As an alternative investment class, fine wine has rewarded investors with steady returns of up to 8% per annum over the past decade, according to the Liv-ex 100 Index.

In the 12 months to end-June 2008 a typical fine wines portfolio rose 8.5%. But this has been trumped by traded life settlement funds as Assured Fund run by Policy Selection Ltd, returned between 10-11% for retail and institutional investors over the same period.