The wine talking, investments, wet ashtrays – sipped and spit
SIPPED and SPIT: wine as an investment
A new research paper shows that wine as an investment class beats the Russel 3000 equity index. But journoblogger Felix Salmon punches holes in their methodology and conclusions. [Reuters]
SIPPED: legal action
William Koch, the billionaire wine collector, has sued Christie’s auction house in Manhattan federal court over the disputed Jefferson bottles. He claims to have found two engravers in Germany who put “Th.J.” on the bottles. [AP; WSJ law blog]
SIPPED and SPIT: smoky pinot
The smoke-tainted (and some smoke-free) 2008 Sonoma Pinot Noirs are hitting the market now (as we tasted earlier). And they get page A1 treatment in the WSJ complete with a picture of the machine that removes the “wet ashtray effect.”
SIPPED: the wine talking; SPIT: Earth’s precious resources
In what may well have been an April Fool’s spoof, Sharon Kapnick draws to our attention a new label on the Allegrini Pallazo della Torre 2006. It blurts out information about the wine and winery in seven languages! Only thing standing between you and having the wine literally doing the talking at dinner is a handheld scanner.
On April 3rd, 2010 at 12:18 am ,Erol Senel wrote:
I find the Koch vs. Broadbent/Christie’s saga absolutely riviting. I have seen on a couple message board people asking for Koch to let it be and go away. I think those people are obviously not aware of what’s going on.
Back in November/December I was bullied by Batholomew Broadbent (Michael’s son) for voicing an opinion against his father.
His dad is at a very minimum guilty of not upholding his end of the bargain as the director of Christie’s Wine House. By turning a blind eye to the questionable provenance of excessively rare bottles of wine is a huge foul by such an astute wine professional.
You have to love Koch’s stance in this. “To me the simple, straightforward solution to this problem was for Christie’s to recognize its wine department was acting as an independent, rogue division, admit it, and clean it up immediately,” said Koch. “That would have resulted in an easy settlement with me and greatly enhanced Christie’s reputation in the collectors’ world as an auction house that will not tolerate selling fakes of any kind.”
Awesome stuff…
On April 3rd, 2010 at 12:36 pm ,Alan Howard wrote:
Re Allegrini: What’s next–“scratch and sniff” labels?
But, seriously, I like wines that speak to me. And one that does literally just may be worth checking out–not a spoof but smart marketing.
On April 4th, 2010 at 3:29 pm ,The Wine Mule wrote:
I remember Erol’s travails. I got into a little bit of it, too.
Not at all surprised that Koch isn’t letting the issue drop.
On April 7th, 2010 at 1:01 pm ,Erol Senel wrote:
A more civilized and forthright Bartholemew Broadbent made a comment today for which I believe you would appreciate. It does have a slightly different tone to the one from last year.
http://senelwine.com/2010/04/02/ws-com-christies-is-counterfeit-crusaders-biggest-target/