintage Sparkling

A vintage sparkling wine made in the traditional method like Champagne is another must-have for your wine collection, although many Non-Vintage (NV) sparklers can also improve with time. Champagne is the obvious choice but for something that will really stun you in a few years and will certainly increase in financial worth, go for an English Sparkling Wine from a decent producer. Some top names are Gusbourne, Hambledon, Nyetimber, Chapel Down, Wiston Estate, Sugrue and Camel Valley.

TRY: Fifty One Degrees North, Gusbourne, Kent, England, 2016, Grape Britannia, £195

Cool Climate Pinot Noir

France’s Burgundy is the spiritual home of Pinot Noir and with age, the wine from here become hauntingly beautiful. It is so hard to find affordable versions with some decent age on them though, which is why cellaring them once you have bought them reaps dividends. You could look elsewhere to other, cool, New World regions like Oregon, Sonoma and Mendoza and parts of New Zealand too.

TRY: Maranges 'Sur le Chêne' Rouge 2020, Domaine Chevrot, £41.99 thewineflyer.com

Sweet White Wine

The world’s best sweet wines can keep for up to a hundred years thanks to their high sugar content balanced up by a searingly crisp acidity. Those that have been made with grapes affected by the ‘noble rot’ fungus (a good fungus that helps to shrivel the grapes) will also develop particularly complex flavours of honey, marmalade, marzipan and sice. Looks for Sauternes wines from the French region the same name of the famously sweet Tokaji Aszu wines from Hungary.

TRY: Royal Tokaji Aszú 5 Puttonyos 2017 50cl, The Wine Society, £29.50 thewinesociety.com

WANT TO START LEARNING MORE ABOUT WINE? CHECK OUT THE HELENASIPS WINE ACADEMY FOR A BITE-SIZED, VIDEO BEGINNERS COURSE AND TONS OF RECOMMENDATIONS TO HELP YOU LEARN!