Wealth managers forecast ‘historic surge’ in fine wine demand amid ‘Great Wealth Flight’

AI, ‘Wexit’ (the ‘Great Wealth flight’) and deepening capital commitment are expected to play an increasing role in boosting the fine wine market in the coming years, according to WineCap’s latest Wealth Report.

According to the WineCap Wealth Report 2026, a record 97% of wealth managers and advisors expect demand for fine wine to rise in 2026, indicating the “highest level of confidence recorded in the four-year history of the study”. It shows how much the market has stabilised after emerging from “a protracted downturn”, with fine wine as an asset class that is no longer “emerging… but solidifying”.

With the bid:offer ratio seeing a “healthy tightening… as liquidity returns to the market” the tide has “officially turned”,  it said and rather than relying purely on a small circle of “elite collectors to sustain its value”, the building momentum is diversified across all of the “key investment-grade regions”.

“We are entering a phase where fine wine is being integrated into the wider financial ecosystem as a stabilised, transparent, and resilient asset,” it said.

Wexit: The great wealth migration

Fine wine is also increasingly seen as a “critical fiscal anchor” and a “borderless” asset for high-net-worth individuals (HNW), it noted, who may be moving capital out of the UK amid changing tax rules that include the abolition of the non-domicile (non-dom) regime and significant reforms to inheritance tax.

61% of survey respondents said that HNW clients are prioritising investments that can move as easily “as they do” – a trend that aligns with the idea of the great wealth migration, driven by policy changes.

“The movement of millionaires out of the UK is intensifying at an unprecedented rate,” the report noted, “with departures potentially doubling compared to previous averages.”

According to the Henley Private Wealth Migration Report published in June, the UK was projected to lose a record 16,500 high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) during 2025, up from 7,500 HNW departing the UK in 2024. WineCap’s survey stipulated that wealth migration was happening, as it wanted to understand how this affects assets like fine wine that have a global appeal.

The wealth migration was also something that Evgeny Chichvarkin, founder and owner of Hedonism Wines, touched on during a panel session for Liv-ex’s members in February, although BBR’s Max Lalondrelle noted that this was not having a significant effect at BBR.

Amid this background, fine wine is “a truly portable asset with universal value – one that transcends borders and currency fluctuations” WineCap said, and its role “evolves from a simple diversifier to a strategic borderless asset”.

Greater investment

Another key element of the report found that over a third of committed investors now allocate 21-30% of their total wealth to fine wine, a “massive” jump in only 12 months, up from only 2% in the 2025 report.

“This recent jump suggests that fine wine has moved from the periphery of the balance sheet to a core defensive pillar,” the report said. Meanwhile nearly half of those surveyed (45%) estimated that around 11-20% of their clients’ total portfolios would be allocated to fine wine, with 18% allotting 6-10% of their allocation.

WineCap founder and CEO Alexander Westgarth explained that fine wine was evolving from “a niche ‘passion asset’ into a sophisticated financial instrument that speaks a universal language of stability”.

“The fact that 97% of advisors are bullish on fine wine, even as they navigate a high-interest, high-inflation world, signals a profound confidence in the market’s resilience,” he said. “For the modern, mobile investor, fine wine is a strategic store of value that transcends borders and currency fluctuations.”

Attracting experience

Backing this up, it noted that the vast majority of those investing in wine were very experienced (53%), or experienced (45%) investors, reinforcing the long-standing perception that fine wine “is rarely the first asset an investor acquires”, but rather “a sophisticated diversifier – the choice of those who have already navigated traditional markets”.

Stability and strong returns were seen to be the primary drivers among recipients (71% and 57% respectively) along with sustainability (44%) and liquidity (39%), suggesting that “the historical concern regarding ‘exiting’ wine allocations is rapidly fading”.

Westgarth further noted that while it remains an asset “championed by sophisticated investors”, this was likely to be because investors with established portfolios were “increasingly branching out” into fine wine based on its long-term stability among other attributes.

Importance of AI

Another interesting takeaway from the report is the emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) as a “primary technological accelerant”, capable of building trust, security and confidence, with just under three quarters (74%) of wealth managers expecting AI to do this through enhanced provenance verification and price transparency. A further 58% of those surveyed said AI would also “empower investors to control their portfolios more effectively”, while 39% expect it to bring “unprecedented transparency to pricing and secondary market movements”. It is also likely to appeal to the new cohort of digital-native collectors “who value real-time data and algorithmic insights over traditional, opaque advisory models”.

“This transparency is the ultimate bridge to the future,” it said. “By lowering the ‘information asymmetry’ that once guarded this market, AI is expected to attract new demographics of investors and open up new markets”.

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