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Wednesday, January 13th, 2010, 3:07 am
The below informations have been extracted from Insolvency & Public Trustee Office (IPTO) website at http://app2.ipto.gov.sg/
If you have invested in any sort of schemes or wines with UAG, please approached the revelant personnel for more assistance. Good luck.
Notice on Universal Assets Group Pte Ltd
Universal Assets Group Pte Ltd (”UAG“) was ordered to be wound up by the High Court in CW123/2009 on 2 October 2009. The Official Receiver has been appointed the liquidator in this matter.
Information on UAG’s Assets/ Affairs
The Official Receiver request the assistance of persons or parties who have any information on UAG’s assets, affairs and dealings to come forward with the information.
Please forward your information, with your name and contact details, to the following address:
The Official Receiver
45 Maxwell Road
#06-11, The URA Centre (East Wing)
Singapore 069118
(Reference No.: CW 123/2009)
or Email our Office at ng_yoke_peng@ipto.gov.sg
Claims against UAG
If your claim against UAG is for the non-delivery of wine purchased from them or by them on your behalf, please use this form and submit the original documents, evidencing the purchase and ownership, to us, at your own risk, no later than 5pm, 15 January 2010. Alternatively, please submit the original documents in person at our office, for our sight. Copes will be made and the originals will be returned to you.
If you decided to submit the documents in person, please make an appointment with either:
Or
If your claim against UAG is not a claim for the non-delivery of wine, purchased from them or by them on your behalf, then please proceed to file your proof of debt or lodge your claims online against UAG here.
- Supporting documents are to be mailed or faxed to us thereafter
- Please do not combine your claim against the Company with another creditor.
- Do not email the supporting documents to our office.
- Please take note of the e-filing number that is generated upon the conclusion of your transaction, and please quote this number and the winding-up number when corresponding with our office on this matter.
- A fee of $5.00 is payable via credit card or cash card for submissions online.
If you are unable to submit your form and documents online, you may do so in person by downloading the Proof of Debt (Form 77) and submit the completed form together with copies of the supporting documents, at our office. A fee of $8.00 is payable at our Office via Nets or cash card for submissions done in person at our office.
Please note that if you intend to submit the form and documents in person, our office hours are:
- Mondays to Fridays: 10.30am to 12.30pm, 2:00pm to 4:00pm
When corresponding with our office, please quote your name and the winding-up number.
Thank you.
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009, 12:26 am
By Yu Miao
Investment in Bordeaux red wine brings greater return than the stock market, property, oil, stamps and fine art, London’s Daily Telegraph reported Thursday.
Citing research by the London International Vintners Exchange, the paper unveiled that a 12-bottle case of 1982 Lafite Rothschild has jumped in price by 857 percent in the past 10 years, from 2,613 pounds ($4,182) to 25,000 pounds ($40,012).
However, the newspaper’s wine editor, Jonathan Ray, poured cold water on wine col-lection because it is a shame the wine has never been drunk.
“It is an amazing wine and it is a great return on your investment. But wine is made to be drunk and it should not be used as an investment tool,” Ray said.
“You would have had to have been quite well-heeled to afford the wine in the first place, but congratulations to the individual who had the foresight and the money to make the investment.”
The report quoted James Miles, director of Liv-ex Fine Wine, as saying, “The fine wine market has transformed in the past decade, with global turnover increasing from under $1 billion a year to more than $3 billion.”
“The ‘noughties’ have also seen fine wine move from being a niche investment for gentlemen into one that is considered increasingly mainstream by the investment community,” Miles added.
A research by Liv-ex showed that equities had dropped 17.5 percent from the end of December 1999 to November 2009, compared to a 9 percent rise in fine art, a 61 percent return in collectible stamps and a 118 percent rise in residential property over the same period, the newspaper said.
<source: http://business.globaltimes.cn/world/2009-12/494257.html>
Wednesday, December 30th, 2009, 12:24 am
Hong Kong. Chinese wine imports have soared more than tenfold in the past few years, but foreign producers hoping to cash in on the boom are warning the market is fickle and not for the faint of heart.
China is on track to import 10 million cases of wine this year, up from 840,000 in 2004, according to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council.
Asian wine consumption, excluding Japan, is expected to double from this year to $27 billion in 2017, the council believes, with much of that growth driven by Hong Kong and cash-rich China. In another sign of the growth of the market, last week’s Hong Kong International Wine and Spirits Fair, the second such annual event, attracted 520 exhibitors from 34 countries — double last year’s number.
“Many people are shocked by the speed of the growth,” said Raymond Yip, the HKTDC’s assistant director. “But there is a lot of pent-up demand for wine.”
The disposable income of an emerging Chinese middle class has grown, and many of its members are choosing wine as a healthier alternative to spirits, Yip said. “People are getting more health conscious and all of a sudden wine has become fashionable,” he said.
But Raymond Signorello, proprietor of Signorello Vineyards in Napa Valley, California, said he had been struggling to find the right agent to market his premium reds on the mainland.
“It’s kind of a gold rush,” he said from his booth at the fair. “There are a whole pile of Johnny-come-lately types who want to make a quick buck.”
Danny Kwok, whose firm Syba imports Spanish wine for the Hong Kong market, said selling wine in China was not as easy as it looked. “China is still a developing country and it’s hard to establish stable laws and regulations for wines,” he said.
Hong Kong and mainland Chinese officials announced that they had reached a deal on improving customs procedures to ease the flow of wine to the mainland. Still, producers have complained about a host of questionable activities by Chinese officials, including double taxation on imports, Kwok said.
Brendan O’Toole, managing partner of the Hong Kong-based wine exporter Summergate, said the business environment for wineries selling to China was improving, but only slowly.
“There’s more structure and things are more transparent now, but commerce bribery is still quite widespread. There is significant corruption,” he said.
Some wealthy mainland and Hong Kong drinkers are also turning to wine as an investment after wild swings in the stock markets and property markets.
Auction house giants Sotheby’s and Christie’s both said Hong Kong was overtaking New York and London as the world’s largest market for rare vintages. At Sotheby’s Hong Kong wine sale in October, mainland Chinese buyers accounted for more than a third of buyers, up from 10 percent at a sale just a few months earlier.
The auction results came as Hong Kong tries to position itself as a regional wine-trading hub. Lack of storage facilities and few well-trained wine professionals are among the challenges ahead for the southern Chinese city, fair attendees said.
Hong Kong’s ambition may outstrip its ability to be the dominant way station for wines flowing into China, Summergate’s O’Toole said.
“As a fine wine hub, it’s a realistic ambition, but beyond that, getting into the big volume market, the jury is definitely still out,” he said.
However, there is little question that Hong Kong will ride the wave of what promises to be a “very large” Chinese market, O’Toole added.
“It is already a substantial market, and it’s going to get a hell of a lot bigger.”
<source: thejakartaglobe.com>
Saturday, December 19th, 2009, 7:12 pm
In today’s market, despite these times of crisis, there is a lot of money looking for a safe home. Given low global interest rates, depressed stock markets, and collapsing property values, fine wine is undoubtedly an interesting investment, and as the top “New World” (Chile, Argentina, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand) wines continue to improve and compete with the previously dominant Bordeaux and Burgundy wines, there are an ever-increasing range of options. As with any investment, one needs to be aware of the risks and possible traps and take qualified counsel. So here are some basic guidelines to wine investing, some rules that anyone thinking of investing in fine wine should pay close attention to:
· Don’t invest more than you can afford to lose – prices do go down as well as up, so wine should represent only a small part of a balanced investment portfolio. “Irrational Exuberance” is not confined to stock, currency, bond, and property markets. For instance, following the exceptional Bordeaux vintage of 2005, there followed an ordinary 2006, and a downright mediocre 2007. However, carried away with the ´05´s success and rocketing yields, plenty of amateur investors got their fingers burnt paying over-the-odds for both the ´05´s and the mediocre later vintages.
· Shop around for the best prices. Sounds obvious, but plenty of investors fail to heed this advice and lose out as a result.
· If you are buying through a specialist investment company, take a good look at their historical returns, and be clear about commissions (fixed or percentage) charged. Also be aware that the best prices are generally offered “en primeur”, basically the wine is sold in advance about 2 years before being bottled – however, a wine that scores top points en primeur, may flatter only to deceive as it later evolves in barrel and bottle, so there is a certain risk attached.
· Store your wines in the appropriate conditions, and know the wine’s “service history” before purchasing. Even the top Bordeaux from the best vintages (such as 1982) will turn to vinegar if inappropriately stored.
· If you’re buying exclusively for a capital return, it’s recommendable to have a significant part of one’s wine portfolio in Bordeaux from the top years.
Buy wine from the best years/vintages – this is of especial importance with Bordeaux and Burgundy, which varies massively in quality from year to year – mainly due to the vagaries of climate in the top “Old World” winemaking regions. In the New World (Australia, Chile, Argentina etc) there is generally less qualitative difference between vintages, although this is not to say that all are the same and the wines will evolve equally year-to-year – there is still a risk of pre-harvest rain and, principally, hail, that can wipe out an entire producer’s vintage as well as human factors.
· Wine doesn’t generally attract capital gains tax as it is considered a perishable good – though it is worth checking with your relevant local authorities.
Serious investors might be interested in subscribing to www.liv-ex.com, the London International Vintners Exchange, which tracks the value of the top internationally traded wines, and through which a large amount vintage wine is traded. A disproportionate amount is vintage Bordeaux – of the top 10 traded wines on Liv-ex in 2008, nine were Bordeaux (of which the top 5 were the ever present Bordeaux West Bank 1st Growths, Latour, Lafite-Rothschild, Latour, Margaux, and Haut-Brion, followed by Petrus, Cheval Blanc, La Mision Haut-Brion, and Carruades de Lafite. In tenth place came the sole Burgundy, the super-exclusive and massively limited production Domaine de la Romanee Conti.
The most widely traded new world wines include the Penfold’s Grange, from Australia and the Opus 1 inspired by the late Robert Mondavi in Napa, California. Amongst the Latin American wineries, pride of place goes to Catena, Achával Ferrer, and Viña Cobos from Argentina (with a nod to Weinert for their excellent although not widely traded 1977 Malbec), and Lapostolle and Almaviva from Concha y Toro in Chile. My personal favourites are the Vina Cobos wines made by Paul Hobbs (of Hobbs winery fame in California) which will evolve brilliantly and at some stage may achieve 100 point-scores, with corresponding increase in resale value, likewise the top single-vineyard Achávals and Catenas, which are already competing with top-end Bordeaux in terms of quality, though this is yet to reflect itself as demand in the international wine market. Historic investment returns from Argentine and Chilean vintages are almost impossible to present, as Latin American wineries have only in the past 15 years started to seriously compete with their European competitors, following wave upon wave of investment (in technology and foreign and local expertise) from the mid 1990’s to date. In the case of Bordeaux there are records going back centuries, with consistent proof of the special ageing properties and development of these wines – which to a large degree explains the active market for these wines that has developed over time. Based on a combination of vertical tastings going back decades, one can accurately chart the likely future evolution of the top Bordeaux and Burgundies. With these new wines coming from the New World their future evolution, although likely to be similar, is also partly a matter of “wait and see”, and reflected as such in the illiquidity of these wines in the resale market relative to Bordeaux. On the other hand, opportunities galore exist to pick up some of the world’s top wines at knock-down prices – though to invest more than one is willing to lose doesn’t make sense, this is likely to represent a paradigm-shift in the wine world of the future, as well as a great buying (and drinking) opportunity for true wine lovers.
<source: http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=2382000>
Thursday, December 17th, 2009, 10:28 pm
A Daily Reckoning Special Report
By Amanda Skinner
For decades, shrewd people in the know have been buying more fine wine than they ever intended to consume. They have known that by selling some of their excess stock later, they may effectively be able to finance the proportion of the wine that they drink. And, if things go according to plan, they can even make some extra profit. I know one man who bought large quantities of the Bordeaux First Growths (Châteaux Margaux, Haut Brion, Mouton Rothschild, Lafite, Latour and Cheval Blanc) in the 1970 vintage. He had them bottled in large sizes (jeroboams – the equivalent of six regular 75cl bottles and imperials – the equivalent of eight bottles). Then, from the early 1980s, he sold a quantity of them on an annual basis to fund his three sons’ school fees at Eton.
In recent years, more and more people have adopted wine as part of their investment portfolio. Data is not available in the same way as for other investments, such as shares and building society accounts. However, it does seem that wines from the top vintages since 1982 outran the FTSE 100 Index and gold over the 20 years to 2003. In 2005, this interest in wine investment reached fever pitch when the Treasury announced plans to allow wine to be used as part of a self-invested pension plan, or SIPP. However, this legislation was never to see the light of day, with a U-turn on the policy announced in the following December budget statement.
The 1982 vintage, offered onto the market when still in barrel in spring 1983, could be viewed as a defining vintage for wine investment. It coincided with the arrival of former lawyer Robert Parker Jnr. onto the wine scene with his wine newsletter, The Wine Advocate. Parker decided to start rating wine, applying a quality point system from 50-100 and the first vintage that he tipped for greatness was 1982. Over the intervening years Parker has become an increasingly powerful player in the world of fine wine and his scores can make or break a wine’s performance. Whether you agree with his assessments or not (and there are constant and hot international debates about each and every one of his pronouncements), if you are looking to make profits out of wine, you cannot ignore him – his scores impact on the market.
Investing in Fine Wine – The Best Time to Buy
Usually the best returns are achieved if you buy the wine before it is bottled, or “En Primeur”. In the case of Bordeaux this is at the earliest opportunity, six months following the harvest. Bordeaux should form the bedrock of an investment portfolio since the wines have an international following and a proven track record. Furthermore, the top Bordeaux wines are produced in sufficient volume to create a market, even if not enough to satisfy worldwide demand.
Wine should be viewed as a long-term investment – the best returns are achieved between seven to 10 years after their En Primeur release.
Wine should be stored “In Bond”, that is in a warehouse regulated by HM Customs and Excise. If you take delivery of the wine you have to pay Duty and VAT which you cannot reclaim when you come to sell. A wine In Bond can be sold internationally and it provides a seal of quality for the purchaser who knows that the storage conditions will have been perfect during the wine’s life.
You should also make sure that your advisor has the network in place to sell your wine for the best price, when the time is right. You need to be sure that they have the ability and contacts to trade your wine for you. Their network should be international and include other wine merchants, hotels and restaurants, clubs and institutions and private wine collectors and drinkers.
Investing in Fine Wine – Why this “wasting” asset is good news for profits
Bordeaux has a maritime climate and quality varies from year to year. September rain and cool temperatures have been responsible for the ruin of many a fine vintage and so it is very important that you get good advice on your investment purchases. There are probably in the region of just 20 Châteaux which I would rate as “performers”. Again, therefore, you need a wine merchant who knows how to tell the winners from the losers and who has strong relationships with the Bordeaux traders and can access the “blue chip” wines.
Wine can also be purchased once it has been bottled and shipped to the UK. A good advisor will be in touch with market prices and snap up undervalued parcels of top wine. They will also regularly taste and re-evaluate wines – buying underrated wines and then watching their reputation and value grow. A recent example of this is the 2004 vintage. At its release, in spring 2005, there was not a huge global demand and the wines tasted awkward. A year later, they had developed well, filled out and were looking very attractive, yet their price had not moved. We bought as much as we could of the top wines and the prices are now starting to move upward.
Wine is classed as a “wasting” asset and as such does not attract Capital Gains Tax on profits made from its sale. There is not enough blue chip wine made to satisfy a growing international market, and demand outstrips supply. When the wines start to mature they are consumed, which brings further potential rewards as the wines become more scarce. New markets such as Russia, China and India are developing a taste for fine wine and there is no shortage of money to pay for the top names.
Investing in Fine Wine – Watch out for the Conmen
As with every money-making venture you can think of, wine investment attracts fraudulent operators. If you buy wine En Primeur, you are paying for it when it is still in barrels at the Château. It will not be bottled and shipped for another two years after you have handed over your hard-earned cash and you need to be sure that the merchant will, and can, honour the contract. You also need to make sure that your ownership is physically recorded on your cases of wine – in the 1990s several wine companies collapsed and their customers’ wines had not been separated from the company’s stock nor labelled with their owners’ details. Beware also of traders offering seemingly competitive prices, but who create cases of the same wine with 12 bottles from varying sources. Cases must be packed at the Château, and provenance is critical when you are buying for investment.
<source: http://www.dailyreckonings.com/special-reports/economic-forecasts/investing-fine-wine.html>
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009, 2:29 am
MATTHEW LYNN
December 8, 2009 – 2:25PM
Economic chaos? The US dollar crumbling? Central banks printing money like crazy? Probably the only real surprise about the surge in gold prices over the last few months is that it took so long to arrive.
Last week gold touched an all-time high of $US1227.50. Back in September it was still less than $US1000. Chalk that up as a victory for the gold bugs.
This week, the price is heading down, dropping below $US1200. Chalk that up as a victory for the gold skeptics, who regularly point out that the metal’s value is just a sentimental memory from a long-buried era.
In reality, while investors are right to be nervous about inflation, maybe they are catching on that it’s wrong to see gold as the best hedge against a general rise in prices. There are plenty of alternatives: equities, property, oil, luxuries or private-equity funds should prove just as effective a way of shielding yourself.
It isn’t hard to figure out why investors had been getting interested in gold again. Central banks are pumping freshly minted money into the system. A few hundred years of economic history says that eventually this will lead to inflation. It might be next year, or the year after. It doesn’t make much difference – it will arrive sooner or later, and you’ll need to get your portfolio in shape before it does.
Alloyed record
But gold? Whether it’s a hedge against inflation depends on where you want to start drawing the graph. Back in 2002, gold was less than $US300. If you bought it then, you’d certainly have protected yourself against rising prices – and made a fat profit as well. The 1990s were a different story. Gold started that decade at around $US400, and ended it below $US300. Not so great. As for the 1980s, forget it: gold lost almost half its value during that decade.
In reality, gold has a mixed record. Nor should you be surprised about that. A few industrial uses, and jewelry, aside, gold is valuable only insofar as other investors think it is valuable. By itself it isn’t necessarily worth anything. Nor does it generate interest or dividends. If the price doesn’t rise, you don’t get anything.
There isn’t much chance, either, of the world’s central banks making their currencies convertible into gold once again. They would bankrupt their governments in the process. It may secure itself a greater role as a reserve asset. But the gold standard isn’t about to be re-imposed.
In truth, while gold may have a role in protecting against inflation, there are plenty of alternatives. Here are five you should be thinking about – particularly when you bear in mind that gold is already close to an all-time high.
Real-estate rebound
One, property. The price of real estate won’t always move exactly in line with inflation. And you might want to steer clear of the markets where there has yet to be much of a retreat from the exuberant prices of 2006 and 2007. Even so, if there is more money chasing a static amount of land and buildings, prices are going to rise.
Two, oil. They used to call it black gold and maybe they should again. It has already stopped being just stuff we put in our cars, and use to heat houses, and become an investment asset in itself.
How else can we explain the fact that oil has ticked up past $US70 a barrel even while we’re living through the worst global recession since World War II? Oil is already, in effect, an alternative to gold. The one difference is that you can put it in your car and drive somewhere – making it far more useful than stuff good for little more than dental fillings and trinkets to wear around your neck.
Stock picking
Three, equities. Moderate, persistent inflation in the 3 per cent range is good for the kind of big, blue-chip companies that dominate the major global stock markets. They can edge up prices along with everyone else. And they can usually get away with increasing wages just a bit less than inflation, so cutting labor costs as well – particularly as unions are far less powerful than they used to be. In those circumstances, the shareholders should do fine – and their equities will more than keep up with rising prices.
Four, luxury goods and collectibles. Once inflation takes off, it is only real assets that will hold their value – everything else is just paper, and that will be of dwindling use. Assets don’t get much more real than historic art, valuable antiques, vintage automobiles or fine wines.
They should start to soar in price as the mega-rich realise they are among the few ways to protect wealth. And, heck, if you get it wrong, you can always hang them on the wall, or drink them.
Five, private-equity funds. This one might not be obvious. But a leveraged buyout firm buys well-established companies, in basic industries, and then loads them up with lots of debt, while hanging on to a little bit of equity. Inflation will effectively wipe out all that debt. The result? The equity that is left over will be worth far more.
Rate squeeze
Of course, none of these will necessarily work in the long- term. The only real way to control inflation once it gets started is to raise interest rates high enough to create a deep recession, and so choke off rising prices. That’s what central bankers did in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and may do again sometime around 2015 or 2020. Once that happens, you’ll need to think again – you might not want to be in property or equities.
That, however, is some way off. As we move into the early stages of an inflationary era, those five assets should do at least as well as gold, if not better.
Matthew Lynn is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own.
<source: http://www.smh.com.au/business/theres-better-inflation-protection-than-gold-20091208-kguj.html>
Monday, December 7th, 2009, 8:44 pm
Below is the Monthly Cellar Valuation from Liv-ex Fantasy Cellar:
Please subscribe to Liv-ex membership if you would like to receive this report to your email every month.
Liv-ex 100 Fine Wine Index have increased at an amazing +12.2% for the past 12 months.
 
The above is the Top 5 Performing Wines. Valandraud 1998 has increased at an exceptional +64.6% since 12 months ago! This is a great example that it is not the first growths that can give you the best returns from your wine investment. From the top 5 wines, you can see that 3 of them are not the first growths and have such great performance of at least 40%!
You should have a well-balanced and mixture of wines in your portfolio. Seek professional advice on how to create a profitable wine investment portfolio for yourself. Email to me now at jack@wineinvestment.sg and you will be recommended to a professional advisor for your wine investment portfolio.
Cheers and congratulations to those who already have the above 5 wines in your portfolio. Please feel free to share with us your thoughts and comments below.
Sunday, November 22nd, 2009, 10:51 pm
Wine, classic cars and art investments offered mixed returns throughout the noughties. Jill Papworth and Patrick Collinson round up the returns
Vintage wine from Bordeaux has outperformed shares and property since 2000. Photograph: Graeme Robertson
Wine
Fine wine was the best investment of the decade, with the top French vintages earning returns that far oustripped equities, gold and property. The average price of a fine bordeaux red jumped 138% in the noughties, equal to a gain of 11% a year, with the most sought-after labels, such as Lafite Rothschild, up almost 10-fold.
The Liv-ex Fine Wine Investables Index, which tracks the price of notable bordeaux reds from 24 leading chateaux found that between 31 December 1999 and 31 October 2009 there was a 138% return on investments across this range. The best performer was Lafite Rothschild 1982, which cost £2,613 for a case of 12 bottles at the beginning of 2000 and sold at the end of last month for £25,500, a return of 876%.
Behind the price surge is a limited supply and an influx of new-money buyers from China and the rest of Asia. Specialists reckon that, as China continues to industrialise, prices for fine wine will continue to soar.
Photograph: Michael Dunning/Getty Images
Liv-ex director James Miles says: “The economic case for investing in wine is compelling: supply is static; quality conscious producers have even cut production in recent years. More-over, fine wine cannot be replenished. Every time a bottle of Lafite Rothschild 1982 is opened, there is one less for the world to enjoy. Add to this rising demand from new markets, such as Asia, and the case for rising prices is a powerful one. Wine has also been a useful tool for portfolio diversification with a history of high returns, low volatility and negligible correlation to mainstream assets.”
But would-be investors should not simply buy the first gluggable case that takes their fancy: not all well-known wines are suitable for investment.
To be regarded as a fine wine, it must have the potential to improve in bottle and appreciate in value, and be actively sought after by merchants. To satisfy this requirement, a wine must have a long track record, often centuries rather than decades, and have received strong critical acclaim. Investors use the Parker score on a fine wine before buying, a classification scale of up to 100 credited to US journalist Robert Parker Jnr, probably the most influential person in the fine wine market.
Miles says: “In practice, this is a narrow group of wines and includes the very top wines of Bordeaux and a smattering of wines from Burgundy, the Rhone, Italy, Champagne and the New World. Most professionally managed investment portfolios have between 80% and 90% by value invested in just eight brands – the five first growths, plus Cheval Blanc, Pétrus and Ausone. These brands have so far accounted for 64% of Liv-ex’s turnover in 2009.”
But beware, this is a market in which naive investors can easily lose out to scam operators. Only buy from an established, reputable merchant. Jill Papworth
Which wine will be the best investment for the next 10 years? I strongly believe it will be Asia-focused and entirely red wine. The increased demand we have seen, particularly from Hong Kong, over the past 18 months is likely to spread to China’s major cities, putting enormous supply pressure on certain Bordeaux chateaux. Bordeaux has an almost infinite market for a very small, finite product. To give you a feeling of size, the great Chateau Mouton Rothschild 20 years ago was producing twice as much as it does now as it, and all its peers strive for perfection by making a more concentrated, and therefore smaller, grand vin. In 2008 it made approximately 13,000 cases. Even at £2,760 a case this doesn’t go anywhere – apart from more expensive – in such a potentially enormous market as China. I see the first growths Lafite Rothschild, Mouton Rothschild and Latour leading the pack over the next year or so with Haut Brion and Margaux following close behind.
My tips are: 2008 Ch. Mouton Rothschild at £3,000 per case; 2008 Ch. Lafite Rothschild at £4,960 per case; 2008 Ch. Latour at £3,600 per case; 2006 Ch. Lafite Rothschild at £4,000 per case; 2005 Ch Lafite Rothschild at £8,000 per case. Simon Staples, Berry Bros & Rudd
<source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2009/nov/21/alternative-investments-performance-2000>
Wednesday, November 18th, 2009, 7:39 pm
Nov. 18 (Bloomberg) — The label on the Chateau d’Yquem read 1816, but the number on the cork looked suspiciously like 1949.
It should have read 1849, when the sweet Sauterne was first re-corked, said Stephen Williams, president and chief executive officer of Antique Wine Co. in London. While the date didn’t mean the bottle was a fake, with concern that wines are phony ubiquitous in the high-end market, retailers take extra precaution.
“There was a need for a scientific solution to be 100 percent sure,” said Williams, who discovered a bogus 1982 Dom Perignon and a fake 1947 Cheval Blanc earlier this year.
The Chateau d’Yquem, from one of France’s most-coveted vineyards and selling for more than 10,000 pounds ($16,800), will be sent to the region of France where it originated, Williams said. There it will be examined by researchers using a particle accelerator to test the age and origin of the glass, one of several methods fine-wine sellers in London use to weed out fraudulent wines that sell for thousands of pounds.
Fraud in the $3 billion global wine market is rising, according to the U.K.’s tax authority. Wine investment scams are also up, U.K. prosecutors said. Richard Alderman, the director of the U.K. Serious Fraud Office, said in an interview in September that the agency is getting more wine-fraud referrals.
“We are seeing a move toward high-end wines, the more popular ones,” said Beryl St. James, a spokeswoman for HM Revenue & Customs.
Suspect Bottles
The fraud office has gotten at least seven tips on wine scams in the past six months, SFO spokeswoman Katie Winstanley said in an interview.
Two of the fraud office’s current cases involve boiler-room wine investment fraud, Winstanley said. Boiler-room frauds typically involve aggressive sales campaigns and perpetrators cold-calling prospective investors.
Wine sellers say they’ve noticed an increase in suspicious bottles.
“We are coming across more wines that are suspect,” said Adam Brett-Smith, the managing director of Corney and Barrow Ltd., a London-based wine merchant that holds a royal warrant of appointment to supply wine to the queen and Prince Charles.
Brett-Smith was called into Zafferano, a Michelin starred restaurant in London’s affluent Knightsbridge neighborhood, to authenticate a bottle of 1961 Chateau Petrus last year. The bottle sells for around 18,000 pounds.
Particle Accelerator
Brett-Smith was unable to verify the wine because he and Chateau Petrus only have the means to authenticate bottles dating back to 1964, he said. This is done by comparing the minute differences in the bottles, labels and corks, which change for every Petrus vintage.
The market for fine wine dipped last year, and has continued to rise since then, according to Liv-Ex, a London- based wine index. In the past month, Williams sold two bottles of 1811 Chateau Petrus for $50,000 apiece, he said.
Paranoia among wine buyers is on the rise after last year’s book, “The Billionaire’s Vinegar,” by Benjamin Wallace, detailed the purchase of a possibly fraudulent bottle of 1787 Chateau Lafite Bordeaux, Williams said. Fakes have always been a serious concern, and he hasn’t seen an increase, he said.
“There are around 60 chateaus in Bordeaux, and they’ve made around 100,000 to 400,000 bottles a year over the last 200 years, so it’s more likely than not that when I go into a wine cellar in France that they’re real rather than fake,” Williams said.
Radioactivity
The Antique Wine Co. has sent around 500 bottles to the Centre d’etudes Nucleaires de Bordeaux Gradignan over the past two years to be examined by the particle accelerator, Williams said. The process can authenticate the glass in the bottles using ion-beam analysis to determine the age and history of the bottle, according to the institute.
The center also tests wine by measuring the radioactivity that it emits, Williams said. That can only work on wine where the grapes were grown after 1945, when the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The radioactivity in the soil declined after 1945, and spiked again in 1961, when there was Cold War- era nuclear testing, and again in 1986, when the Chernobyl nuclear reactor failed, he said.
Wine retailers and chateaus are vigilant to weed out fakes, Brett-Smith said. If a customer brings him a bottle to verify, he will only do so if they sign a disclaimer saying that if Corney & Barrow “find the wines to be not correct in our opinion, we will either drink the wines with them there and then, or destroy them,” he said.
‘On Guard’
Romanee-Conti, the French winery, has asked Brett-Smith to destroy or “irrevocably wreck the label” of any bottle Corney & Barrow finds with their name that is a fake, he said.
“Everyone in the trade is constantly on their guard for it,” said James Miles, the director of Liv-Ex, a London-based wine index, who valued the wine market at $3 billion. “There’s a pretty vigorous vetting process, so the traceability is such that any person selling fraudulent wine is going to float to the surface pretty quickly.”
<source: http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601116&sid=aXH.BC0Bs6J4>
Message from Jack Siew:
Dear Wine Lovers,
With fine wines being a large billion dollar industry and market, more and more wine scams and frauds companies are being set up around the world. And these companies typically use hard-selling, aggressive cold calling sales tactics.
Thus, please BEWARE of any companies that Cold Calls you. You will never want to invest your hard-earned money into these scams and suspicious wine investment companies.
You should ONLY deal with established and reputable companies, with excellent track records and history.
If you are keen to invest in wine, but do not know who to approach, email to me now at jack@wineinvestment.sg and I will recommend a highly established company to you.
Do you know of any companies which are suspicious and could be potential scams or frauds? Please share with all of us at the comments box below. All of us wine lovers will appreciate your sharing. Thank you so much.
Cheers and enjoy your wines. 
Friday, November 13th, 2009, 3:07 am
| Alternative Investments |
| Wednesday, 11 November 2009 12:00 |
| Château Mouton Rothschild was the star performer in the fine wine market during October as some Asian buyers moved their allegiance from their former Bordeaux of choice, Chateau Lafite.
Mouton prices were up around 10% in a month for the best 1990s vintages while the main fine wine index, the Liv-ex 100 increased by 1.9% and the Liv-ex Claret Chip rose by 1.8%.
Mouton 1998, for example, is beginning to drink well now: this leads to increased demand and falling supply, and this pushed up its price last month by 11% to £2,300 a case.Asia is still leading the demand for investment quality wines but the traditional markets of America and Europe are showing signs of recovery. There were some extremely strong results produced by global wine auctions including the sale for £60,000 in Hong Kong of one impériale of Pétrus 1982, which is a single bottle containing six litres of the wine.
Fine wine prices are now up by an average of 14-18% since the beginning of the year. This healthy increase has been achieved with minimal volatility. Nine out of the ten months have been positive, with just one small (-1.2%) negative figure in March. With only two months to go the fine wine market is on track to deliver returns of 16-20% in 2009.
Fine wine is providing continued stability when other asset classes are still suffering volatility. The Sharpe ratio demonstrates that fine wine is outperforming other investments on a risk adjusted basis. The first reliable monthly records for fine wine prices began in 1993 and since then prices have risen more than tenfold – giving an annual return of 15% according to the Fine Wines Investables Index produced by Liv-ex, the fine wine exchange. Over the same period gold has risen less than three times at an annual rate of 7%. Fine wine prices have even kept pace with the gold price this year despite its recent surge to around $1,050 an ounce.
“Fine wine has shown significantly lower volatility than gold during most of the period from 1993 and the relatively small 2008 decline in fine wine prices in unparalleled economic conditions has already been more than been made up in 2009,” said Andrew della Casa, Director of The Wine Investment Fund. “Our own portfolios have generated average returns of 2.3% in October alone.”
<source: http://www.investmentinternational.com/news/alternative-investments/fine-wine-in-an-asset-class-of-its-own-3123.html> |
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