Good wine is God's gift to children
As Jonathan Ray points out: "Splashing out on a decent drop is an ideal investment for a godchild - as they mature, so will the vintage"...
'"What a great investment", says Amanda Skinner of Private Cellar. "When realised, purchases like that can help finance a gap year or go towards a car or motorbike. We recently had a customer who put his pre-credit crunch bonus towards some 2000 Château Léoville Las Cases for his godchildren, buying it at £900 a case. By last summer the value had gone up to £2,800 a case."
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As Amanda points out, it's not just romantic, but practical too, and ideal for forgetful godparents. Give Private Cellar a lump sum and each year they will lay down wine for the godchildren on their birthday and will write and let them know. "When the time comes, almost all of them decide to sell the wine, invariably, doing jolly well out of it," she says. "Unless you've got a lot of cash at 18 or 21, it's hard to look at the wine and want to drink it rather than sell it."
Sadly, I agree. But if any of my godchildren do decide to drink it, I've written into the small print that they have to drink it with me.'
Jonathan Ray, Telegraph Weekend, 5th September 2009
Jonathan's top tips for buying wine for godchildren:
- Most clarets worth laying down are around £250-£300 a case. Don't forget magnums last longer.
- Don't be scared to look back: 2005 clarets could still prove a shrewd investment.
- If you want claret from your godchild's birth year, you'll need to wait at least a year before the opening prices are released and 18 months on top of that until the bottles arrive in Britain.
- Don't bank on getting a vintage port from the child's birth year: on average there are just three vintages a decade.
- Buy the wine in bond and keep it there until your godchild comes to drink/sell. It's out of temptation's way, provenance can be guaranteed and you delay paying the VAT and duty until the last minute.
- Once bought, the wine belongs to the godchild and is stored in their name. The rent is paid by the godparent.
