My Article: When Wine Merchant Telephones Stop Ringing

I have been speaking this week to wine merchants in Los Angeles, London, Bordeaux, Zurich, Montreal, Florence, and Hong Kong, and they keep using the same word to describe the wine market at the moment: slow.

They all know what we know. People are not buying a lot of wine right now. They are waiting. They are not sure it’s the right time to buy. Others are drinking what they have in their cellars. Better to drink what you have than buy what you don’t need, most people think.

The economy is too volatile. Just read the business sections of your favorite media – so many problems. Nobody knows what the future holds for Europe and the Euro. The US economy looks to be in the doldrums for years ahead. China is buoyant, but what should you believe? The headlines are full of economic bad news everyday.

“The fear and uncertainty is colossal in the market,” said a big private equity fund manager to me today.

It all spells price corrections in the wine market, especially for expensive bottle. In other words, I predict prices will drop across the board from trophy Bordeaux and Burgundies to cult Tuscan and Californian wines.

“My customers think that prices are coming down on all of the best wines, so they say they are not buying,” a wine merchant friend from Hong Kong told me.

I read this morning on the BBC news website how one of Wall Street’s top financial fund managers knows when the stock market is off: “The stock market is having a really bad day because the phones stop ringing.” Fine wine merchants around the whole world are finding the same thing.