Bank on fine wines

What effect will the dramatic reduction in our banking friends' bonuses - and, more importantly, the recession as a whole - have on the wine market? Not much, I suspect. Most of us will not dramatically alter our drinking habits and the move away from eating and drinking in restaurants may well stimulate the fine wine market, as a decent bottle of wine is so much better value at home.

Indeed, the Liv-ex Fine Wine Index actually went up in January after several months of decline. It seems that fine wine is a safer haven for hard-earned savings than HBOS - and when the world finally implodes it can still be drunk! In my experience, bankers don't actually spend their bonuses on fine wine anyway. They seem to be fairly canny buyers who are always after a good-value 'deal'.

Besides, the finest and most expensive wines are always in short supply (Chateau Petrus, for example, produces only about 4,000 cases a year - which is really not much in a global context), and with globalisation and the emergence of the Third World, the demand for them has grown exponentially.

I was in the Loire Valley last week, which is one of France’s top-value, affordable growing regions. I met a lot of producers and the main topic of conversation was 'La Crise', which seems to have only just hit rural France. They were all particularly concerned about the UK market (on which they rely heavily) and had worked out that the 'problem' was the strength of the euro against sterling. Most were actually reducing their prices for the UK in order to help - something I have never seen a French wine producer do before!

The answer for all of us has to be this: buy better quality wine and drink it at home, rather than buying it in restaurants at a 200-300 per cent mark up. I have always thought restaurant wine-pricing ridiculous - all they have to do is open the bottle! Hopefully the current economic climate - and lack of bankers - will force them to change their habits.

In Australia, 'BYO Restaurants' have long been established; you bring your own wine and pay a service charge of a few dollars per bottle. The result is that Australians drink far better - and far cheaper - wine in their restaurants than we do. ·