I have heard that Moevenpick offers some kind of 'investment' product where you buy wine that effectively stays on their premises. At some point you sell it and, hopefully, make a profit. I assume you can take a bottle home and drink it but that's not really the idea.

Their website isn't clear about this, it just talks about you using them to store 'your' wine.

Anybody have any insights ?

Buy cheap sell higher, that's the business of wine merchants.

Mövenpick wein seems to be a profitable wine merchant. I fail to see why they want to share business and profits with their customers when they're not even a public company. So, why a private owned company let you keep the profit in the business they excel at?

Maybe they need to diversify to manage risk, get some fixed income from wine storage. But, that's their problem. I seriously doubt the problem is they lack the capital to buy wine and store it for a while.

Are you sure that you don't mean purchasing wine 'En primeur'?

Here you are buying wine that is still in the barrel with the hope that once bottled it would be worth more than you paid, although this is not always the case.

It's a very common model in the UK, and presumably here and in other countries. With 'en primeur' wine - typically red Bordeaux - the wine retailer makes a profit on the original sale and then charges the owner an annual storage fee, knowing that they're unlikely to move it for several years. In many cases, if the wine increases in value, the owner will ask the merchant to sell the wine for them, giving the merchant an additional margin.

Very important note: Bordeaux producers are notorious for overstating the quality and longevity of vintages, and overcharging accordingly, so that once you factor in annual charges, you may not make any sort of profit at all. It's easy to lose money this way. I've bought wine like this in the UK and while I have made some profit, it's really not a reliable money-making scheme unless you really do hit lucky with a top vintage and a fashionable label. If you're planning to actually drink the stuff eventually, and have optimal storage facilities at home, you should buy young and take delivery ASAP to avoid the storage charges racking up. If you're not quite sure what you're doing and buying, it can be a mug's game as the novice is very easy to sell to, and it may be 10 years before you realise that you've not made any money.

Based on fatmanfilms' recommendation, I've just bought 12 bottles and six magnums en primeur for delivery in 2023. If it turns out to be a good year, I'll sell the magnums and drink the bottles. If it turns out not to be a good year, I'll drink 'em all. Either way, I win.

Once the wine is bottled and released in 2023, I have the option of leaving them in the vendor's storage or having them delivered and storing them in my own cellar. Especially if you are intend to sell the wine on rather than consume it yourself, it's often worth leaving it in storage with the vendor as this will help assure any subsequent buyer that the wine has always been stored properly.

You mean in the worst case you have invested in expensive vinegar

First and foremost it support and develops the market (it's what marketing fundamentally is). While there will be enough demand for the new and stored supplies, there will be strong prices. Manufacturers and dealers can't sell much more of top grade and exclusive wines for end-consumers without flooding the market with it [or pushing their base into alchoholism or liver malfunction] and consequently destroying the premise of rarity and perceived value for aficionados, so supply-side invests in and develops market capacity for long-term holders. There are many risks with investments of this type, since there is no market outside of professionally controlled by industry insiders bubble. It is an old, strong and well-managed bubble, though.

Disclosure of personal conflicts: I've already made my fair share on wine investments in Californian capsule cellars in 2010s and still "own" some bottles with them, which I have never touched IRL. Made is mostly for fun and to get connections back in the days, financial returns were positive but nothing encouraging, considering the high risk, pricey maintenance (even when it is hidden from you, it is included in the operational costs and commissions) and limited liquidity of the underlying asset.

You have similar "balsamico" business in Switzerland, I think you "invest" into a barrel with few tens of liters od vinegar more than 10.000 swiss franks, you wait 5-10 or more years and than you sell it for "much" higher price as an inkjet ink. If you manage to.

I am a foody, ready to cook a piece of meat for 48 hours, wait weeks to ferment my own miso, or fly to Copenhagen once in while to try something new, but I guess I am waaaay too poor to understand how it could be enjoyable to spend such amounts of money for something that was traditionally produced by poor, but caring farmers to help them survive winter. So, I also cannot understand how this could be an investment. There are not enough crazy people to buy it? I guess I am wrong.

Uhm, "poor" farmers with a few barrels of wine in the cellar and what not. I never considered the farmers poor, it's us who have to buy everything and rely on an industry and the supermarket chains. I think you're wrong when you say it isn't an investment though.
(one that I'm also too poor to afford it lol)

And that's the sound of me walking away .... thanks for the heads up

Yeah, the vinegar producers used to be of much lower "status" than wine producers, or at least that's how it is stated in the memoirs of one vinegar producer that I read. The later (wine producers) were shunning the first ones with an excuse of not bringing home bacteria that could spoil the wine.