Webinar: How to Display and Conserve Fine Wine Collections

Manoj: 

And good morning, good afternoon and good evening to you, wherever you are. Thank you very much for joining us on this ArtRatio webinar on ‘How to Display and Conserve Fine Wine Collections’. I am joined today by Stuart George, who is the Founder and Managing Director of Arden Fine Wines. Thank you for joining us today, Stuart. 

Stuart:

Thank you Manoj. Good afternoon to you and good afternoon, good morning, good evening to all the other guests. 

Manoj: 

So just a quick couple of introductions: Arden Fine Wines are Mayfair-based specialists in fine wines and spirits. And for those of you who do not already know us, ArtRatio are boutique manufacturers of smart glass vitrines for art and luxury collections.

Manoj: 

So who is this webinar for primarily? It’s aimed of course at the fine wine enthusiast and collector; and also retailers. We also believe it could be useful for wineries and auction houses since they form part of the trade, just as fine wine logistics companies. We think it could also be useful for fine wine fund investors and also free ports and insurers since they’re also either in the business of storing wine or dealing with wines. 

Manoj: 

So let’s move straight on to the first question for you Stuart:- What global trends have you observed in the fine wine market in, let’s say, the last 10 years? 

Stuart:

Well the Year Zero of the modern fine wine market is February 2008, when taxes were abolished in Hong Kong, and that led to the Chinese Asian market going supernova. 

Subsequently that has been a huge factor in the modern fine wine sector. Another aspect as noted on the slide here is the credit crunch after 2008. That didn’t really affect China which was largely immune to it but it certainly affected Europe and North America. But the Chinese market kept things relatively buoyant. 

More recently, Bordeaux prices softened somewhat from the highs of a few years ago when things were really going crazy fueled by Asian money, principally. Burgundy is particularly sought after at the moment and it’s probably never been more expensive than it is at the moment. 

Manoj:

Right, so on the subject of prices, we can see here a graphic showing the growth of fine wine prices. These are just the highest prices paid for particular bottles. We can see going back

to 1985 it was a 1787 ‘Chateau Lafite’ which fetched $156,000 and it’s been climbing steadily; and I believe in 2018 there was a 1945 Romanée-Conti, which sold for $558,000. So do you see this trend as being a logical consequence of global trade for example? 

Stuart:

Well it is back to Asia really being the two most recent price records achieved for the Lafitte and the Romanée-Conti. They both went to Asian buyers. The 1869 Lafite was sold in Hong Kong. The market in 2010, when that bottle was sold was really just about at its peak then, even if it has faded somewhat since, due to the clampdown on gift-giving and so on in mainland China. 

The Romanée-Conti was sold to an Asian private client apparently but it was auctioned in New York rather in Hong Kong which is a sort of interesting hedge or view of the market as it now is so still plenty of money in Hong Kong and in mainland China but not as much as it was. 

Fine wine merchants and auctioneers increasingly have turned back towards New York and sometimes London too. 

Manoj:

I see a parallel there with the art world which has suffered somewhat of a similar trend, also largely influenced by China and also suffering from the clamp down on gifts as you just mentioned.

Manoj:

On to the next question:- what horror stories can you share with us in how you have seen fine wines being stored? 

Stuart:

Well one that comes to mind was a private cellar I looked at a few years ago in East London, belonging to a charming old widow whose husband had recently passed away, including some old vintages of Mouton Rothschild and particularly quite a lot of old vintage port, principally the 1963 vintage. I forget which producer but there were 63’s. 

Anyway, I went round to her house and was shown to the cellar such as it was, which turned out to be a cupboard, probably about ten feet away from an oven and therefore horribly exposed to heat on an ongoing basis; when I opened up some of the cases of port, some of the bottles that had just dripped away and were only half-full (or half-empty depending on your perspective) so that was a very heartbreaking scene to see that these lovely wines had not really been looked after terribly well unfortunately and that was very indicative of what heat damage can do to a wine. 

Another example in London is another private cellar, which had some older vintages of Chateau Haut-Briand. The cellar had flooded two or three times over the years apparently and the Haut-Briand and other things were found floating in it at various points but the bottles funnily enough went largely unscathed. The labels had gotten bashed about a bit and we’re largely illegible, but the corks had held firm. 

And there is kind of an interesting theory behind what happens to wine when it’s in water it you know assuming a cork is liquid-tight, you know if nothing gets out then nothing will get in, but it suddenly becomes an anaerobic aging exercise and so in theory it would slow down the aging process of wine. 

Manoj:

Right, so talking a bit further about the corks then, I’d imagine a lot of people who are watching this after the event; you will already know that by, you know, the answer to ‘why should wines be laid flat?’ and that of course is by laying the bottle on his side the cork is kept wet. Would you agree with that? 

Stuart:

Yes, yes, absolutely. 

Manoj:

And apparently this stops the flow of inbound oxygen, stopping the oxidation of the wine. I think maybe what one other factor that people perhaps don’t think about so much is the effect of solar light on any particular environment. The near infrared passing through a window can heat up the temperature inside a room and if you raise the temperature you lower the relative humidity, so could you explain to us why cork is so sensitive to fluctuations in temperature and humidity?

Stuart:

Well, it’s a it’s a natural product and I think a key point actually it’s when you’re keeping a bottle lying down, it’s not just keeping the cork moist with contact with the wine, it actually also needs to be stored somewhere that’s really quite damp and has some humidity. 

I’ve seen any number of bottles that have been lying down for a long time but they’ve been stored in a very dry, perhaps slightly warm if not hot storage environment, and the cork has dried out even though it’s been in the wine, for presumably many years. 

It will crumble when you try and open it and there’s also possibly a risk of oxidation as well if the cork is dried out; it can slip; you know possibly come a little bit porous so the broader humidity of a storage area is very important too.

Manoj:

Right, so we understand then incoming solar can raise the temperature, reduce the humidity, dry out the cork, perhaps even pushing the cork inside the wine and that will oxidize the wine or air can seep in as well.  And you told me about a very interesting story about the 1787 Chateau Lafite which apparently presumably belonged to Thomas Jefferson that was sold…..

Stuart:

Well, whether it did or not is another story which we do not have time to go into today, alas. It’s a very notorious bottle for any number of reasons but it’s the ultimate example of what can happen if you store a wine incorrectly, which is to say in a very warm environment, exposed to strong light. 

The so-called ‘Jefferson Lafitte’ 1787 was put on display in the Forbes magazine galleries in (I think) a glass cabinet, with a light. I’m not sure how long exactly it took, but it was a matter of months, I think. The cork started to dry out and had slipped inside the bottle and well, that was the end of a particularly grand and historic wine. It turned into vinegar. 

Manoj:

Yeah, that sounds like a crime. (Laughs) 

Stuart:

Possibly the second crime involved in that bottle, but that’s another subject. (Laughs)

Manoj:

So we’ve kind of touched a little bit on this subject but what factors in general do you consider to be the most important in not only displaying but also storing fine wines?

Stuart:

Yes, humidity I’ve already touched on so that is an important factor to try and keep the cork moist even if it can damage the labels themselves. There’s a rather perverse ideology in the fine wine market, particularly in Asia and North America, less so in Europe, where a damaged label, well firstly it’s unattractive, therefore the wine is possibly no good and it could be fraudulent. 

It’s actually the other way around: you know the wine has probably been looked after perfectly even if it doesn’t look great and the wine itself will likely drink better too, having been stored in the nice damp cool conditions; temperature extremes well, we saw what happened with the bottles of port that I saw in East London all those years ago and light as well not great for wine at all. 

Again it can really knock it about, so keep wines away from light; keep them in a dark, cool, slightly humid place, that’s ideal.

Manoj:

Yes, that’s ideal, so talking very briefly about the light sensitivity of wines; if you look at this graphic for a second you’ll see on the horizontal axis the wavelength of light from 200 nanometers to 800 nanometers; from 200 to 400 approximately is ultraviolet; from 400 to 700 approximately is visible; and above 700 is where we find infrared. 

And the three graphs that you can see correspond to white wine, rosé wines and red wines. On the vertical axis we have transmission or the amount of light (or radiation) which is being transmitted by the wine and so if that transmission is zero that means that the light is either being reflected or absorbed. 

And it’s when radiation is absorbed that we have a problem and so you can see that from 200 to approximately 380 nanometers all of those three types of wine, white, rosé and red, are strongly absorbing. 

Now, at this point white and rosé start to transmit and so they they’re becoming less absorbing but red wine in fact continues to absorb all the way up to approximately 630 nanometers and it’s this absorption which causes what we understand to be called ‘light strike’, which produces the unpleasant odours and tastes, directly due to light exposure. 

And the cause for this is that riboflavin (or vitamin b2) is photoactivated at critical wavelengths of 375 nanometers (which is in the ultraviolet) and 440 nanometers (which is in the visible) and they are highlighted on this diagram. The photoactivation of riboflavin is what causes the generation of hydrogen sulfide and Mercaptans. 

Stuart, have you had direct experience of wines which have been ‘Light Struck’? 

Stuart:

Now, I can’t think of any specific examples actually but I would think that it’s not uncommon for wines that have been purchased from non-specialist retailers. It’s not uncommon that bottles of wine, whether they are fine or not are stored on shelves, quite close to quite strong hot lighting, and as your charts shows here it can cause havoc.

Manoj:

Yes, so on to the display and marketing of fine wines and this is probably more related to the retail sector. 

So the other factor that we need to consider is the glass bottle itself. Clear glass will block radiation up to about 300 nanometers; green glass will block wavelengths up to about 320 nanometers, but it’s the amber glass which blocks radiation all the way up to 500 nanometers. 

So we would think that all wine bottles should be placed in amber glass but apparently we understand has something to do with aesthetics. Can you explain a bit more about why we don’t see more wines in amber glass bottles? 

Stuart:

Well I don’t think I’ve ever seen one. The sole exception I suppose would be a Louis Roederer crystal champagne which is actually in a clear glass bottle. 

You know historically because it was drunk by the Tsars of Russia and they were concerned about being poisoned so they wanted to see exactly what was inside the bottle before it was opened. And well it was bottled in crystal as well, hence the name. 

I’m not sure when exactly they started it but it is wrapped in amber cellophane so Roederer clearly knows and understands actually amber is the best way of blocking out unnecessary and unwanted light rays that could affect a wine. 

But otherwise yes, I think amber glass would be something of a slight shock to the system for a lot of consumers; you know and it sometimes is a bit perilously close in appearance to Lucozade which some non UK viewers is a fizzy drink, supposedly drunk by athletes do I give them energy. I drank it a lot when I was a kid but not since, alas, I’ve grown out of it. I prefer fermented grape juice these days. 

There’s a certain uh you know connotation to amber that would make it I think a tough aesthetic and commercial sell. 

Manoj:

Right, so we could almost say that we need to find, or the industry needs to find a balance of light, which allows you to both protect the wine and also make the products more visually appealing. Would you agree with that? 

Stuart:

Yes, yes, absolutely. You know green / brown glass are probably the best solutions available at the moment so give that balance of protection against light and also don’t offend the aesthetic sensibilities of consumers.

Manoj:

Right, so we can talk now a little bit more about the wine labels which you mentioned before. In the photograph you can see a Mouton Rothschild 1945 with a severely faded label. Could you tell us a bit about that bottle? 

Stuart:

Yeah, that is a bottle I sold earlier this year as it states there for 12,000 pounds to a private client it’s an example of the sort of very fine wines that I deal with. 

It was sourced from the cellar of Farringdon House, which is a very large Manor in Oxford in England and as far as anyone could tell it had been in the cellars there for 70 something years but as you can see the label was still very faded. 

And I think it shows that even if a bottle is kept for many decades in a dark cellar or wherever it might be, just very occasional exposure to light as of when people come in down to the cellar or switch the lights on to get bottles out, and so on. 

Over a very long period it’s compounded and it can have an effect on the label and fade it, yet it’s not necessarily evidence of it having direct or strong exposure to light at any time but it can happen over a very long period. 

Manoj:

Yes, so there we have a bit of an overlap there with the art world but well there’s a strong emphasis on any kind of works on paper because a lot of them are sensitive to light. Particularly the British Standards document which is highlighted at the bottom, BSI PAS 198, that talks about highly sorry wood pulp papers being highly sensitive to light and also most dyes that we used for tinting paper in the 20th century are also highly sensitive to light, so this can have the effect of color fading, reduction in mechanical strength, embrittlement, and a number of other factors. 

So what can you tell us about how fading on the label can affect for example the marketability or even the market price of a fine wine? Is there any connection? 

Stuart:

Well I mentioned earlier but storage in a damp cellar; it can damage the label; as you can see on this one, in addition to the fading parts of it have fallen off and that that’s an effect of having been in a cool dark cellar for a very long time. 

It does affect the price, alas, and negatively. You know it was still the perception that labels need to be you know clean and pristine for a wine to fetch the highest possible price that the market will stand, whereas again, I can’t emphasize enough how you know incorrect that is, in terms of how it adversely affects a wine. 

You know, a faded damp stained label like this is indicative of something that’s been stored in perfect conditions for fine wine, as opposed to something that is perhaps you know a bit too dry, a bit too warm, and the labels look nicer but probably the wine itself will not be as good either. 

It will have matured a bit quicker; possibly hints at points of oxidation. Actually, my client who bought this bottle, he did open it and drink it, bless him, which is what it’s all about of course. He gave me a very pithy tasting note; he said it was very nice, so I think that is evidence that something that doesn’t look great can actually be a perfect example. 

Manoj:

So, money well spent then?

Manoj:

So, we’re at the end of the webinar now and I just want to repeat a big thanks to Stuart George and Arden Fine Wines of Mayfair. And if you have any follow-up questions regarding the work of Arden Fine Wines, please feel free to contact them. 

You have the web address there, as well as the phone number and email address. If anybody has any questions right now then please type them into the chat on the right hand side and we’ll wait for a couple of minutes and in that time, Stuart, do you have any final closing thoughts? 

Stuart:

Well I’d just like to confirm that if you’re going to buy fine and rare wines, or indeed any wine really, just try and make sure it’s looked after properly and you know even my parents insist on keeping a wine rack next to their oven. It drives me absolutely potty. 

They’re not storing bottles in Mouton Rothschild 1945 alas, but nonetheless, the message doesn’t always get through that it’s a perishable product; it’s a food product and it needs to be handled and looked after carefully, you know with some respect and some love and attention and care. 

Manoj:

Yes, so with that, I don’t see any further questions so I want to thank you very much Stuart for your participation, collaboration and making this webinar and I thank you all out there as well for joining us and I wish you all a good day going forward thank you very much Stuart.! 

Stuart:

Thank you again thank you good afternoon to everybody. Good afternoon.