Take a look at sections 6.5.3 (Inline Lists) and 6.5.4 (Array Construction) on this link to Spring Expression Language Features.
From the link:
Lists can be expressed directly in an expression using {} notation.
// evaluates to a Java list containing the four numbers
List numbers = (List) parser.parseExpression("{1,2,3,4}").getValue(context);
List listOfLists = (List) parser.parseExpression("{{'a','b'},{'x','y'}}").getValue(context);
{} by itself means an empty list. For performance reasons, if the list
is itself entirely composed of fixed literals then a constant list is
created to represent the expression, rather than building a new list
on each evaluation.
I am not sure that this will work exactly like you would like it to with the @Value
annotation in combination with the PropertyPlaceholderConfigurer
, but it is worth a look.