L.A. Times: Young wine fanatic ups the ante

Near the end of the story, I find that Rudy Kurniawan is now moving into fine art buying, as he now has collected about everything that is worth collecting. Of course he drinks a lot of these rare wines, so he still will have to buy some replacements. However, I do not expect prices for rare wines to drop much, if any, because there is a group of several very wealthy wine collectors that bid against one another, and the sky is the limit when two or more of them want a certain lot of wine.

There was a time, not so many years ago, when old, rare fine wines were not nearly as expensive, even if adjusted for inflation. A person with a middle income could afford a bottle now and then. Part of the reason for such drastic price increases is the market for fine wines in the Far East. At one time expensive Cognac was the popular thing in many of these markets, but, with the younger generation, the interest has shifted to fine wines. It seems also to be somewhat a matter of "face". If you were an important large bank CEO, for example, it might be considered nearly an insult if you served your peers anything but what is considered the best and most rare. Food and drink seem to be much more important throughout the Far East than in much of Europe and the Americas, for those who can afford the best.

Of course, it depends on what you mean by fine and rare, but as an infrequent participant in wine auctions, I find that I can still procure older bottles of fine wine for prices that are within reach for a member of the middle class in the US. For instance, I recently paid ~$400 US for two magnums, one of '75 Latour and the other of '78 Ducru Beaucaillou. For similar prices, I've obtained a mixed case of '88 1ers from Burgundy. So, I think that the key in these days is to pursue years and producers that have not been hyped by Parker, Tanzer or the WS. Fortunately for me, my tastes also run contrary to those sources, so I can snap up bottles from disparaged years or producers for reasonable prices. Still, your point remains that fine wine prices, especially in the upper tiers, have appreciated far faster than the overall rate of inflation.

Mark Lipton

It seems to me that recent appreciation has been strongest in top tier Bordeaux and Piedmont. Still some occasional bargains, but now the prices seem to be going up in things that were comparatively undervalued not long ago- '83 & '88 Bdx., '93 Nebbiolo, '88 & '00 Burgundy , etc.

Mark Lipt>