Suggested sound accompaniment: Time by Pink Floyd, The Dark Side of the Moon (1973)
1275 has not been shy about highlighting the attractive price openings in fine wine today. From a purely economic standpoint, current conditions represent a genuinely compelling point of entry. But price cannot be the only deciding factor. Further elements are required to form what we define as the perfect prism – a moment when the light hits just right, to produce collections in technicolour.
Timing
If pricing forms the first edge of our triangle, timing forms the second. Periods of market adjustment like those experienced since mid‑2022 are not everyday occurrences. A down cycle can make time feel like a fickle friend, and distort the reality of compounding if one’s goals are too short-term. Fine wine’s timeline is long: it ages slowly, is gradually consumed, and eventually vanishes altogether. And we, finite beings, have only so many occasions on which to enjoy great bottles in our lifetime.
Our goal in moments like these is to bend that line — to buy back time by acquiring wines that, in a different cycle, would simply be unobtainable in pristine condition. Timeliness is not defined by paying the absolute minimum, but by recognising the instant when the beam appears and capturing it before it moves.
Rarity
Rarity forms the third edge. Fine wine is scarce by design: vineyard surface areas are limited, yields tightly controlled, and quality inherently resistant to scale. Layered atop this structural scarcity is an immutable truth: wine is made to be opened. Every bottle enjoyed increases the rarity of those that remain.
Yet today, fine wine sits in paradox. Thanks to advancements in viticulture and technology, quality has never been higher, but this peak coincides with heightened fragility. Climate volatility and extreme weather events mean wines will henceforth be produced in dwindling volumes. In the future, styles will alter beyond recognition, or even disappear altogether. The icons we know and love are becoming rarer at a faster pace.
When such decreasingly available wines surface at competitive valuations during a period of economic uncertainty, a rare triangulation occurs.
Refraction
This is the refraction — the moment where price, timing, and rarity meet at just the right angles, transforming individual reasoning into a clear and colourful call to action.
We feel deeply the responsibility to act boldly when these lines converge. These are the instances that define long‑term value, strengthening the case for fine wine as a meaningful piece in one’s estate for decades, even generations. The best opportunities are those that cannot be replicated.
And, as Pink Floyd cautions, we act today to avoid having “missed the starting gun” by tomorrow.