Nervous Investors Turn To The Bottle

London's most famous wine merchant, Berry Bros. & Rudd, had one of the best weeks in its 310-year history.

At a time when global markets are tumbling, it seems as though investors are looking to put their money into safer forms of investment. For many, this translates to vintage wines.

BBR has sold around £60.5 million-worth of wine since April, it saw business surge by more than 20% over the same period last year.

It seems everyone selling bespoke wines are winning. Auction houses Christie's and Sotheby's (BID) also saw strong sales last week. Last week, Christie's sold £1.65 million worth of claret and Burgundy in just two days, with the 2000 vintage of Chateau Lafite-Roshchild fetching the equivalent of £910 a bottle.

London's Telegraph states: "Live-ex, a research company that runs a fine-wine index, estimates that prices of the best vintages have increased by 50% since the start of last year – in sharp contrast to the stock market, where prices have fallen by 15%."

Comic Storybook Boosts Asian Wine Sales

A Japanese anime comic series called “Kami no Shizuku” - which translates to “The Drops of God” is based on a wine enthusiast whose quest it is to find 12 of the best wines in the world.

PSFK describes the story as partly mystery but mainly a richly detailed and surreal wine review.

Reportedly, the comic series has sparked an overwhelming demand for wine in Asia, with mentions of specific wines becoming instant overnight sales phenomena. In some cases, the specific wines would literally triple in sales.

The comic is read by 500,000 Japanese each week and the sway it has over the wine market is spreading throughout Asia. Some wine importers say they have never seen such a powerful single influence on their business.

In Taiwan a single reference to a relatively obscure French brand led to dozens of cases of the wine being sold within a few days.

With the comic also being translated to Korean, the Telegraph says that sales of wine has increased from less than a third of the alcohol category market to around 70% of all alcohol sales.

Via: Telegraph, PSFK

Prince Charles' Aston Running on Wine

With fuel prices sky rocketing worldwide, very few people are denying the importance of finding alternate sources of fuel.


Now, it would appear that even members of the British royalty are setting the example for the noble fuel-saving cause. Prince Charles has converted his 38 year old Aston Martin - a gift from the Queen - to run on bio-ethanol. Post conversion, the car now reports consumption figures of ten miles per gallon, which equates to about 45 bottles of wine per ten miles. The wine, though, puts out 85-percent less CO2 and costs £1.10 per liter, which is less than the cost of petrol in Britain.

It has been reported that a vineyard in Wiltshire has been producing surplus wine that is sold to Green Fuels, a company which specialises in the conversion of wine into fuel.

Via: Daily Mail

Conventional Wine With Non-Conventional Packaging

Designed by a Spanish communications agency called Baud, the packaging for the Lazarus wine bottles incorporates Braille inscriptions along with some warm colours for those who still have the gift of sight - resulting in an attractive and eye-catching packaging.

Via: TrendsNow

Wine Tryvertisng

Springwise points us to an innovation in the wine industry in their attempts at appealing to the less knowledgeable of wine appreciators.

People who are not too well informed of the right year or region now have the ability to sample a selection of fine wines before actually shelling out a small fortune for that special occasion. WineSide has come up with the novel approach of offering wines packaged in sample size tubes. The French company offers both sweet and classic wines in patented, flat-base glass tubes with screw tops carefully engineered to protect the flavours of the wine.

A small and easy to transport sample of what the wine tastes like is a nice idea in theory, but I wonder if this would encourage those who enjoy drinking a little too much?

Clever Design?

Above is the winning design of a wine bottle by Viktor Pucsek for the “PapaMama Design Competition”.

The Vinho Verde (literally meaning "green wine") concept incorporates eco-friendly practices in the design of a very attractive bottle.

The bottle’s labels can be peeled off and folded up into paper cups. The unfortunate news for non-wine connoisseurs (and students) is that, being a green design, the bottle still uses a corkscrew, which means you cannot just enjoy the bottle on the side of the road when the mood takes you, the way you can with the tried and trusted pap-sak.