‘It’s us versus the red trouser brigade’
For Callum Woodcock, founder of fine wine investment syndicate WineFi, it’s all about beating ‘the red trouser brigade’, as he employs nothing more than market data to trump the traditional human expert.
While the sartorial reference was made in jest, it was used to make a serious point about a data-driven model for wine investment, as Woodcock explained the basis for WineFi in a podcast with db – held ahead of his appearance at our conference on Wednesday 8 October, which you can sign up to here.
Turning his attention to what drew him away from a career in finance, Woodcock said that he was attracted to the wine business because he saw an opportunity, and loved the product.
“It didn’t take me long to look at fine wine as both a consumable and an investment,” he told db.
Continuing he said, “The characteristics of fine wine, the tax efficiency of investing in fine wine in the UK, makes it particularly interesting; and the thing that fascinated me about it, is that I built a small wine portfolio prior to founding WineFi and it was by far the most interesting part of my investment portfolio.”
“… And then when I started looking at the data side, we jokingly say in a trading perspective, it’s about us versus the red trouser brigade in terms of spotting what may or may not outperform, and that just made it way more compelling, because you cannot do that in traditional asset classes – those gaps have closed – and you can’t really do it in other collectibles either because the data is not there.”
Essentially, in Woodcock’s words, “we are applying cutting-edge quantitative analysis to an asset class that is unique amongst collectibles in that there is real time trading data going back 25 years that can be used to back-test different scenarios and understand what factors actually impact price appreciation in fine wine.”
The planned result for this start-up wine investment syndicate, which is backed by Coterie Holdings, is that WineFi “will over time dramatically outperform the wider market benchmark.”
While the investments made are based on “mathematical models”, Woodcock assured db that “We do have a head of investment who is a wine expert that backs anything that goes into a portfolio, but we use our cognitive models to narrow down the universe of wines.”
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Notably, he recalled, “So when you apply this approach to developing portfolios for those investors, the outcomes are quite different from what you might expect, or the competition are doing.”
He then told db, “And we have found that the numbers get us a long way towards where we need to be, and to put some figures around that, so far we have been able to generate – even in a down market – between 8 and 18% annualised Alpha versus their respective market benchmarks.”
“So, it looks like we are able to outperform the benchmarks with this approach, and that’s very exciting because you would hope that trend would continue to market recovery and beyond.”
For those who are wondering what Woodcock’s red trouser remark relates to, it refers to certain members of the wine trade who used to wear a mix of chinos, cords or moleskins in this bright colour, so that, over time, red trousers became associated with middle-aged white men in the UK wine trade. However, not all red-trouser wearers fitted that mould, as we highlighted back in 2012, with a ‘top 10’ of people sporting such brave shades on their lower half – and we have republished that article here, although, sadly, some of the people that featured in that light-hearted round-up are no longer with us.
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Profitability in a challenging market: securing growth without sacrificing margins
- The Science Gallery, London
- 8 October 2025
- 9.30-5pm
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