1st May, 2009

The world does seem a very different place. Three weeks ago Chateau Latour released its 2008 vintage en primeur at E110 per bottle or £1,595 per case into a very gloomy market place. The offer price represented a 50% cut on the 2007 release in Euros or 36% in £ terms. OK so I "managed" to secure one case. That was the first sign that I was not the only person to have it in mind that such a savage price fall represented, if not great value, then a punt worth taking, particularly given that signs are that it is a much better year than 2007 in terms of quality. Furthermore, wouldn't you agree that the Chinese are likely to get quite excited by the lucky proposition of the 2008 vintage? On such spurious pretexts are the best investment decisions often made. In the intervening period I understand that the broking price of Latour has gone up to £2,500 and Lafite, with which the Chinese have a particular affinity, is on offer en primeur to a limited number of J&B's customers at £2,500 and is already changing hands on the broking market at £3,500. Stunning really.



How long this will last...who knows. It may just be a reaction to the solid advice I heard earlier in the week issued at the time of Spanish Influenza epidemic of 1919 to drink a bottle of wine a day as a means of warding off the bug. But undeniably horns have come out from under shells and they are not just Chinese ones.


So its off into a Bank Holiday and after all the excitement of the week I have been perturbed by what a seemingly dull time I have ahead of me if I listen to myself explaining what I'm getting up to when various people have asked. For example, Saturday morning I face the choice between a drive up to Rugby to discuss GCSE options or an Inter-school show-jumping competition in Manningtree for goodness sake. Its not that Newmarket doesn't have excitements on offer. I was talking to a friend of Jemima's the other day, a precocious little guy aged 13, who was round for dinner before heading off with a troupe of young to the Dodgem Ball, a local teenage party. I asked him how the Dodgem ranked in the overall scheme of things and to his response that it should be a pretty good one I expressed , flippantly, my surprise, saying that I thought of him more as a De Niro's sort of a guy. De Niro's is a nightclub in Newmarket and, apparently, people come from miles around to party there. Sometimes even from London. It is not a place for 13 year olds and, unsurprisingly, being the boring f*rt I am, I have never been there. The boy grinned at me and, quick as a flash, retorted.... "No, I'm more a Heaven sort of guy". I had to Google that one. Heavenawaits.com is their website. The cheek of it.