I asked Twitter this morning what it would spend on a bottle of wine. My old mate and former colleague Howard Winn asked if it was to drink or invest? This made me realise how irresponsible it is to sell a wine for more than you’d pay for it as a drink. It reminded me of house prices. No house in London is worth more than about a quarter of its face value, in bricks and mortar terms. It only sells at that price because someone believes that it will be worth more when it is sold on. This inherently devalues the money and currency one uses to buy it. Isn’t this how the credit crunch happened in the first place? By giving everything unrealistically high cash value, the cash itself became valueless. Ditto for ‘collectable’ wines. They have a true value, and an opportunistic value. If we support the wine investment business by buying wines priced opportunistically to sell on, we are, in our own little way, harming the economy for personal gain. Buy wine and drink it. Buy wine, cellar it and drink it. Buy wine, cellar it and swap it. But for fuck sake stop spending three times the true price for a wine hoping you’ll get five in a few years time. The wines aren’t getting more valuable, the pound is getting less.