Nasdaq – Who Knows? 

Wine-Now is the Time - Maybe!! 

By now, we all know for sure that what we knew or thought we knew about the stock market, about securities and certainly about ethics is all very wrong. Granted the unprecedented and egregious greed of many CEOs and CFOs and analysts and brokers and lawyers and accountants and others is beyond our comprehension. We wound up taking a beating as the supply demand curve went the other way.

But what we should know now about the wine market is pretty clear and not beyond our comprehension, even though there are similar evil forces at work that are trying to obfuscate us. Those forces, mostly French Bordeaux and Burgundy vintners and other upscale producers can’t control the wine market because the basic rules of agriculture (and increased science) have overpowered these forces of evil.

Events of the last few weeks have made all this very clear. For the first time in history, the wine buyer or collector may be in charge of his own destiny. You see the world is awash in a sea of wine at all levels. Thus the supply- demand curve is going the other way. But this time we are in charge if we have the discipline and energy to control our own wine destiny

You know that Chile and Australia have been selling more and more wine, especially in this country every year. A walk through the wine department of most super markets shows more Australian wine on the shelf than Italian wine. Italy is the number one producer in the world. So figure that one out.

Vintage years often overlooked in the past now become important and you should try to learn something about the quality of the vintages of wine in which you are interested if you are spending over $20 on a bottle. It can apply to lesser wines too.

As an example, the great values in red wines have been coming from the Southern Rhone area of France. Wonderful wines from there have been on the market for about a year in the $8-10 range. Wines from the same vintners are now in the $6 range. That is a 25% drop. But the early wines were the ‘98 vintage, a great year for Southern Rhone wines. The wines now being offered are ’99 vintage which is an off year.

The 2000 Southern Rhones are another great year but they are not being brought in because there is a glut of ‘99s still on importers, distributors and retailers shelves. They can’t buy the 2000 vintages until they get rid of what they have. The same thing is true of many Italian and other French wines. The French especially are frustrated and confused right now because for the first time in their history, they seem unable to pull the wool over the eyes of the wine buying public.

Medium sized and well financed wineries world- wide are hoping to play the aging game. They are going to hold their current wines off the market until prices improve. They believe in the age-old proverb that the only thing that increases in value as it gets older is wine. So they figure they will hold off and sell their current wine for much more as aged wine in the next year or two.