Not so long ago, port rather than claret was regarded as the hot tip in wine investment. In the mid 1990s, The Economist Magazine looked at how prices for the historic 1948 Taylor’s Port had performed during the previous decade. It revealed anyone who had bought in 1981 and sold in 1989 would have made a cumulative gain of 50% on their investment – per annum.

“Prices rose dramatically from the late 1970s to the mid 1990s because the Americans started to buy vintage port with a vengeance,” says Paul Symington, managing director of port shippers, the Symington Group. “In those days, the dollar was strong and London was the best place to buy. It was something of a golden era.”