Our story begins in a closet…

For years this closet had served a dull purpose – a messy venue for blankets, kids’ games and the detritus of family life. I knew it could be so much more … it could, with some effort, become a center of profit in the Opdyke household.

So, I dismantled the closest, taking it down to the studs, and rebuilt it as an environmentally controlled wine cellar. And now, you might be wondering, what does that have to do with profit?

I am a renaissance investor. I’ve never been one to focus my money on a single asset class, choosing instead to spread my wealth wide rather than deep. I own stocks around the world. I have bank accounts in at least three countries. I own gold and silver bars and coins. My wife and I recently bought land in the mountains of Tennessee and I’m looking for my first piece overseas.

And I have that closet … or, rather, that cellar.

After completing its makeover, I began to methodically fill the cellar with more than 200 bottles of investment-worthy wines, including so-called cult cabernets from California, high-end French Bordeaux and some super-Tuscans from Italy.

Not many people think of wine as an investment. They see it as a beverage to share over dinner.

But high-quality, high-end collectible wine has a long history of appreciating in price by about 15% a year on average – and that turns wine from meal-time beverage into alternative asset....