Has Fine Wine Outperformed Stocks Over 10 Years? A Look at the Data

TL;DR

Over the decade to 2024, equities outpaced the broader fine wine market in terms of raw growth, with the S&P 500 returning ~220% and the FTSE 100 ~50%, whilst the benchmark Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000 index delivered 35–40%. However, looking solely at market-wide averages obscures substantial regional outperformance. For instance, the Liv-ex Burgundy 150 index comfortably outpaced the FTSE 100 over the same period, and at its peak, even outperformed the NASDAQ by as much as 30%.

More importantly, raw numbers omit risk-adjusted performance. Fine wine acts as a portfolio stabiliser, experiencing far less downside volatility and smaller drawdowns during equity market contractions. The ultimate goal of investing in fine wine isn't to mirror or try to outrun a roaring stock market, but to systematically diversify. Combining both assets creates a much smoother, more resilient portfolio. This article explores these underlying trends, asset behaviour under macroeconomic stress, and what this structural divergence means for UK investors.

What the indices show

To track the value of fine wine, experts use the Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000, which acts as a thermometer for the global wine market by following the prices of one thousand top bottles. Between the start of 2015 and the end of 2024, the value of these wines grew by roughly thirty-nine percent. This translates to a steady, reliable growth of about three point three percent each year.

Over those same ten years, traditional stock markets saw higher growth. The main UK stock market, the FTSE 100, grew by around fifty-five percent when you include shareholder payouts. Meanwhile, the main US stock market, the S&P 500, surged by roughly two hundred and twenty percent, largely because of the massive success of American technology companies.

If we only look at the total profit over the decade, American shares were the clear winner, followed by UK shares, with fine wine in third place. However, judging an investment strictly by its final return is misleading. Doing so completely ignores the different types of risk, stress, and sudden price drops that investors had to endure along the way.

Volatility and drawdowns

When comparing fine wine to the stock market, one of the biggest differences is how much the prices jump around. Fine wine prices usually shift by only six to eight percent a year. In contrast, stock market prices are much more unpredictable, typically swinging between fourteen and eighteen percent. Simply put, fine wine provides a much smoother and steadier ride than traditional shares.

It is also helpful to look at the worst market falls over the past ten years. The fine wine market had one major dip recently, where prices slowly fell by roughly nineteen percent over a year and a half. Meanwhile, during the panic of early 2020, major stock markets in the US and the UK crashed by about a third in just five weeks.

While stocks crashed much harder, they also bounced back within a few months. Fine wine, on the other hand, is taking longer to recover from its recent drop. This happens because stocks are bought and sold instantly at the click of a button, meaning prices can plummet and recover in a matter of days. Fine wine is a physical asset that takes much longer to trade, so both its price drops and its recoveries are drawn out over many months. Neither investment is naturally better or worse; they simply offer different types of risk.

Risk-adjusted returns

The Sortino ratio, which measures return per unit of downside volatility, is one of the more useful tools for comparing asset classes with different risk profiles. Over the ten-year window, fine wine has produced a Sortino ratio comparable to and in some years higher than UK equities, despite lower absolute returns. The reason is the volatility differential: fine wine produces less return, but it does so with materially less downside variability, so the return per unit of downside risk is competitive.

The Sharpe ratio, which uses total volatility rather than only downside, tells a similar story. US equities have produced a higher Sharpe ratio than fine wine over the decade by a wide margin, driven by the exceptional absolute returns of the S&P 500. UK equities and fine wine have produced Sharpe ratios in similar ranges, with fine wine often leading in years of equity market stress and trailing in years of strong equity performance.

The takeaway is that fine wine has not been a higher-return asset class than equities over the past decade. It has been a lower-volatility asset class with comparable risk-adjusted returns to UK equities, and meaningfully lower risk-adjusted returns than US equities. For investors whose objective is maximum long-term absolute return, equities have won the decade. For investors who care about the shape of returns, not only their magnitude, the comparison is closer.

Correlation and what it means for portfolios

The main reason to add fine wine to your investments is not just about the profit it might make on its own, but how it balances the rest of your wealth. Over the last ten years, wine prices have moved almost completely independently of the stock market. To put this into perspective, while different stock markets in the US and the UK tend to move up and down together, fine wine simply follows its own path.

In practical terms, this means that if the stock market takes a sudden dive, the value of your wine collection usually will not. Fine wine prices are driven by completely different factors. Things like the quality of a specific harvest, the fact that rare wines become even rarer as bottles are drunk, and the general habits of collectors are what determine the value. These elements have nothing to do with company profits, interest rates, or the typical daily news that shakes the stock market.

Adding an independent asset like wine provides a valuable safety net for your money. It helps to steady your overall wealth, smoothing out the extreme highs and lows without severely hurting your potential to grow your money. Historically, investors who have dedicated between five and fifteen percent of their wealth to fine wine have seen their overall investments become noticeably more stable.

Tax treatment changes the comparison

For UK investors, the comparison between fine wine and equities is not complete without accounting for tax treatment. Most investment-grade fine wine held by UK investors qualifies for the wasting-asset exemption under HMRC's Capital Gains Manual at CG76901, which means gains on disposal are typically outside the Capital Gains Tax net. Equities held outside tax wrappers like ISAs or pensions are subject to CGT at 18 or 24 percent depending on income band, after the annual allowance.

The practical effect is that a fine wine return needs to be compared against an after-tax equity return for an apples-to-apples comparison. A 39 percent ten-year return on fine wine, exempt from CGT, is the net-to-investor figure. A 55 percent ten-year return on the FTSE 100, before reinvested dividends are themselves taxable income, and before any disposal CGT, is the gross figure. Once the equity return is adjusted for the tax drag on disposal, the gap narrows materially.

This is one of the structural features of the asset class that does not show up in headline performance comparisons. For more detail on the tax framework, our UK wine investment tax guide covers the wasting-asset rule, the chattels exemption, VAT, and bonded storage. Our deeper look at the wasting-asset rule walks through where the exemption applies cleanly and where it does not.

What this means for UK investors

The honest answer to "has fine wine outperformed stocks?" is that it depends on which stocks, which window, and which measure of performance you use. Against US equities over the past decade, fine wine has clearly underperformed. Against UK equities over the same window, fine wine has been close on a tax-adjusted basis. Against a balanced equity portfolio in volatility terms, fine wine has produced more stable returns. And in correlation terms, fine wine has provided meaningful diversification value to portfolios concentrated in equities.

The point is that the comparison is not zero-sum. Fine wine and equities are different asset classes with different return drivers, different risk characteristics, and different tax treatments. A portfolio that holds both can produce a smoother return profile than one that holds either in isolation. The question for an individual investor is not whether to choose between them, but how much of each makes sense given the investor's return objectives, time horizon, and tolerance for volatility.

For investors new to the category, our 2026 guide to fine wine as an investment covers the underlying drivers of fine wine returns, including supply contraction, ageing dynamics, and provenance. Our step-by-step guide to starting a fine wine investment in the UK walks through the practical process for first-time investors.

Practical takeaways

Three points are worth emphasising. First, fine wine has not outperformed stocks on absolute returns over the past decade. The S&P 500 produced returns that no other asset class came close to matching. UK equities outperformed fine wine on gross returns, though the gap narrows significantly on a tax-adjusted basis. Second, fine wine has been a lower-volatility asset class than equities, with shallower drawdowns during the major equity corrections of the decade. Third, the correlation between fine wine and equities has been low enough that adding fine wine to an equity portfolio has provided real diversification value.

The case for fine wine in a long-term portfolio is not that it will beat equities. It is that it does something different. The diversification benefit, the volatility reduction, and the tax efficiency together make it a useful complement to equity holdings, not a replacement for them. For investors building long-term portfolios, the right question is not which asset class to choose, but how much of each to hold.

Frequently asked questions

Has fine wine outperformed the S&P 500 over the past 10 years?

No. Over the ten years to the end of 2024, the S&P 500 returned approximately 220 percent on a total return basis in dollar terms, while the Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000 returned approximately 39 percent on a price basis. US large-cap equities, particularly technology, drove exceptional returns over the decade that no major alternative asset class matched.

Has fine wine outperformed the FTSE 100 over the past 10 years?

On gross returns, the FTSE 100 produced approximately 55 percent on a total return basis over the ten years to the end of 2024, ahead of the Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000 at approximately 39 percent. On a tax-adjusted basis the gap is materially narrower, because most fine wine gains are exempt from Capital Gains Tax for UK investors while equity gains are not.

Is fine wine less volatile than stocks?

Yes. The Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000 has historically exhibited annualised price volatility of around 6 to 8 percent, while broad equity indices have typically shown volatility of 14 to 18 percent. The lower volatility is a structural feature of the fine wine market, which is less liquid than equity markets and where price discovery is slower.

How correlated is fine wine to equities?

The rolling 12-month correlation between the Liv-ex Fine Wine 1000 and major equity indices has typically sat between negative 0.2 and positive 0.3 over the past decade. This is low compared with the correlation between major equity indices, which is generally above 0.7. The low correlation is one of the principal reasons fine wine adds diversification value to multi-asset portfolios.

What was fine wine's biggest drawdown in the past decade?

The Liv-ex 1000 experienced a peak-to-trough drawdown of approximately 19 percent between mid-2022 and the end of 2023. This was the most material correction in the fine wine market during the ten-year window. By comparison, the S&P 500 and FTSE 100 both experienced drawdowns of around 33 to 34 percent during the initial COVID-19 shock in early 2020, though they recovered far more quickly.

Does fine wine pay an income like stocks pay dividends?

No. Fine wine returns come entirely from capital appreciation. There is no equivalent of dividend income. This makes the comparison with equity total returns somewhat asymmetric, but it also means that fine wine generates no taxable income during the holding period, which can be a feature for some investors.

Should I hold both fine wine and equities in a portfolio?

Many UK investors do. The case for holding both is not that one outperforms the other, but that they behave differently. Fine wine has historically provided lower volatility, lower correlation to equities, and CGT-efficient gains for UK investors. Equities have provided higher absolute returns over most long-term windows. A portfolio holding both can produce a smoother return profile than one concentrated in either alone. The right allocation depends on the investor's objectives and risk tolerance.

This article is provided for general information and is not personal tax or investment advice. Capital is at risk. Wine values can go down as well as up, and investments may not perform as expected. Returns may vary. You should not invest more than you can afford to lose. WineFi is not authorised by the Financial Conduct Authority. Investments are not regulated and you will have no access to the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) or the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS). Past performance and forecasts are not reliable indicators of future results. Investments are illiquid. Tax treatment depends on individual circumstances and may change. You are advised to obtain appropriate tax or investment advice where necessary. WineFi is a trading name of WineFi Management Limited.