*This* Is the No. 1 Quality to Look for When Investing in Wine

It's tempting to be an ageist when it comes to buying a fine wine, but it turns out there's another quality worth considering before you invest: region.

Yep, instead of focusing on the exact vintage of the bottle you're buying, it pays to look not only at the area of the world you're buying from—say, Bordeaux—but the exact winery, too.

Case in point: A recent piece in the Robb Report explained that "the top 10 Burgundy reds have appreciated in value 16.8 percent in the last year." That top 10 list includes a 2015 Pinot Noir cultivated at Domaine de la Romanée-Conti, one of the region's most prestigious vineyards, with an average price of $25,000 a bottle. (For the record, that's almost a $5,000 return in just one year.)

Keep in mind that how you store and care for your wine matters a lot when trying to re-sell.

But buying the right bottle is all about doing your homework and keeping tabs on the list of collectible growers and top wine regions around the world. (FYI: Piedmont, Italy, is starting to give Bordeaux a run for its money, per the same report.)

And here's the best part: Experts confirm the road less traveled often leads to the best vino. (Vacation planning has never been so fun.)