Alternative assets like fine wine are increasingly being used as collateral in international property finance. This case study shows how a dual-facility structure, including a wine-backed loan, helped complete a cross-border property purchase without requiring asset liquidation.

I spend most of my working life finding ways to help wealthy people fund property purchases. Over the past eighteen years, I have seen collateral evolve from the predictable (property, cash, listed equities) to the genuinely creative (crypto, art, classic cars, pre-IPO shares). But the deal that crossed my desk recently felt like a marker for where the market is heading: a cross-border property acquisition funded in part by a client's fine wine collection.

The client was a European-based collector with investment-grade Bordeaux and Burgundy stored in a bonded warehouse. The collection had been built over decades, appraised independently, and tracked against the Liv-ex indices. Its value ran comfortably into six figures. What it had never done was generate a single penny of financial return.

The client wanted to buy a property in southern Europe. The challenge was not net worth. It was structured. Income came from multiple jurisdictions, through different corporate vehicles, in more than one currency. No single lender was willing to underwrite the full amount on standard affordability criteria.

So we built a dual-facility structure. A specialist luxury asset lender advanced funds against the wine collection at approximately 55% loan-to-value. The wine stayed exactly where it was, in bonded, insured, climate-controlled storage, while the loan proceeds bridged the gap between what a conventional international mortgage would cover and what the deal required.

Two lenders, two facilities, one completion. The client kept every bottle.

This is not a gimmick. The global fine wine market is valued at over $8 billion. Indices such as the Liv-ex 1000 have demonstrated long-term resilience and, critically, low correlation to equity markets. That makes wine an interesting diversifier, but it also makes it genuine collateral. Specialist lenders now accept investment-grade collections with clear provenance, professional storage, and transparent secondary market pricing. Typical advance rates range from 50 to 60 per cent of the independently appraised value.

The question I keep asking collectors is simple: What is your wine actually doing for you right now? If it is sitting in a vault appreciating quietly, that is fine. But if you have a capital need, whether property, business expansion, tax settlement, or portfolio rebalancing, there is no reason to liquidate bottles at a time that may not suit you when a lender will advance against them.

The broader trend here is one I have been watching for several years. Wealthy individuals hold an increasing share of their net worth in alternative and illiquid assets, such as art, wine, classic cars, private equity, and digital assets. The traditional lending market was slow to acknowledge this. Banks wanted salary slips and property deeds. But a new generation of specialist lenders has emerged to fill the gap, and the HNW borrower is the beneficiary.

What has changed most recently is the sophistication of the structures. Five years ago, a wine-backed loan was a niche product offered by a handful of firms. Today, it can be layered alongside a conventional mortgage, a securities-backed facility, or a bridging loan to create a blended funding solution that matches the complexity of the borrower's balance sheet.

For brokers and advisers, the lesson is straightforward. If a client has illiquid wealth tied up in a tangible, appraised, and insured asset, it can probably be leveraged. The skill is in knowing which lenders will accept which collateral, on what terms, and how to combine multiple facilities into a single coherent structure.

Wine has been a store of value for centuries. The lending market has finally caught up.

Read the full case study here: https://www.ennessglobal.com/insights/case-studies/international-property-finance-wine-backed-lending