Would you pay $24,000 for a half case of Petrus 2000? What about a single bottle of 1990 Grands Echezeaux valued at $4,000? Ah come on, that’s a bargain! Well, certainly some seem to think so, even if you and I don’t. By the way, that $4,000 Grands Echezeaux was bought for $250 in 1990. Even with inflation, that’s a pretty good return, particularly if you end up buying a case or two.

Collecting wine is a pretty serious business, but then you really have to know what you’re doing. Reputable collectors can fetch this kind of money because they have the knowledge on what wines will be age worthy, and more to the point, what wines will be worth something in the future. I’ve heard a number of stories of people with more money than sense, paying extortionate prices for wines worth pennies because they haven’t done their homework, or they just didn’t know any better.

I, like many of us, haven’t got a spare $24,000 lying around, so I’m perfectly happy to keep my half case of Amon-Ra under the stairs for another 15 years or so. Fear not, it will be drank, and damn sure I won’t be putting it up for auction.

Here’s a few more shocking collectables:

• Petrus Pomerol 1989 estimated to be worth $3,000 (original paid: $250)
• Grand Vin de Chateau Latour 1982 estimated to be worth $1,500 (original paid $80-90)
• Screaming Eagle 1996 (California) estimated to be worth $1,500 (original paid $250)
• Romanee Conti 1999 (Burgundy) The pre-auction estimate is between $7,000 and $9,000 (A 21% buyer’s premium could put the total over $10,000). Only about 6,000 bottles produced.

Facts and figures sourced from CNBC.com. View original post/slide show here.

Amon-Ra a better bet than the stock market?

Remember this? It would seem that investors are still putting their money into wine as a safe haven, as opposed to stock, and it’s also great to hear that Australia is starting to be taken seriously when it comes to ultra-fine wine.

Last week, fine wine auctioneers, Langton’s, reported that Australia’s ultra-fine wines increased in value by 64% during the past two years, defying the slump in the international fine wine market. The increase contrasts with an estimated drop of 20% since July 2007 in the Bordeaux-dominated international market.

No-one needs to tell us about how fine Australian wine can be. The upper Glaetzer range, including the Amon-Ra, has great ageing potential, with the likes of Langmeil producing wine to last 15 years and beyond, and the ‘04 Woodstock “Stocks” Shiraz, although drinking well now, could perhaps do with another year or two to fulfil its true potential.

Langton’s fine wine principal, Andrew Caillard, added that there was less ultra-fine wine produced in Australia than in Bordeaux and Burgundy. A top Bordeaux winery produced about 10,000 cases or more a year compared with 100 to 6000 by Australian equivalents. Those Old World die hards can write off Australian vintners at their pearl.

If you’re looking to invest in wine, whether it’s for financial investment or for future indulgence, do your homework first. Remember that the vast majority of wines are to be drank young - many (particularly inexpensive wines) will not drink well beyond three years. Don’t be afraid to ask a member of staff on their opinion. A good wine merchant will know their wines well enough to advise on ageing. When you get the wine home, store it somewhere cool where the temperature won’t fluctuate too much, and lay it on its side to prevent the cork drying out.

Decanting: “Optional and controversial step in serving wine, involving pouring wine out of its bottle into another container called a decanter. ” Jancis Robinson’s Oxford Companion to Wine.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but there seems a perception among some that decanting, or letting a wine breathe, is completely unnecessary and only useful for showing off an elaborate, expensive and glorified crystal jug at the dining table. For most wines, in fact for all white wines, it’s completely unnecessary, and I’m sure there are indeed those who just like doing it to show off their jugs now and again.

Before the art of filtration and clarification, wine, often poured straight from barrels, had a considerable amount of sediment left over from the wine making process. Completely harmless, and usually the sign of a good wine, it can taste and look a little unpleasant, so it was the norm to filter this out with the help of a decanter. Nowadays most wines have been cleared of this solid matter before packaging, but some will develop in bottle with age.

The best reason I can see for using a decanter is to let the wine aerate. The large surface area in contact with the air in the decanter alters the wine, softening its youthful bite and encouraging the development of the more complex aromas that normally develop with years in bottle. For this reason even those inexpensive wines can benefit from decanting, if a first taste reveals a tannic, grippy, youthful structure.

Now let me now introduce you to Gary Vaynerchuk, the Internets most revered wine blogger and owner of Wine Library, a $45 million wine business based in New Jersey, USA. Gary gets over 80,000 viewers daily, and in the attached video he compares a freshly opened Amon-Ra with one that has been decanted. We stock the 100 Parker Point 2006 vintage, so if you ever have an occasion special enough to open this kind of wine, please, pretty pretty please, decant before drinking..!

Ps. Decanters don’t have to be expensive either. You should pick one up for around €10.

With the property market going bang and Bank of Ireland shares being worth about as much as a penny chew, it’s time for investors to revise their portfolios. If anyone watched “Beat the Bank” with Duncan Bannatyne on BBC2 it would seem that some of the best investments come in the form of art and, yes… wine!

This made us think about Aussie icon, Amon-Ra, which received a perfect score from America’s and arguably the world’s most worthy wine critic, Robert Parker. Set to be fully evolved by around 2025, this red powerhouse will most likely drink through 2040. It would only be speculation to imagine how much it will be worth by 2025 or 2030, but it’s hard to imagine it going any way but up, whereas the FTSE and NASDAQ….?

What a great way to secure your future. While markets go into turmoil, houses become worthless and banks begin to crumble around us, we can sleep soundly at night knowing that Glaetzer’s Gold is looking after us from afar.

Amon, sorry Amen, to that.