Vintage heaven; vintage hell
The transformation of Fine Wines
As you raise a glass of Chêne Bleu Rosé on a sizzling hot summer’s day, spare a thought for the wine industry, which is facing a perfect storm.
Global warming, increasing regulatory pressures, and disinvestment, are set to dent if not destroy what had seemed a simple story of emerging markets growth and increasing quality which would lead global wine consumption to reach $207bn in 2022.
But the overall global wine and spirits market has slipped by -1.4% in the last five years, according to industry body IWSR, and disruption of the status quo is set to accelerate. In the US, 54 per cent of the population chose to abstain from alcohol, driven largely by 21-34 year olds, according to a 2018 Nielsen Survey.
Parallels with the tobacco industry are not an exaggeration. Imagine a photograph of a liver riven by cirrhosis on a plainly packaged bottle of wine, along with a warning that alcohol can abet breast cancer. Inside, the magnum of Château Kirwan lies, un-drunk and unloved.
Hank Paulson’s take on the financial crisis
Reading former US Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson’s gripping account of the 2008 financial crisis while playing at cowboys in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains was perhaps not as much of an incongruity as it seemed.
The Tale of a Whale
The New York tourist sitting next to me with the map of London spread out on his lap asked where he could find the London Whale.
The CEO’s case for rocketing equity markets
A year after writing about the unsustainability of the French economy, I found myself this August once again amidst the glory-on-earth that is inland Provence.