How Much Is That Bottle Of Wine Really Worth?

Wine: a massive confidence trick, that's basically what I'm saying

How Much Is That Bottle Of Wine Really Worth? -- Tom Chivers, The Telegraph

I'm not a wine expert. I enjoy it, but my expertise is limited to saying whether or not I like a given glass. All the heady-hints-of-pomegranate, redolent-of-a-misty-autumn-morning-in-Dijon, cheeky-zesty-little-number stuff is pretty much a closed book to me. Plus I prefer scotch, although again I can't get much more in-depth than "peaty" or "sweet".

I mention this because we reported the other day that the habit of selling wine "en primeur" has been ended by the famous Bordeaux winery Chateau Latour. What this means (I gather, from reading the news story rather than actually knowing anything myself) is that wine traders would buy it while it was still in the barrel, in bulk, and hold onto it in the hope that it would later become a great vintage. It's a sort of spread betting with wine: the vintners could confidently expect that some years' barrels will explode in value, with some bottles selling for thousands of pounds, thus easily covering any losses (or, more likely, lower profits) they might make on the more ordinary vintages.

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