Rally vs Vint: Which One is Better to Invest in Wine?

Fine wine doesn’t just pair well with a good steak or chocolate. It also can go well with a diversified investment portfolio. While the stock market declines, inflation flares, and interest rates climb, alternative assets like fine wine are far less volatile.

You have two options for wine investing: 

1. Learn as much as possible about wine, source it from a supplier, and store it yourself. 
2. Gain exposure through wine investment platforms.

Rally and Vint are platforms that make it easy to invest in fractional shares of fine wines. Both companies curate wine collections and turn them into SEC-qualified securities. Securitization enables them to offer fractional ownership of their assets. Both platforms take care of storage and other overhead costs, so you only have to worry about managing your portfolio by buying or selling shares.

The biggest difference between Rally and Vint is that Vint just offers shares in collections of investment-grade wines, while Rally offers fractional shares in a variety of other collectibles like fine art, handbags from Hermès, classic comic books, and even vintage guitars.

Rally is a no-fee trading platform that lets investors own a piece of almost any kind of collectible, including luxury watches and investment cars. Founded in 2016 by life-long friends Rob Petrozzo, Chris Bruno, and Max Niederste-Ostholt, the company buys collectible items they think will appreciate in value, like high-end wine.

Rally then turns collectible assets into tradable securities and splits them into equity shares. They open an “initial offering” on the platform where investors can purchase the shares. When you purchase a share of an item, you become a shareholder in a company that owns that specific asset, such as a wine bottle of a 2009 Domaine Leroy Vosne-Romanee Les Beaux Monts.

The fine wine investing platform stores the assets in a wine cellar at Cult Wines in a bonded warehouse outside of London.

How does Rally work?

Investing in wine is easy with Rally. On the app, you can participate in initial offerings and own a shares in an underlying collectible. If the asset’s value rises, then the price of your shares also goes up. Once you purchase shares from an initial offering, they're locked up for a 90-day holding period.

After the 90 days are up, you can sell your shares whenever you want on Rally's secondary market. You simply set an asking price and the broker-dealers will match your bid with other investors on the platform during trading hours. It’s similar to how the stock market works, except instead of trading shares in a public company, you're trading shares of a specific underlying asset.

Rally doesn't charge users commissions, management fees, or trading fees, and the app is free to use. Anyone can sign up, browse the offerings, and make a wine investment on the platform without incurring any extra costs. Rally may expand to a pay-as-you-go or subscription model with premium features in the future.

Rally makes money by selling shares in the assets to investors for more than what they purchased them for, which amounts to a sourcing fee on each initial offering. They also buy between 2% and 10% of the shares offered by each asset, which means they're stakeholders in the assets they offer and will also make money when they're sold for a profit.

Who can invest with Rally? 

Rally is open to all U.S. investors. Anyone above the age of 18 can invest in Rally as long as they have a U.S. social security number, bank account, and U.S. address. While people located outside the U.S. can view the app, they can’t make a fine wine investment on it. But Rally says it’s committed to making its platform accessible worldwide, or at least as wide as possible.

Vint is a wine investment company that lets you buy shares in collections of fine wines and whiskeys. Founded in 2019, Vint’s master sommeliers source fine wines from around the globe and turn them into specially curated securitized wine collections. That means you can become a wine investor by simply buying a fractional share of the wine collection.

How does Vint work? 

Investing in a fine wine collection through Vint is easy. All you need to do is set up an account and purchase shares in a collection. Each curated wine collection has a set amount of shares that have to be sold during a specified time. If the collection doesn't sell out, investors get their money back.

If the wine collection is funded, it becomes a limited liability company. That means you own shares of a wine collection through the wine investment company which owns the underlying asset. Currently, you must hold onto shares indefinitely, though Vint plans to build a secondary market for trading fine wine investment shares sometime in the future.

Although there are no annual fees or management fees on Vint, the platform charges a one-time sourcing fee of 8% to 10% on purchases. In addition, they own 0.5% to 10% of each collection, making them a stakeholder in every wine investment offered on the platform.

Who can invest with Vint?

All U.S. adults are permitted to invest in Vint’s wine collections, including both accredited and unaccredited investors. The only drawback is that non-accredited investors can’t allocate more than 10% of their net worth or annual income in a single wine investment offering on Vint (same goes for Rally), while accredited investors are capped at 20% of their net worth per fine wine investment.

The biggest advantage of Rally is that you can invest in wine bottles and other types of collectibles on a single platform. Rally also offers a secondary market for speculative investors who want to trade over the short or medium term. While you do have to hold onto your investments for the 90-day lockup period after the initial offering, the secondary market makes it easier to liquidate your investments.

Also, there are no service, management, or trading fees, making Rally one of the cheapest wine investment platforms. 

However, Rally is still relatively new and doesn’t have a long track record, so it’s hard to predict how much your assets will increase in value. While shareholders can vote on whether to accept or reject a buyout offer, they don't fully retain control over when the asset is sold and profit is realized.

With Vint, anyone can invest in a curated collection of investment-grade wine for a fraction of the price. Vint’s in-house master sommeliers source each collection using extensive market research and analysis. There are no annual fees, and you can invest in wine through your self-directed IRA.

Since Vint is still a new investment platform, it doesn’t have a long track record to base its historical performance on. There's also no secondary market yet, so you need to hold onto your investment until Vint decides to sell the wine collection or open secondary trading.

A wine investment on Vint typically lasts three to seven years, and Vint retains total control over it when the assets are liquidated. Additionally, their sourcing fees are a bit higher than other wine investment platforms.

Whether you’re investing in the fine wine market or the stock market, it always carries some risk. The best way to figure out how much risk is to look at the historical performance of the asset you intend to invest in.

Wine investments have outperformed the S&P 500 in the past year, rising 23.1% compared to the S&P 500’s decline of 16.7%. In the past 10 years, the Liv-Ex 1000 fine wine index returned 103.8% compared to the S&P 500’s return of 171.5%. While a fine wine investment might have lower returns than the S&P 500 over the long run, it's a more stable asset class that yields excellent returns, nonetheless.

Fine wine's consistent growth and relatively low volatility make it an efficient store of value. The impetus for that is the supply of investment-grade wines on the market can't keep up with the demand for wine investments. Wine prices are only somewhat correlated with the stock market, which could mean that wine investment is a decent hedge against inflation.

The advantage of investing in wine through Rally is the ability to sell your shares on the secondary market, but this could be at a loss if there isn’t a high demand from other investors for that asset.

With Vint, you need to hold onto your fine wine investment for longer but are more likely to see a return on your investment.

How do I make money with Rally?

Rally hasn’t exited from any of its wine collections yet, so it’s hard to know how its fine wine assets have performed on the platform. However, you can look at trading on the secondary market and the performance of comparable assets to get an idea of how the wine could perform.

For example, 12 bottles of 2005 Chateau Latour are up 17.1% when compared to similar assets since 2006, while shares on Rally have increased over 96.4% since they started trading on the app in 2020. Meanwhile, a collection of 2003 Domaine de la Romanee-conti la Tache declined 20% since 2020 on the Rally app but has risen 515.8% when compared to similar assets since 2006. 

How do I make money with Vint? 

Vint shares are meant to be long-term investments. The only way to make money through Vint is to wait for them to sell the wine collection you own shares in, which would take about three to seven years.

Vint has already sold and distributed returns for four collections through complete and partial exits and generated a net annualized return of 28.3% across those collections. 

For wine collections it hasn't sold yet, Vint provides an estimate on the one-year return of each collection, which varies by type of wine, of course. For instance, an assorted collection of DRC 2015 had a one year-return range of 24.1% to 68.92%, while a DRC Romanée-Cont 2018 collection had a return of 40.7% in one year. 

Rally has a 4.8 rating on The App Store out of 2,000 ratings and 3.6 stars from 84 reviews on Google Play. Vint does not have an app so it’s not possible to compare their online performance to Rally.

Under a reddit thread called “Is anyone here invested with Vint?” user u/tim_thehollarduluth said they invested $150 with Vint in two different collections and commented that it was more of a long-term investment so he had yet to see a return. User u/1erGC, who claims to head up sourcing at Vint, also responded to some of the skepticism by other users in the thread, clarifying where the platform sources its collection and data.

Meanwhile, Rally has its own subreddit with 540 members. Many threads ask about the slowdown in buyout offers and market downturn that the secondary market is seeing, which they note is also in line with current market trends. 

In a thread called “Another Newbie Question on Liquidty,” reddit user u/LoveLondonGirl asked about reviews from people saying they couldn’t get rid of shares when they wanted to. Other users responded that liquidity depended on the asset and investing on the platform did carry risk. User u/hawaiiangiggity responded they had been on the platform for over a year and the only time they had issues with liquidity was when interest among new users was low.

Those interested in a fine wine investment can always buy and store their own bottles, but sometimes it’s easier to let an expert do the hard work for you. Both Rally and Vint offer a selection of fine wine and whisky that's properly stored in a cellar. Best of all, you can buy fractional shares of a wine collection, making it more affordable than buying the bottles outright. 

While anyone in the U.S. can use either platform, investors who are curious about other alternative assets and don’t want to limit their investments to just fine wine might prefer to invest with Rally. Rally also has the advantage of having a secondary market. While Vint has stated they plan to add one at some point, their users are forced to be long-term investors for now.

Vint, however, just focuses on fine wine, which means they're able to offer a more curated selection of wine from around the world. With Vint, you can also invest through your IRA, which is something Rally doesn’t offer.

Is Rally legit?

Yes, Rally is a legit trading platform regulated by the SEC. The company partners with FINRA and SIPC registered broker-dealers who handle each securities transaction.

How does Rally Rd app work?

Rally has a trading platform that mimics a stock market exchange. Each asset purchased by Rally is created into its own company and investors can buy shares of said company. After a 90 day holding freeze following the initial offering, investors can buy and sell their shares during trading hours on Rally’s secondary market.

How does Vint wine work?

Vint sources fine wine from around the world, curates collections, creates a holding company for each collection, and sells shares of it to investors. They only offer a few collections for sale at a time and the collection must be sold out within a specific timeframe or investors get their money back. 

Is Vint investing legit?

Yes, Vint is a legit company. They're SEC regulated and are transparent about their data, fees, and wine offerings.