Gold is generally seen as the crisis-resistant investment, underlined by the fact that the price of gold has been continuously breaking historic highs in the last few months and therefore received much media coverage. However, wine investments have also been doing well over the last few years - in fact, fine wine investment has outperformed gold, according to The Wine Investment Fund.

Reliable monthly records for fine wine began in 1993. Since then prices have risen more than tenfold, with an annual return of 15 per cent, or a total return of 974 per cent. During the same period of time, the Wine Investment Fund said, gold has risen by 218 per cent at an annual rate of 7 per cent.

“Even with the recent surge in the price of gold to around $1,170 an ounce, wine has shown greater long-term price appreciation than gold, with lower levels of risk,” said Andrew della Casa, director, TWIF.

“The allure of gold will no doubt remain strong. But fine wine could continue to deliver equally good if not superior returns in the future,” he added.

The fund also emphasised that it does not believe that this outperformance represents greater risk.

TWIF, launched in 2003, has a minimum subscription of £10,000 ($16,488) and buys stock that is at least four years old and predominately chooses wines from the finest 40 Bordeaux Chateaux.