Beware Dodgy Hawkers of Fine Wine

A tenacious fellow wine writer, Jim Budd, has set himself the task of exposing smooth-sounding operators hawking dubious 'investment' schemes in fine wines, champagne and whisky. From his base in London he has had the satisfaction of helping to propel several of them into court, even if others have apparently evaporated even faster than some of their supposed investments.

Their standard tactic is to contact individual investors personally, using existing mailing lists. They urge their prey to put money into the fine wine market, quoting often quite outrageously high prices, banking on the fact that the individuals won't know...