Talking Wine – October 2014

Does anyone ever remember the names of Australian Prime Ministers? The Australian Prime Minister – think it might be a chap called Tony Abbott – has been ridiculed for the contents of his wine cellar which apparently holds an unbalanced range of below average wines many of which should have been drunk some time ago. A little harsh I feel especially as that criticism could probably be applied to most of our own cellars!! Australia is not the only country to come under scrutiny regarding its official cellar as taxpayers there expect a delicate balance between national pride and extravagance. The UK government’s cellar has been reduced by about 15% and is apparently now self funding in complete contrast to the deposed Ukrainian President whose cellar, when raided by protesters, revealed a penchant for Cristal Champagne, Vintage Port and exclusive Cognac – mostly drunk by his cronies and certainly not kept for investment purposes!!

Talk about adding insult to injury. Two London based wine firms have worked together to cheat defrauded customers out of even more money by falsely claiming that they could help recover their losses. Capital Bordeaux Investments targeted the victims of previous scams by encouraging further investment to help them recover their losses but never bought or sold any wine and simply disappeared with the cash. I have warned you before in this column to be extremely cautious when investing in fine wine but if you wish to do so I will steer you in the right direction and recommend the well established and professional firms.