Singaporeans, turtle skirt and South African wines as investments(2)
Personal wine highlights of many interesting bottles included
Domaine Leflaive Puligny Montrachet 'Clavoillon' Premier Cru 2000
(outstanding despite its sharksfin partnership), and
Corton-Charlemagne Grand Cru 99 from Domaine Bonneau du Martray. The
Vosne-Roman閑 Premier Cru 'Les Beaux Monts' 2000 from producer
Domaine Bruno Clavelier offered a classic expression of Pinot Noir.
A solitary Bordeaux, Third Growth Ch鈚eau Cantenac Brown 2002 from
Margaux, made its entrance as an alternative to Burgundy, with
succulent goose in its crispy skin. Its blackcurrant, violet
intensity had an almost Syrah-like black pepper quality. Also
delicious was stonefish with mustard greens, an ugly-looking
specimen in the fish tank before its poisonous spikes removed. The
intended high point of the meal was braised turtle skirt on Chinese
spinach, prized for being rich in collagen - did I mention I was en
route to Bali, where a friend has saved 3,500 turtles from ending up
in the cooking pot over the years?
Sweets included a thousand-layer salted egg yolk cake. I'm familiar
enough with Chinese etiquette to know better than to refuse generous
hospitality, but I did scold Kah Hin gently about the turtle. "Next
time we'll eat crocodile from head to tail, the feet near the ribs
are the next part!" he declared.
I joined another group of Singaporeans for lunch at Terroir in
Stellenbosch a few weeks ago. Enthusiastic members of the
International Wine and Food Society (Singapore branch) they were out
for a whistlestop tour of the Cape Winelands. With compliments
flowing over the lovely South African scenery, food and wines
tasted, it turned out that they'd been hosted at Kanonkop, Meerlust
and Boekenhoutskloof. So the follow-up question from a wine
collector took me by surprise. "Does South Africa have any
investment wines, something along the lines of Australia's Grange?"
he asked.
I nominated those same wineries as having established track records
for producing fine ageable wines over consecutive vintages. But I
had to acknowledge that we have no icon wine where older vintages
appreciate in value, on a par with Grange. So I took the question to
Roland Peens of Cape Town's fine wine brokers and wine storage
facility Wine Cellar.
Peens says he's successfully sold older vintages of Kanonkop Paul
Sauer, Meerlust Rubicon and Boekenhoutskloof Syrah for upwards of
R600 or R700 per bottle (they charge a 20% brokerage fee). He's also
seen earlier vintages of Vergelegen V sell online for over R1000,
after release prices in the R700 range. Sadie Family's Columella
fetches these figures too a few years after release, but then
Columella achieves higher prices to start with. Peens agrees that we
don't have a South African Grange, pointing out that it's difficult
to develop a proper market for fine wines amongst South African
collectors, local collectors being so niche they barely count. In
comparison a huge amount of merchants in the UK offer vintage French
wines.
One problem is that South Africa doesn't have a secondary market.
Lacking the UK's bonded warehouses and auctions of wine for
investments (where many Asian collectors also store their wines), it
means every time wine is sold, duty and taxes are payable to the
government. Buying wine from a bonded warehouse in the UK, those
taxes aren't paid until the buyer requests to have the wine
released. When fine wine is sold as a potential investment in South
Africa, the duties and taxes have to be paid every time. And with
our high interest rates, most South Africans would rather back an
interest-bearing account to deliver. In wine you're not guaranteed a
return.
