Vinovest is an online platform that gives investors access to wine and whiskey as alternative assets. This review explains how the platform works, what it offers, and the key pros and cons to be aware.
Vinovest offers professionally sourced, insured wine and whiskey portfolios with relatively low minimums. But these are niche, illiquid assets with high fees and opaque valuation methods. For most investors, they’re unsuitable as a core holding. This platform is best for high-net-worth investors who can afford the risks, commit to long time horizons, and treat this as a lifestyle investment rather than a core holding.
Pros:
- Portfolios provide diversification over purchasing individual bottles.
- A secondary marketplace for wine allows you the opportunity, but not the guarantee, to sell your collection.
- You own 100% of the wine and whiskey and can have bottles physically shipped to you.
Cons:
- High fees (maximum of 2.85% annual fee).
- Penalties for liquidating holdings prior to three years.
- Negative consumer sentiment
How Vinovest’s Wine Investing Works
With Vinovest, you can choose to invest in wine or whiskey. They’re considered separate investments and they have separate minimums.
When it comes to wine investing, after signing up, I was asked the amount I was looking to invest and when I was planning to invest. Then, I was asked to choose from the available portfolio contribution options:
- Conservative. Curates wines with the goal of optimizing for downside protection.
- Balanced. Curates a wide variety of wines for maximum diversification.
- Aggressive. Curates wines from expected high-growth regions.
Once you fund your account, Vinovest invests your money into a portfolio of wines. It’s important to note that you’re not investing in a fund; instead, you own 100% of the wines in your portfolio.
Depending on the amount you’re investing, your portfolio is either algorithmically generated or customized by one of Vinovest’s human advisors (see the “Client Tiers” section below).
The process to buy and sell wines for your portfolio takes 2-3 weeks.
Vinovest usually buys cases of wine, which can range in size from 3 to 12 bottles. That means a $1,000 portfolio may have limited diversification, since individual bottle prices are on the higher end. For example, the lowest bottle on the marketplace while I was testing it for this review was $57.
Clients investing over $50,000 get access to a wine futures market, where they can buy wine that hasn’t been bottled yet, but which is expected to increase in value.
How Vinovest’s Whiskey Investing Works
Vinovest offers the ability to purchase entire casks of maturing whiskey. There are two main options available:
- Premier. Upgraded American whiskey casks starting at $1,750, with added benefits like annual trips.
- Ultra-Rare. Top tier offering with rare Scotch whisky casks beginning around $15,000. Includes a dedicated portfolio manager once your investment hits $50,000.
You retain full ownership of the whiskey cask, and Vinovest manages the storage and insurance on your behalf. If you want to take possession of the whiskey, the entire cask must be bottled before it can be shipped, and additional fees and taxes apply.
Casks are insured based on the type of whiskey. American whiskey is insured at the purchase price, while Scotch is insured at its current market value, which Vinovest reappraises each year.
When you decide to sell, or when the cask reaches maturity, Vinovest works with its network of merchants and bottlers to arrange the sale.
Liquidity and timing depend on demand for the specific cask.
Vinovest Client Tiers and Fees
Vinovest has four client tiers. Your tier determines your annual fee, your level of access to a human advisor, and whether you can customize your portfolio.
Your tier is based on the total value of both your wine and whiskey investments.
- Standard. For account sizes between $1,000 and $9,999. Fees are 2.85%. Portfolios in this tier are fully algorithmically managed. You cannot choose specific wines unless you buy individual bottles through the marketplace.
- Plus. For accounts between $10,000 and $49,999. Fees drop to 2.7%. This tier also uses algorithmic management with no portfolio customization, aside from manual purchases through the marketplace.
- Premier. For accounts between $50,000 and $249,999. Fees fall to 2.5%. Investors in this tier gain access to a human advisor and can help shape their portfolio. Premier clients can request specific wines and gain access to wine futures.
- Grand Cru. For accounts of $250,000 or more. Fees are 2.25%. This tier provides the highest level of personalization, including direct involvement in portfolio construction and access to a dedicated advisor.
Annual fees cover storage, insurance, authentication, and management. Fees are prorated across the year and charged only on invested capital. Cash balances are not subject to fees.
Vinovest Marketplace
The Vinovest marketplace allows you to buy and sell individual wine bottles and full whiskey casks. These assets are stored in Vinovest’s bonded facilities and come from inventory owned by Vinovest clients, not from outside sellers.
You can use the marketplace without meeting the $1,000 minimum required for a managed portfolio. Marketplace purchases do not affect your account tier and give you complete control over what you buy and when you sell.
Wine can be traded by the bottle or by the case. Whiskey is available only as full casks. A 1.5 percent selling fee applies once a bottle or cask sells.
If you sell wine from a managed portfolio within the first three years, Vinovest charges a 3 percent early liquidation fee. This fee does not apply to marketplace trades.
How Vinovest Stores and Insures Your Wine
Vinovest stores your wine in bonded, climate-controlled facilities located in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and other global hubs.
Bonded storage allows wine to move between facilities without incurring value-added tax or excise duty, which keeps transaction costs lower for investors. These taxes only apply if the wine is removed from the warehouse for personal delivery.
During storage and shipping, wine is insured at its market value at the time of a claim. Vinovest uses third-party authentication and warehouse partners to verify condition and provenance before and during storage.
How Shipping Works
Vinovest allows you to ship wine and whiskey to your home, but the process and rules depend on how the assets were purchased.
Wine from a managed portfolio must be shipped by the case. You cannot remove individual bottles from different cases, since doing so reduces provenance and resale value. Individual bottles purchased through the marketplace can be shipped on their own.
Whiskey can also be shipped, but only after the entire cask is bottled. Vinovest coordinates the bottling and shipment for an additional fee.
All shipments are insured. Vinovest provides a shipping quote after you submit a request, since costs vary based on destination, warehouse location, weight, and the value of the assets being shipped.
Taxes and duties apply when wine or whiskey is removed from bonded storage and again when the shipment arrives at your home. These costs are the responsibility of the investor.
How Will Your Investment In Wine Be Taxed?
Gains on wine are subject to collectibles taxes.
- For investments held longer than a year, you’ll be subject to a 28% tax rate.
- Investments held less than a year are subject to ordinary income tax rates.
This is an important consideration when comparing returns of collectibles to those of equities, as the maximum long-term capital gains rate is 20%.
How Do You Make Money With Vinovest?
Returns from wine and whiskey investing come from price appreciation. Both assets can rise in value as they age, although the timelines and market conditions differ.
Wine Appreciation
Wine tends to appreciate as it moves closer to its ideal maturity window.
Vinovest notes that many investment-grade wines peak seven to ten years after release, although some mature more slowly.
Supply also declines over time as bottles are opened, which can increase the value of those that remain.
Vinovest aims to buy wines early in their aging curve and hold them during periods when the market is most likely to pay a premium. When a wine approaches its projected selling window, Vinovest alerts you and gives the option to sell, continue holding, or request shipment.
Whiskey Appreciation
Whiskey can appreciate while it remains in the cask.
Aging develops flavor, and a small amount of liquid evaporates each year, reducing supply. These factors can support higher valuations for older casks.
Aging timelines vary widely. American whiskey often matures in single-digit years, while Scotch whisky may continue improving for fifteen to twenty-five years or more.
How Sales Work
When a wine or cask reaches what Vinovest identifies as its ideal selling window, the company works with its network of merchants and brokers to find a buyer. If you choose to sell, the process typically takes two to three weeks before funds become available in your account.
Holding Periods and Fees
Wine held in a managed portfolio can be sold without a fee after three years.
Vinovest generally expects investors to hold assets for seven to ten years or longer, depending on style and maturity profiles. During onboarding, you indicate your preferred holding period, and Vinovest attempts to select assets that align with that range.
Consumer Complaints on Vinovest
Before investing, it’s worth reviewing feedback from existing users. The most detailed discussions come from three places:
I recommend reading those sources directly as part of your own due diligence. To help summarize what you’ll find, here are the most common themes that appear across all three.
- Difficulty selling wine or whiskey. Users report long liquidation timelines (months or more), even when listing at steep discounts.
- Large gap between portfolio valuations and actual bids. Buyers often offer 20–40% below Vinovest’s estimated values, making it hard to exit at or near stated marks.
- High and ongoing fees. Monthly management, storage, and insurance fees continue during liquidation, with some users also citing unexpected late fees and a 1.5% selling fee.
- Very high shipping costs. Investors trying to take physical delivery often receive quotes they describe as prohibitively expensive, sometimes near the value of the wine itself.
- Slow or unresponsive customer support. Common complaints include unanswered emails, missed scheduled calls, no direct phone support, and long delays resolving account issues.
Final Thoughts on Vinovest
When you strip away the marketing, wine and whiskey investing is not something the average investor needs in their portfolio.
Nobody is sitting down with a financial plan and saying, “My retirement projections look good, but I’m really missing a 2–3% allocation to Bordeaux futures.”
That’s not how asset allocation works.
Fine wine and rare whiskey are niche, high-fee, illiquid alternative assets. They are appropriate only for a very narrow slice of investors:
- Those who are genuinely high-net-worth
- Those who can accept multi-year liquidity lockups
- Those who can afford high ongoing fees
- Those who understand the risk of opaque valuation methods
- Those who already have a well-diversified core portfolio (stocks, bonds, cash flow, tax planning, etc.)
For everyone else, meaning 95%+ of individual investors, these assets are unnecessary and introduce more complexity than benefit.
Even for high-net-worth households, the real question is:
What purpose would wine serve in your portfolio?
Wine is not a core diversifier the way:
- Global equities
- High-quality bonds
- REITs
- TIPS
…can be.
It’s a luxury diversifier — something you add only after everything else in your financial life is rock-solid.
On top of that, the asset class comes with:
- Very high fees relative to expected returns
- Severe liquidity constraints (months, not days)
- Unclear valuation
- Storage and insurance dependency
- Wide bid/ask spreads when selling
- And recently, negative index returns even before fees
When you combine these realities with the consumer complaints, the opaque pricing, and the platform-specific risks, the investable universe shrinks even further.
You end up with a situation where the only investor who can reasonably consider this is someone who:
- Is already wealthy
- Wants the hobby/collector experience
- Understands wine or whiskey deeply
- Can afford both the fees and the downsides
- Is making a conscious lifestyle allocation, not an investment allocation
