Investing in wine suggests a certain touch of class. It seems decadent to spend hundreds of pounds on a crate of plonk you don't even intend to drink.

But don't dismiss wine investment as the preserve of the well-heeled - the good news is you don't have to be rich to buy wine.

There are two major reasons to invest in wine:

• Firstly as an investment in future drinking - buying young wines at the initial release price which, when mature, would be considerably more expensive to buy.
• As a strictly financial investment - buying wines with the sole intention of reselling later for a profit.

Wine can, and often has, outperformed property, gold and the stock market offering significant returns without the volatility.

Wine can also benefit from an exemption from Capital Gains and Income Tax.