首页
登录
职称英语
Every year Berry Bros & Rudd, Britain’s oldest wine merchant, issues a pocke
Every year Berry Bros & Rudd, Britain’s oldest wine merchant, issues a pocke
游客
2023-12-25
49
管理
问题
Every year Berry Bros & Rudd, Britain’s oldest wine merchant, issues a pocket-sized price list. Reading old copies makes amateurs of quality quaff want to time-travel. In 1909 a case of 12 bottles of Domaine de la Romanee-Conti 1891, Burgundy’s most famous Grand Cru, cost 180 shillings (about £1,000, or $1,300, in today’s money). In its historic London store, which opened in 1698, a single 18-year-old bottle of similar quality now sells for £25,000.
Fine wine is expensive to store, and its rarity and high transaction costs make it—oddly enough—an illiquid asset. Even so, its appreciation with age and perceived ability to diversify portfolios have made it popular with investors over the past two decades. The value of wine exchanged yearly between consumers,
connoisseurs
and collectors—the secondary market—has quadrupled to $4bn since 2000, says Justin Gibbs of Liv-ex, a wine-trading platform. He reckons that just 15% of those buying wine on his website are doing so to drink it. The rest see it as a store of value.
Fine wines are traded privately, at auctions or through exchanges like Liv-ex, where members bid for listed crus. The equivalent of an initial public offering comes when estates release their latest vintages. The wine world also has asset managers, which buy and sell hundreds of cases on behalf of clients in the hope of turning a profit. Britain is a big trading hub, notably because it offers the ability to store wine free of customs and vat provided it is kept in one of the few taxman-approved warehouses. Many professional buyers thus hold their stock under the same huge vaults. Updating records is sometimes all it takes to transfer ownership.
Investing in wine has long meant buying
Bordeaux
. But that is changing: the French region now accounts for 60% of secondary transactions, down from 95% in 2011. The new picks have star appeal. Bordeaux prices have done well in the past three years, rising by a third. But the value of fine Burgundy has more than doubled, according to the Liv-ex 1000 index.
One reason is that greater price transparency has boosted buyers’ confidence. Fine wines, which do not generate cash flows, cannot be valued using financial metrics such as price-to-earnings ratios. But exchanges and websites like Wine Searcher, which gathers merchant quotes from around the world, provide reference points. Apps that collect reviews from critics and consumers also help; so do gadgets to improve traceability (though fakes remain a problem). Some of this cash finds its way to new terroirs.
Investors are becoming more sophisticated, too. Chinese buyers, whose thirst for Bordeaux kept prices afloat through the financial crisis, fled the region after 2012, when a crackdown on corruption meant demand for luxury goods dried up. Many have since turned to Burgundy. Most wine-investment funds, which in the 2000s managed €350m ($396m), almost all of it invested in Bordeaux, went bust when the market tanked. Such outfits have since reformed, trying harder to diversify.
Recent currency shifts have made top crus a relative bargain. Burgundy was already cheaper than Bordeaux, and a dollar rally after 2015 has put the region on American and Asian buyers’ radars (
the Hong Kong dollar is pegged to the greenback
). Italian, Californian and other French regions have also become fashionable, says Philip Staveley of Amphora, a wine-portfolio manager. But the best Burgundy is produced in tiny volumes. Chateau
Margaux, a Bordeaux star, puts out 11,000 cases a year; Domaine de la Romanee-Conti makes 450. That amplifies price movements.
Experts fear a bubble. "Everyone tells us it’s getting absurd," says Philippe Masset, a wine scholar. Younger vintages have become pricier than older ones—the wine equivalent of a yield-curve inversion. The Burgundy region gained 8% in November, while all others plateaued. Whether that lasts may depend on the value-for-money of the vintage released this month. But for now, investors see the glass half-full.
(选自《经济学人》2019年1月5日) [br] According to Paragraph 1, amateurs of quality quaff want to time-travel because in the past________.
选项
A、the quality of wine was much higher
B、the price of wine was much lower
C、the quality of wine was just similar
D、the price of wine was just similar
答案
B
解析
细节题。根据题干关键词定位第1段第1句。分析上下文,可知过去的红酒价格远远低于现在,也就说明了红酒爱好者想要穿越的理由,故正确答案为B。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3303760.html
相关试题推荐
JustasinAmerica,inBritaintoo,thestorytoldbyofficialstatisticsdo
英国税务当局本可以取缔这些业务,但几十年来它一直没有采取任何措施,目前亦没有行动的迹象。(kill…off;achangeofheart)Britain’
Whenahurricaneisabouttooccur,theNationalWeatherBureauissuesawarning
______theissuesofslaveryandracehasbeenfundamentalinAmerica’sdevelopm
BritainoccupiedJavaduringtheNapoleonicWars.BoththeBritishandlaterthe
AmericanYouthIssuesForyearsnow,we’veheardthe
AmericanYouthIssuesForyearsnow,we’veheardthe
AmericanYouthIssuesForyearsnow,we’veheardthe
AmericanYouthIssuesForyearsnow,we’veheardthe
AmericanYouthIssuesForyearsnow,we’veheardthe
随机试题
[audioFiles]audio_eufm_j08_001(20082)[/audioFiles]A、Shedidn’tgotothegame.
Lookatthefollowingstatements(Questions37-40)andthelistofresearchersb
[originaltext]WeonlyhaveafewminutesleftsoI’dliketogooveracoup
增值税纳税人发生的下列行为中,按简易办法依3%征收率减按2%征收增值税的是()
混凝土粗骨料的质量要求包括:( )。 ①最大粒径和级配;②颗粒形状和表面特征
下列关于伤寒肥达反应的叙述,不正确的是A.“O”效价≥1:80,“H”效价≥1:
A.氯霉素 B.维生素C C.吗啡 D.氨苄青霉素 E.肾上腺素分子中具
某县级领导向市级领导反映该县的一些社会情况,应选用的公文种类是()。A.通报
()是金融市场运行的基础。A.企业 B.中央银行 C.金融机构 D
中学生的伦理道德发展的基本特征之一是可以做到言行一致,具有()性。
最新回复
(
0
)