It's an investment that you might not live to enjoy. And, no matter how rich you are, you'll be lucky to get an allocation.
Over the next couple of weeks the Bordeaux premiers crus red wines will be up for sale - 2009, possibly the greatest vintage since 1982 according to Gérard Basset, arguably the world's most gifted sommelier, or wine taster.
Certainly the 2009 vintage shows signs of being the best of this century - a century that has produced the remarkable 2000, 2003 and 2005 vintages.
Some of these wines will be selling at the equivalent of an after-tax price of à1000 a bottle or about R2000 a glass when you come to drink it some time towards the middle of the century. And just to get into the game you'll be buying a 900l barrel, so we are talking about an investment approaching R10-million for starters.
Get in touch with one of the major Bordeaux dealers, or négociants - Wine & Co, Millésima or others. They'll advise the serious investor.
Before tax you might want to consider Cheval Blanc - that's White Horse in French and has nothing to do with a blended Scotch - the top-notch Saint-Emilion producer. Its 2009 is on offer at a pre-tax price of à600 a bottle.
Château d'Yquem (a white Sauternes), Margaux and Mouton Rothschild might just set you back marginally less.
Bordeaux wine dealer Jean Christophe Mau says that at these prices most of the top 2009 vintage will be for export - much of it to Chinese billionaires.
So is investment worthwhile? Well, the 2005s from the likes of Haut-Brion are now changing hands at twice their release price. And, if we trot across to the Champagne producers on other side of France, 30 bottles of 40-year-old pink Dom Pérignon were recently auctioned for just short of à140000 by Sotheby's in Hong Kong. That's somewhere in the region of R50000 a bottle once you've paid the auctioneer's fees.
Buy now, and you have to wait 30 years or so. 2009's Bordeaux vintage might go down well with people at your wake - but they'll be very grateful to you and will remember you for years.
Source: Business Times
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