Hong Kong and Global Wine Market

A new study, albeit based on 2010 data, was just released by Vinexpo awarding Hong Kong residents top spot on the Asian continent for per capita wine consumption.  The Wall Street Journal, reporting on the study last week, said the average Hong Kong consumer drank 6.3 bottles in 2010, about twice as much volume as Japan [...]

WineBid.com: Reliable Platform for Buying and Selling Wine

If my first WineBid auction experiment stirred your curiosity, then you will be interested to know the sale closed out successfully with 18 of my 19 consigned bottles selling at, or slightly above, reserve pricing.  Only one bottle remains unsold. As suspected, a large slice of bidders and buyers came from Hong Kong and around Asia. As you will [...]

WineBid Auction Kickoff: Guilt Turns Impatient

The wines I put up for sale with WineBid have been away from home for 13 days, so it’s fair time for an update.  I am finally at peace with the decision now that I’ve beaten back the guilt and fully digested the possibility of never seeing those bottles again. That’s the point, I guess; [...]

The Guilt in Selling Fine Wine

I am in the process of selling wine for the first time; not a lot, just some.  But as a novice seller I am unsure whether I am going about this in the right way, or even if I should be selling any wine at all. Besides that tidy basket of anxiety, it’s terribly emotional [...]

Bordeaux First Growths Fund Alternative Wines

In early 2006 the Bordeaux price-value line was breached and began its transgression towards complete collapse, erasing all justification for drinking the first growths and other similarly coveted wines that sat in my cellar for decades.  Just look at the blue line to the right, representing relative fine wine price escalation compared to the major [...]

US Wine Labels and Hong Kong Wine Auctions: Tale of Two Wine Worlds

While the US domestic wine industry continues its painful recessionary adjustments in response to the $50-plus wine category implosion and the consolidation of its distribution channels, the picture looks very different in Asia where this year’s Sotheby’s and Christie’s Hong Kong wine auction sales will outstrip their own combined New York and London volumes.  As [...]

One Enthusiast’s View on Wine as an Investment Vehicle

I always buy wine with an intention to drink it….someday.  For me, enjoying wine requires popped corks.  Unlike paintings, sculpture, or antiques that can be enjoyed without harming value appreciation or resale opportunities, wine is a consumable whose value remains elusive until it swirls in a glass under nose, eliminating any possibility for future valuation. [...]

Generous Collector Proves Blending Theory With 1928 Pol Roger

I am an occasional Champagne drinker that had a bubbly good experience this weekend that I suspect even the region’s most avid fan might find exotic.  A good friend and collector of old Champagne had told me about using young NV Champagne to bring life back to very old vintage wine.  We actually opened two 375 ml bottles [...]

Bordeaux Sucker Punch Ruins Wine Independence for All

Catching up on some overdue reading during the long Fourth of July holiday weekend,  I was struck by a disconnect between two really interesting pieces of material.   Wine enthusiasts face significant challenges that threaten a pronouncement of clipped shackles found in the primarily good spirited and reflective recent Alder Yarrow “Declaration of Independence” .  Enthusiasts continue to be repressed by a profound problem, overlooked in Yarrow’s celebration of expanding wine availability and information sharing, and inadvertently demonstrated in Robert [...]

When Lafite Meets Jiaozi

In case your catalogue never arrived, you can rest assured that the first fine wine auction ever held on mainland Chinese soil went off  without a hitch this weekend in Beijing.  A case of 1989 Petrus and 1982 Chateau Lafite Rothschild sold for 320,000 yuan each ($US 47,000)  and an  imperiale of 1979 Chateau Latour sold for 32,000 [...]