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In the mood for wine is the only weekly newsletter for the next-gen of fine wine lovers and investors. It’s free. The best way to keep it free is to share it with everyone. Literally everyone.
Hello fine wine lovers,
On a rainy morning, I (virtually) sat down with the legend that is Tim Atkin MW (who was in Argentina) and we talked all things fine wine investing.
Happy listening! Here’s a link to the Spotify podcast:
Also, a warm welcome to the flurry of new subscribers who joined recently.
Here’s a reading list of some of the most liked content in this newsletter:
Cash-Equivalent Wines — a.k.a. a list of the best drinkable fine wines compiled by the best people in the wine trade.
A Tuscan Estate to Watch, Tenuta Sette Cieli, and why I believe this tiny Bolgheri Estate will prove a great investment.
Investment Ideas for Barolo 2019. It does what it says on the tin.
Has Fine Wine Hit Rock Bottom? ChatGPT was a fine wine investment analyst for the day, and shared which corners of the fine wine market are undervalued.
The Ministry of Silly Pricing. Discussing a few interesting releases on La Place …
How's the Champagne market looking? (Jul 2023 update) A collaboration with
looking at 2013, 2014 and 2015 vintages.The Earliest Harvest Ever. Talking about Bordeaux EP 2022.
My Fair Value a.k.a. Is Cheval Blanc Undervalued? Again, talking about Bordeaux EP 2022.
Hunting for Barolo 2019 bargains. Looking at the Ravera Cru for Barolo 2019.
Building a 36-bottle cellar, with ChatGPT. A starter cellar. (ChatGPT wasn’t a very great deal of help here.)
The Price of Wine. An economic paper on what are the drivers of fine wine prices in the long run.
Thank you for being here!
This newsletter is free for all readers and the best way to keep it free is to subscribe, re-share it with your wine-lover friends, and follow me on Instagram.
👋 Sara Danese
Comments, questions, tips? Send me a note
For those who prefer reading, here’s the transcript (AI-generated, might contain some mistakes 😅) of my conversation with Tim Atkin.
[00:00:00.000] - Tim Atkin
Thanks for downloading this episode of Cork Talk with me, Tim Atkins. A weekly conversation with some of the most famous people in the world of wine.
This podcast is brought to you in partnership with Nomecork by Vinventions, driven by a commitment to innovation, the new plant-based Nomecork Green Line offers significant improvements in wine closure performance. Thanks to a rigorous oxygen ingress rate, you can decide which cork is best for your wine, whether it's for young and fresh wines or for those with ageing potential.
[00:00:44.450] - Tim Atkin
So, Sara Danese is a financial consultant and investment analyst who uses her experience and expertise to write about the fine wine world in her spare time. Her newsletter, In the Mood for Wine, is a brilliant overview of the sector. Our fascinating chat covered Bordeaux EP, extremely extravagant, unregulated claims made by some wine investment platforms, passion assets, the Livex 100 Index, and why the first rule of investment is diversification.
Hello, Sara, and welcome to the podcast.
[00:01:13.770] - Sara Danese
Hi, Tim. Thank you for having me here.
[00:01:16.450] - Tim Atkin
It's really nice to hear your voice. You're in London, I think. I'm doing this from Argentina, but you're in London.
[00:01:22.160] - Sara Danese
Yes, I'm in London working from home. And please excuse if you hear the baby every now and then.
[00:01:34.440] - Tim Atkin
Is it a boy or a girl?
[00:01:37.140] - Sara Danese
A girl, Isabella.
[00:01:39.210] - Tim Atkin
Little girl. Okay, well, Isabella. I mean, your English is fantastic, obviously, but you're Italian. You now live in the UK. Just tell us a bit about your background. Were you brought up in a wine region? Was wine part of your life when you were growing up?
[00:01:54.180] - Sara Danese
Yes and no. I'm from Verona, which is the region of Valpolicella but I don't come from a family of winemakers. As you might know in Europe, wine is part of our lives. And so I was brought up with it. Our neighbour had a small production. But it's always been part of our lives, just not in a professional way. And I didn't come to wine until much later in my life.
[00:02:29.510] - Tim Atkin
I've always liked that thing about Italy and France, that kids drink wine. I mean, not kids like Isabella, but people drink watered-down wine, don't they, with a meal? And it just becomes part of your life rather than being, for us, suddenly you turn 18 and you're allowed officially to drink alcohol. It's this huge liberation. Italy always seems to me to be rather beautifully woven into a way of life.
[00:02:53.470] - Sara Danese
Yeah, exactly. I think it doesn't have that stigma attached to it or that liberation, as you say. It's just normal to have a little glass of wine with your meal and kids water down a glass of wine. But yeah, it's always been part of the lifestyle in Italy, France. Spain.
[00:03:17.260] - Tim Atkin
Yeah, that's why I like all of those countries so much, really. Listen, you studied economics at Padova University, and started this rather brilliant career. What was your career plan at the time? Did you think, I want to go into the financial world or did you not really know? Why an investment came later, didn't it?
[00:03:32.210] - Sara Danese
Yes, I studied economics in Padova and I graduated in 2011, which I don't know if you know, but there was a big banking crisis. It was not a very good time to graduate in economics then. I was one of those people who was like, Oh, I'm going to have to move to the UK to find a job. And so that's what I did. I just came. My plan was to work in finance. I found a job first with a small startup in the UK, in London. And then I had an offer for a master's at Imperial in Financial Engineering. So I did that and then started working in asset management. That's how it started my move to the UK, essentially.
[00:04:26.020] - Tim Atkin
You've had this amazing career very quickly. It gave me a nosebleed reading it, almost. It's been so high flying. But you're a financial consultant, you're an investment analyst. I just remember, I want to know how much of what you do, and I suppose advise is the wrong word, but maybe you can talk a bit more about that. How much of what you do is based on data and how much of what you do is intuition where you think, Hey, okay, I'm going to follow that. It seems to me that really good financial analysts have a slightly sixth sense about markets. Is that true?
[00:04:58.030] - Sara Danese
Yes, I think so. I think you have built this market knowledge, so macroeconomic knowledge and you do have an intuition. For example, you think, these companies or this asset class is going to do well in this current market environment. And then what you go and try to disprove your theory with data. And so that's how it works a little bit. But you do have to take a leap in in a sense, because you don't know everything. You don't have perfect information. You're always going to have some unknown variables. And so you have to take that gut feeling sometimes, but it needs to be well-backed up with data and research.
[00:05:51.940] - Tim Atkin
Partly because you're not playing with other people's money, but you're giving them advice or you're giving them information which could affect their financial status, really.
[00:06:02.360] - Sara Danese
Exactly. I think in the asset management work, you work with professional investors. You talk at the same level, you know what the financials are. But when I write about fine wine investing I write from my point of view and my financial situation. But you need to always be careful that the argument is well-constructed and is not dogma in a sense. You need to give the tools to make the decisions.
[00:06:43.810] - Tim Atkin
Tell us a bit more about the newsletter because it's called In the Mood for Wine. It's very good, very insightful, very in-depth, actually. It's really, as you put it, the only publication that discusses the fine wine market as what you call an asset class. Just tell us how the blog came about and who reads it and how you finance How much of your life is it as well?
[00:07:03.210] - Sara Danese
I started it a couple of years ago. You might remember that time, the fine wine market was very buoyant, very very hot, almost a bubble. I'm sure you've read a lot of articles yourself that were like, Oh, with fine wine, you make more money than in the equity market, or it makes more money than this company or that company. I thought a lot of this advice was very misguided, and it didn't highlight, it didn't quite got the point and give the right advice. You don't give the advice to invest in a market that it's in a bubble. But it's because a lot of writer perhaps had a vested interest in selling wine, et cetera. So I thought at that point, I can write something better than this. And that's how it started. And now it's a work of passion. I do it on the side. It's not my full-time work, but I do have some interesting partnerships. Livex provides me with the data, which I'm very, very grateful for because otherwise, it would be very hard to do. I also have a partnership with Saturnalia, which is an Italian start-up. They also do something with satellites and trying to analyse the satellite data from vineyards to make investment decisions. I do have some partnership, but it's mostly a work of passion.
[00:08:49.710] - Tim Atkin
You make a bit of money out of it, do you?
[00:08:51.890] - Sara Danese
A little bit, yeah. Just not much. Okay.
[00:08:56.580] - Tim Atkin
Well, welcome to the club. That's journalism for you, isn't it? I suppose before we go a bit deeper into this, we should come up with the definition of fine wine. I always wonder, who decides if it's fine? Who are the gatekeepers, as it were? You've mentioned the Livex Fine Wine 100 Index. Are they the gatekeepers? Is it journalists? Is it collectors? Is it a bit of everything? Is it auction houses? I don't know, really.
[00:09:21.540] - Sara Danese
Well, I think it's people like you. Wine critics have a big part to play in the fine wine world. Areni Global, they have a definition which is very systematic. I think if I can summarise it, fine wine needs to be good and also needs to be recognised as good by wine critics. It's not just about being good. It needs to be…
In front of people such as yourselves and other wine critics to be appreciated. Yeah, Livex plays a role, but I think they more follow the trend of what is recognised fine wine by critics. I think the definition is very blurred, especially in markets now at the moment. It used to be owned by Burgundy and Bordeaux and very established. But I think now the newer generation are interested in niche wines and discovering other wine that are not those that were defined as such, historically.
[00:10:50.320] - Tim Atkin
I agree with you. I suppose that was going to be my next question, in a way. I suppose you've answered it in a sense. But can fine wine come from anywhere? I write about places which aren't French, predominantly. Argentina, South Africa, Spain, Chile, they all make fine wine. I think, not exclusively, obviously, as well as places like Greece. Are we seeing the world expanding, do you think, in terms of what is fine in inverted commerce?
[00:11:16.590] – Sara Danese
Yes, I think so. I think it's also a lot to do with the globalisation of knowledge. Now, the newer generation are more educated, maybe it's the wrong word, but they have better tools to understand what makes a fine wine and how to make it. Argentina, where you are, I'm sure you've visited many fine wines, but Catana, for example, is a very good example of a winery that's been leading the way on Argentinian fine wines. I think now with the trend of high altitude and climate change, I'm sure a lot of will follow suit and will benefit from the knowledge that they've built in the region.
[00:12:13.650] - Tim Atkin
I suppose social media is important, isn't it, as well, these days?
[00:12:18.320] - Sara Danese
Yeah, I think it is important because it helps these winemakers to make a name for themselves and show and share their work. And so I think that that's quite important. Yes.
[00:12:36.350] - Tim Atkin
I wonder if the process is a bit faster these days. In the old days, when I started 30 years ago, it had to It was an auction wine or it had to be sanctioned by fine wine merchants, as it were. And now it seems that people can make a reputation quite quickly. I mean, not overnight, but within a decade, you can be considered a fine wine producer. Is that true?
[00:13:00.360] - Sara Danese
Yeah, I think so. If you even think about the Super Tuscans, they built a reputation, not overnight, but they set the standards. They knew what they were doing, and what the target was, and they did that. They went out outside the Appalachian, which is almost impossible in Italian bureaucracy. Surely not. But yeah, no, I think so. I think that that was one of the keys to that success, to try and build their expectations for themselves and be free to explore how to make wine for themselves. So yes.
[00:13:53.210] - Tim Atkin
I mean, is the fine wine market becoming less conservative, I suppose we could say in a way?
[00:13:57.540] - Sara Danese
Yes, I would hope so. I think so. Someone has recently told me that Gen X, which is the current bigger buyer of fine wine, have another 10 years before they realise that they have got more wine than time to drink it. So I think in the next 10 years, we'll see a generational change. Well, we've already seen a generational change in how the younger generations are more interested in different things like drink less, and better. I think there's going to be a renaissance of niche wines I'm very excited because there are going to be a lot of new winemakers, a bit like grower champagne. That wave, I think, is going to be repeated across other regions.
[00:14:59.420] - Tim Atkin
I just wanted to ask you, are the fine wine markets and the investment markets the same thing, or are they different?
[00:15:07.210] - Sara Danese
I think they're the same thing, right? I think if you think a collector, maybe, think of themselves as someone that just accumulates wine without selling it. But also a fine wine investor, you don't invest in wine to make money quickly. You invest in wine to sit in it and maybe make a return in 10 years that covers your expenditure and your drinking of it. That's it. But I think if you wanted to make money quickly, you would invest in the stock markets. But I think instead, it's very much the same thing. It's a long term game. And so collectors and investors That's very similar.
[00:16:01.820] - Tim Atkin
It's interesting because I don't know where your Instagram feed is the same, but these things pop up on my Instagram feed all the time saying, make hundreds of thousands of pounds out of fine wine. Call us. We both know that's snake oil salesman doing it in a sense, isn't it? There are exceptions where if you invest in something at a point when it's undervalued. But those are the exceptions rather than the rule, aren't it?
[00:16:26.370] - Sara Danese
No, exactly. And I think it's very disingenuous. I think you could only do it because it's a non-regulated asset class. If you did that for stocks, the FCA will come to you and make you take it down. It's a very disingenuous way of presenting. It's a fashion asset. It's a very interesting thing to invest your money in, but it's not one of those asset class that’s going to give you quick money.
[00:17:03.160] - Tim Atkin
Thank you for your honesty. And I think anybody listening to this should take those words very seriously. One thing I want to ask you is, does a wine have to be tradable? In other words, it have to be part of a secondary market to be what we might call a good investment, or is a little bit of that crystal ball gazing we talked about, where you think, hey, this might be famous in 10 years time. It might be tradable. What do you think about that?
[00:17:25.380] - Sara Danese
When you build a portfolio, you want to have a little bit of those tradable names. You want to have the big Bordeaux that are very liquid and very tradable. But at the same time, I think the more you get into wine collecting, the more you want to explore these wines that you bet on. You invest in these smaller wines and you hope they're going to become tradable. They might not be, but I think chances are is If you did a lot of background work on it, the problem will become recognised in 10 years, but it's not something that happens overnight. If they don't, you can still drink it.
[00:18:17.120] - Tim Atkin
That was going to be exactly my point. It's a nice asset class, but the worst thing that's going to happen is you have to drink it, right?
[00:18:24.290] - Sara Danese
Yes, exactly.
[00:18:25.800] - Tim Atkin
Just tell me which parts of the wine world you think are undervalued and overvalued. In a place like Burgundy, the prices have gone absolutely crazy in the last five years, or they've come back down a bit more recently, haven't they? Which bits do you think are overvalued and undervalued at the moment?
[00:18:41.350] - Sara Danese
Well, I think the market has come down quite a bit. So we are now at the end of 2021 level. So at the moment, I think we don't see the wine market being overvalued. But of course, the places like Burgundy, even though they're now down quite a bit, 15, 20%, it's still quite expensive to get a grand crew or even a premier crew. There's no two way around it. For me, it's a bit interesting because I think a lot of the new wine critics or sommeliers don't have a chance to taste this fine wine. Perhaps in the future, they're not going to be able to recommend it or put it on the map because it's so outside of most collectors’ and investors’ reach. But I do think that Italy, for example, is another place where it's very undervalued. Spain, so many great wines. You know better than me in Spain, but some fine wine to go a third of what you would pay a Bordeaux wine. Less.
[00:20:13.880] - Tim Atkin
Yeah, even less, I think.
[00:20:17.230] - Sara Danese
Yes, exactly. I think Barolo and Bolgheri, for me, they're still undervalued compared to other French, more recognised regions. I think part of it is because France has more professional investment into châteaux, and so they've been better positioned, had their investment to sell it, to go out and sell it, whilst a winemakers doesn't necessarily have that same pull. But it will change.
[00:20:55.890] - Tim Atkin
I was going to ask you about that, about Bordeaux. Is Bordeaux still the core of the fine wine business and the fine wine investment business?
[00:21:03.980] - Sara Danese
I think so. There's no two way around it. I think they attract all these wine critics. If you think about how many people cover Bordeaux, how many wine critics? I don't know, a dozen. Whilst how many people covers Barolo? Probably two or three, four? Two. Yeah, exactly. It's very hard for other regions to have the same level of exposure. I think because of the investment that we just talked about, they're necessarily the most tradable, and also because of Laplace, that does a lot of the distribution work. That's also a factor in why they are in that position in the fine wine investing world.
[00:22:00.770] - Tim Atkin
So if you were advising a friend, and you don't like the word advice, but you were thinking on behalf of a friend, and he's got £5,000 to invest, would you say go to Spain or Barolo, or would you say Bordeaux is a safer bet still?
[00:22:17.950] - Sara Danese
Well, first of all, the first rule of investment is diversification, so try to diversify. But I think there are also two rules in fine wine investing, which is always buy what's scarce and always buy what you like to drink. So never go and buy something that you wouldn't drink. But also, if you have a chance to buy something, try to spend your money on something that you won't be able to find on the market in even next month, something that is scarce. So, yeah, But I personally would invest in certain areas of Bordeaux that I like, for sure. But also I invest a lot in Barallo and Bolgher, or areas that I like, or Champagne, and something that I would like to drink as well.
[00:23:20.840] - Tim Atkin
Yeah. I'm delighted you mentioned the word drinking because I have this vision sometimes of wine collectors and wine investors as people who stack up these piles of wine without actually pulling corks. Is that unfair? Do you know people like that? Or are all of these collectors investors also drinkers?
[00:23:36.870] - Sara Danese
I don't know. The younger, poorer demographic of wine collectors feel very conscious about opening a wine that cost them £300 or something like that. I think at the beginning of the wine-collecting journey, there is a little bit of reticence to do that, and maybe later on they do more of it. But yeah, I think some people do buy wines and say, I hope I'll be able to afford it to drink it.
But, I think, generally, people who are into wine collecting are people who like to drink it.
[00:24:27.050] - Tim Atkin
Yeah, I think so, too. I think it's a slightly unfair characterisation by me, really. I just wonder if the wine is that you would invest in that you wouldn't drink, or do you tend to follow that advice yourself? Do you think, I want to drink it? You've got a baby now, so that's not going to be... You've already got less money, money to spend on wine.
[00:24:43.340] - Sara Danese
Yeah, lots less. I do think that that's the first rule on investing in wine. You have to want to drink this wine. And I would not...
Mainly because I think if I don't want to drink this wine, then there is not going to be a price low enough to convince me that this wine is good, that it's good value.
I don't know if that makes sense, but I just think this wine is not worth my money, no matter what wine critics say. I just think it's not worth it.
[00:25:29.240] - Tim Atkin
Yeah. Well, it's good It's good to hear you say that because I totally agree. You mentioned this earlier. You said that the fine wine market is not in a great shape at the moment. What are the things that are affecting its performance? And do you think it's reached its bottom?
[00:25:44.510] - Sara Danese
I think the higher interest rates market is not very good for investing in the fine wine markets. Because as an investor, if you can make 5% keeping your money in cash, you wouldn't want to invest that money into a much high-risk asset class such as fine wine. That's why 2023 has been quite dreadful for the fine wine market, and probably 2024 will be similar. But the question of the bottom, a lot of people want to perfectly time the wine market to reach the real bottom. But really, what investors do is that when the market is going down, you try and find opportunities. So no one can perfectly time the market unless, I don't know, they see the future. But what you do is that the market is going down and you buy a little bit and what you think it's a good value. And then you are better positioned to then when the market is going up to to benefit from an appreciation in price.
[00:27:04.400] - Tim Atkin
Well, and I suppose also the market doesn't go down uniformly, does it? As you mentioned Barolo, there might be people are very interested in Barolo, rightly so at the moment. Whereas, I don't know, things like Burgundy might be going down a bit because it was overvalued. So it's not just one market, it's lots of markets, isn't it?
[00:27:19.000] - Sara Danese
Exactly. For example, Italy hasn't gone down as much as Burgundy, for example, but that's because it hadn't gone up as much as Burgundy. And so the peak wasn't as sharp, and the bottom isn't as sharp. I think now it's just a good time to see if you can find some gems in the market. I think it's a great market for buying at the moment.
[00:27:48.220] - Tim Atkin
That's interesting. Bordeaux EP, this big campaign that happens every year, used to be a big part of the fine wine world and of selling wine to investors and collectors. But the 2022 vintage, I didn't taste it, but it everyone said it was very good, but it was a bit of a flop, wasn't it? I just wonder, again, are we slightly shifting away from that en Primer model as being the centre of the fine wine investment business?
[00:28:12.520] - Sara Danese
Well, I think they are pushing people away from that model. Buying on-primeur, it's very much like buying a house off-plan, right? So if you expect it to be cheaper because there are risks, and those risks cause the price to be cheaper. But if you're selling a wine at an exorbitant price, then as an investor myself, and a lot of other people I spoke to, we're like, well, we can buy in two, three years time when that risk is not there, when it's bottled, when we tasted it, and we know what it's going to taste like. So I think that strategy was a little bit not very well-perceived.
[00:29:09.200] - Tim Atkin
Or it's also true that you can buy older vintages, mature vintages in the same château, cheaper, which, as you said, have got a track record, and you know what they taste like, and lots of people have tasted them, and you made them taste it yourself. As you said, it seems slightly silly to me to buy these wines that you're not I'm going to drink for at least 10 years anyway, and you're accumulating the risk, not them.
[00:29:34.990] - Sara Danese
Also, for Bordeaux, scarcity is not a real problem. I know that in 10 years, I can find the 2022 vintage easily. Why would I tie up my money like this? It makes no sense.
[00:30:00.290] - Tim Atkin
Tell us a bit about... We've mentioned the 2022 vintage. I wonder in general about vintages, how they develop reputations as good, bad, great, and different. Does the market decide in a way, over time?
[00:30:13.010] - Sara Danese
I think a lot But the most important thing is, to be honest, critics. Critics normally come out and say this vintage is good. On vintage quality, there's very little discrepancy between one wine critic and the other. For example, Bordeaux 2022 was widely accepted as a great vintage, and so perhaps that's why it was priced as it was. But yeah, I think maybe the question is for you, how do you feel about the role of holding the quality of a vintage in your pen?
[00:30:59.810] - Tim Atkin
I think it's a very good question. I write about Spain, obviously, and I just wrote about Rioja, and I said that the 2021 vintage was the greatest vintage for me since 2001. I'm not saying that's going to move markets around the world, but it has an impact on the perception of that vintage, I think. I think it comes with a degree of responsibility. I don't think we should say these things stupidly. And I think some journalists do say things for effect and exaggerate a bit and without really engaging their critical faculty. So I think it's a good point by you, really. It's a rhetorical question in a way, but I think it's a good one. Tell me, one of the things I liked in your blog, and I recommend it very highly to people, it's called In the Mood for Wine. It's free to sign up. Just give me your hand over your details. You said that inaction can be the most effective strategy. Can you say what you mean? You think that sometimes when you shouldn't sell and you shouldn't buy, are we talking about selling buying or buying or both?
[00:32:01.240] - Sara Danese
Both. And I think a lot of people perhaps have regretted not selling their Champagne two years ago when they had the chance. And so if when the market is going up, you decide what you decide or you don't sell, that affects the returns of your total portfolio. But the same comes in now. Now everybody's asking me about, “Is it a bottom? Is it a bottom?” I think you should be buying. I don't know if exactly is going to be the bottom, but it's a good time to build your portfolio up because the prices are generally very favourable. So if you don't do that, maybe you are going to miss the rally. There's going to be a rally in the future. And so you will be buying at higher prices when the market is more confident. I think, yes, in action is very powerful. I experienced it the first time when 2014, all the kids were buying Bitcoin. And I was like, no, no, I don't think it's worth it. And then people that invested 50 pounds that had 5,000 pounds. I was like, oh, no, I'm going to wait. I'm going to wait until it comes down. And then he went up another and I was like, oh, my God. And so Bitcoin for me is a very... But at the same time, same people that saw the Bitcoin go from 50 pounds to 10,000 pounds, they didn't sell. And they might got stuck with a crush. And so, as I said, inactivity is very powerful when it comes to these things.
[00:33:53.570] - Tim Atkin
I wonder if right now is even a good time to negotiate a bit, isn't it? With fine wine merchants, a lot of them must have a lot of quite expensive stock sitting there for which they have to pay storage charges and things like that. Is it worth putting in a phone call to a few of these people and saying, let's see, flocking a bit of that?
[00:34:11.870] - Sara Danese
Yes, I think so. To be honest, at the moment, it's a perfect time to buy because as you said, in fact, when I thought that the 2022 EP was a little bit of a flop when I received certain offers on wines that I wouldn’t normally. And I'm thinking, Oh, okay, that's very interesting. They reached down to me. So it means that they're very desperate.
[00:34:53.590] - Tim Atkin
And what are the main factors that influence it? Is it wars? Is it inflation? I mean, climate change, public taste? I'm asking you to look into a crystal ball, I know, which is almost impossible. But if you were to take a punch on it, how do you think this thing is going to develop over the next decade or so?
[00:35:11.000] - Sara Danese
I think it's going to be a lot shaped It's shaped a lot by the taste of the coming generations. We already heard that better quality wine, but with the big mass-produced wine, I think it's going to go away, and a lot of people are going to start making better quality wine. Also because the newer generations are coming into the winemaking are inheriting the vineyards from their parents. And so they are going to be more focused on sustainability and climate change. I think that that's going to be super important in the way fine wine market is going to be perceived. We're going to look at regions. For example, I'm working on Alto Piemonte, a region where they make Nebbiolo, Gattinara, and all these kinds of wines. It's cooler than Barolo, and so much more interesting given the climate change. We know Etna has exploded in the last five years. Trentino wines, Argentinian wines in high altitude. I think a lot of it is going to be driven by that. Wars and inflation come and go, and they may affect one specific year. But I think the trend is about is about climate change and sustainability.
[00:37:04.330] - Tim Atkin
I want to ask you very quickly just about the work you do with Forward Inc, which sounds really interesting because you help refugees, don't you, to pursue their entrepreneurial dreams. Can you just tell us a little bit about out?
[00:37:15.660] - Sara Danese
Yeah. I love Forward Inc. I think they're doing a great job. They work with refugees, and because the refugees get benefits from the state, when they want to register their business. They can't just register their business. They have to submit a business plan, and it has to be more detailed than that. And so what they do is help them to create that business plan and that thinking and to get to know the Netherlands market is based in the Netherlands. And so I worked with a lot of interesting people. I worked with with a lady from Yemen who wanted to import Yemen's honey, but it's not very easy to do that because we all know the situation. What I find is that a lot of these refugees really, really love their country, and they are proud of the products that come from that country, and so they want to import it. For example, I worked more recently with a Syrian sommelier that wanted to import Syrian wine and Croatian wine, very niche wine into the Netherlands. It's super interesting, I think I get a lot out of it, probably more than they do.
[00:38:49.100] - Tim Atkin
Sounds brilliant. Listen, final question is how you relax. You've got a baby, so it makes life a bit harder, right? How did you get away from this world of investment and wine? You're quite sporty. I was amazed. You used to be a professional volleyball player, right? Do you still play? Are you still competitive?
[00:39:02.870] - Sara Danese
I'm very competitive. But my volleyball days are over... I actually used to play before the baby beach volleyball here in London, in Crystal Palace. The Brazilian team built the court courts during the London Olympics. Now we have three courts with sand. It's really nice. I love it. On Saturdays, you go there and it's more fun than competitive. Sometimes you need to play in the rain.
[00:39:50.020] - Tim Atkin
That's like a lot of fun. Listen, Sara, thank you so much. I mean, so much good advice, I think, about the fine wine market, where to invest, where not to invest in the future. Thank you to Isabella for keeping quiet in the background. That's very good. I hope to see you very soon. Thank you so much for appearing on the podcast.
[00:40:08.270] - Sara Danese
Well, thank you, Tim, for having me. It was a pleasure. I hope to see you soon.
[00:40:14.730] - Tim Atkin
Well, lots of really good advice there, not least to buy wines that you like, above all. Next week, on Cork Talk, my guest is Dominic Huber in Priorat. Join me then. Thanks for listening to Cork Talk.