Indholdsfortegnelse for 1218 i MoneyWeek

Investors, like Churchill’s famous pudding, require a theme. We have an instinctive need to establish and follow a narrative to make sense of information, and you need to have a story to tell if you’re persuading people to buy or sell. The story can change quickly. Until about five minutes ago, it seems, everyone was happy with the Magnificent Seven spearheading the AI revolution. Now suddenly everyone’s talking about the Great Rotation. US small stocks, we said a fortnight ago, looked overdue a bounce. That has now duly occurred (see page 5), while recent concern that AI’s potential may have been hyped (which we have been pointing out for longer than a fortnight) appears to have tempered the Magnificent Seven’s momentum. Tesla and Google’s earnings this week were greeted with…

“When Aim [London’s junior market] took off in the mid-1990s (as successor to the smaller Unlisted Securities Market) it was hailed as a progressive addition to the City’s product range. Now… it’s a fading force. The number of companies listed has fallen by a third since 2015, many leavers falling to… bidders taking advantage of low valuations, others citing ‘lack of UK institutional interest’ and heading for New York’s Nasdaq market instead… The pipeline of new Aim listings has slowed to a trickle. Attention has focused lately on the failure of the London Stock Exchange to attract international companies… to list on its main board. But if we no longer have a fertile public market for smaller companies, and a knowledgeable pool of investors prepared to risk their capital in…

Streaming service Netflix has pulled further ahead of its rivals, says Bloomberg’s Lucas Shaw. It added 8.05 million customers in the second quarter and raised estimates for annual sales and profit margins. The subscriber figures eclipsed expectations in every region worldwide and included 2.8 million new customers in the Asia-Pacific region, with sales climbing by 17% year on year. This growth was partially fuelled by a number of “major hits”. However, the main driving force was a crackdown on password sharing, as well as a lower-priced subscription plan based around advertising, which now applies to 40 million people. Netflix, with its 27% operating margin and “robust” free cash flows, may be the “envy of the sector”, says Lex in the Financial Times. But winning the advertising war “will be easier…

Cembra Money Bank was spun out of GE in 2013, listing on the Zurich stockmarket, says WirtschaftsWoche. GE has completely exited the consumer-credit specialist now, while UBS has become a big shareholder. There are four principal divisions: consumers’ loans, where the bank accounts for 38% of the market, credit cards, vehicle leasing and a buy-now-pay-later platform with 1.5 million customers. Rising interest rates have had scant impact on clients: the default rate on loans is under 1%. The bank’s net interest margin is 5%, while digitisation has greatly reduced costs. Management is aiming for a cost-income ratio of just 39% by 2026. The stocks also yields a juicy 5.4%.…

Politics & economics Keir Starmer’s first foray onto the international stage as prime minister seems to have been a success, says Amelia Hadfield in The Conversation. Last week’s European Political Community meeting at Blenheim, the fourth since its inception in 2022, gathered nearly 50 European heads of government. Key subjects included the war in Ukraine, illegal immigration and security cooperation. The meeting gave Starmer a chance to “showcase” his promised reset of UK relations with the EU, but the real test will depend on whether he can “translate goodwill into substantive progress” – for example, relaxing EU rules blocking British participation in the European Defence Fund or breaking down unnecessary barriers to trade, says Anand Menon in the Financial Times. It will be a test, says Politico, particularly because…

There’s certainly been a lot of movement on the presidential market, and my prediction that Biden would remain the candidate has not exactly aged well (though I’ve always qualified it by saying that you should bet on both Biden and Harris). However, with £37.4m matched on Betfair, Trump remains the favourite to win at 1.67 (59.8%). Kamala Harris is now in second place at 2.7 (37%). Michelle Obama is out at 80 (1.25%), Robert F. Kennedy is at 160 (0.06%) and J.D. Vance is at 200 (0.5%), with the markets all but ruling out everyone else. Despite all the turmoil, I’d still suggest that Trump’s odds are too short. Against a much younger candidate, the focus will now be on his age, with every slip he makes coming under a…

Capital Gearing Trust, Personal Assets, Ruffer and RIT Capital Partners all describe themselves as “wealth protection” trusts. Personal Assets goes a step further, claiming that “Our policy is to protect and increase (in that order) the value of shareholders’ funds per share over the long term”. For the best part of the past two decades, these funds have done just that, but in the past five years, they have started to struggle. Take Personal Assets. Over the last five years, the trust has produced a net asset value (NAV) return of 26.7%, compared with 33.4% for the UK Retail Price Index. Capital Gearing has returned 4% per annum on a NAV basis, compared with 4.4% for UK prices. Ruffer has returned 6%, thanks to a well-timed bet on bitcoin. During…

Markets rarely leave you in doubt that you’ve got something very wrong and the yen has been an outstanding example of that over the past couple of years. The Japanese currency has slumped against almost every other country, even as the stockmarket has been hitting new highs and the economy has been looking more promising than it has for a very long time. Against the US dollar, the yen has gone back to where it was in the 1980s, when a prolonged period of across-the-board dollar strength and tensions over the growing US trade deficit led to the Plaza Accord agreement (see below). This has taken almost everybody by surprise. No analysts forecast such extreme weakness and most have been expecting the yen to stabilise and rise at every point…

Is the EU right to rein in Big Tech? Editorial Bloomberg The innovations of Big Tech have made lives “immensely more convenient and productive” and, while it’s true that their dominance could harm competition, EU officials should take care not to be merely punitive, says Bloomberg. To an extent, giants would be “remiss” not to exploit their scale. Why wouldn’t Amazon sell its own products, for instance? Yet with its control of the data, it can treat small retailers unfairly, and if similar “anti-competitive conduct isn’t addressed, the result for consumers could be limited choice, worse products or unduly high prices” as well as economic “ossification”. The EU’s Digital Markets Act, which took effect in March, aims to improve on the “slow-motion bludgeon” approach of US antitrust enforcement…

capx.co It’s encouraging, says Ben Ramanauskas, to see a new Labour government apparently determined to “build the things the country needs in order to drive economic growth”, even if it means going against the wishes of residents, or even Labour MPs. When it comes to judging whether it can actually deliver, Cambridge – which has the potential to be Europe’s Silicon Valley – will be a crucial test case. A small city of 150,000 people, it’s already home to some world-leading companies and research institutes, as well as one of the world’s great universities. Cambridge is doing well, but the fact that it’s remained so small is a policy failure of national significance. The scarcity of affordable homes is forcing many people out of the city and has become a…

It has been an excellent fortnight for my long tips, with six of the eight rising and only two declining. Investment and share-trading platform IG Group rose from 835p to 861p, General Motors accelerated from $46.55 to $49.56 and US building-materials supplier Builders FirstSource climbed from $135 to $160. Hollywood Bowl increased from 307p to 320p, cruise-ship operator Royal Caribbean appreciated from $161 to $168 and PayPal advanced from $59 to $60. The only exceptions were Rolls-Royce Holdings, which slowed from 463p to 443p, and high-street clothing retailer Next, which fell from 9,042p to 8,772p. My long tips are now making overall profits of £1,430, up from £720. However, my short tips also put in a poor performance, with all four rising. Air-taxi firm Joby Aviation climbed from $5.21 to…

The King’s Speech last week contained new bills to tackle the growing problem of small pension funds that offer poor value and are often forgotten about. Under Labour’s proposals – also explored by the previous government – savers’ smallest pension funds would automatically be consolidated. Where you have one or more defined-contribution pensions worth less than £1,000 into which you’re no longer making contributions, the cash would be transferred into a larger one. The detail of how that would work has yet to be agreed. One idea is to set up a central clearing house responsible for administering these transfers. Once a pension provider deems your pension fund inactive (probably defined as you not having paid into it for at least 12 months), it would pass the details to this…

“The board’s focus on cost control bodes well for Standard Chartered” We invest in attractively-valued companies with the potential for positive change. This typically means investing in overlooked stocks where there is little or no value ascribed to any recovery potential. The market is often slow to recognise change in out-of-favour stocks, which gives us time to undertake our due diligence and build conviction in the positive-change thesis. It can be centred around either internal or external change; ideally, a combination of both. If things improve as we expect, there should be significant upside as the consensus view changes and new investors buy into the story. Generous dividends Imperial Brands (LSE: IMB) has undertaken a significant turnaround under new management, improving the execution of its strategy and strengthening its balance…

“There is no such thing as a free lunch, nor is there any such thing as a free coffee, least of all at Pret a Manger,” says Will Dunn in The New Statesman. The coffee chain has ditched its popular loyalty scheme, whereby subscribers paid a monthly fee of £30 for up to five drinks a day and a 20% discount on food, for a much watered-down one. From September, Club Pret will offer up to five half-priced coffees a day for £10 a month, which could cost heavy users more than £200 monthly. Loyalty schemes such as Pret’s have become unsustainable, with the costs of labour, energy, packaging and coffee spiralling. Pret’s subscription service had been aimed at compensating for the shift to hybrid working after the pandemic, when…

Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine prompted an exodus from Eastern European assets, says Jim Masturzo of Research Affiliates. But the region’s stocks are back in recovery mode. The Polish, Hungarian and Czech markets have done “remarkably well” over the past 12 months. Poland’s benchmark Wig 20 index has gained more than 12% over the past year, beating the FTSE 100’s 7% advance over the same period. Valuations are attractive, with Polish stocks trading on a cyclically adjusted price/earnings (p/e) ratio of ten, a marked discount to the emerging-market average of 15. Poland’s “sizeable” domestic economy leaves it less dependent on global trade than some of its smaller Eastern European neighbours, say Matthias Siller and Adnan El-Araby in a Barings note. An educated workforce and EU membership make it an ideal…

In recent years mega-cap technology stocks have made the running on Wall Street, leaving the small caps of the Russell 2000 index in the shade, says Karen Langley in The Wall Street Journal. But the Russell 2000 outperformed the large-cap S&P 500 “by the largest margin” since 1986 during the seven days to 17 July. Small caps have gained more than 9% over the past month, compared with 2% for the S&P 500 (although the latter is still ahead regarding year-to-date). Bets on easier monetary policy and Donald Trump’s protectionist plans are driving the stock rotation. The big question is whether this marks the beginning of a major investing shift or whether it will prove “a mere blip in an era of tech ascendancy”.…

Drug giant Roche’s stock jumped by 6% after encouraging early-stage trial data from a potential new drug. This “extreme” reaction shows the importance the market is ascribing to the next generation of drugs “vying for a slice of the potential $150bn obesity market”, says Lex in the Financial Times. Roche’s success also meant the share prices of its rivals “dipped”. These include both Novo Nordisk, which sells the leading weight-loss drug Wegovy, but also smaller firms, such as Zealand Pharma, which surged after it published the early-stage results of its own drug in June. The “impressive” results of Roche’s treatment move it “right to the top of the list of oral obesity drugs under development”, says David Wainer in The Wall Street Journal. Not only does the drug’s efficiency “look…

Concentra, which is being spun out of hospital operator Select Medical (SM), is seeking to raise $585m in its initial public offering (IPO) on the New York Stock Exchange, says Reuters. It is targeting a valuation of $3.3bn. The largest provider of occupational-health services in the US plans to sell 22.5 million shares priced between $23 and $26 each. The listing is part of SM’s plans to separate Concentra to create two publicly traded companies. Proceeds from the IPO will help SM reduce its debt. Concentra operates 547 occupational health centres and 151 on-site health clinics at company work sites, providing workers with physical therapy, education, vaccinations and care for injuries.…

At first glance, it looks like an odd deal. Facebook’s owner Meta was reported last week to be looking at taking a 5% stake in the glasses manufacturer EssilorLuxottica at a cost of $5bn or more. The two firms already cooperate on making the Ray Ban-Meta smart glasses, and while that product has hardly set the world alight, it seems the social-media giant is planning to double down on its bet that one day we will all surf the web through our glasses. Over time, it may even buy the whole business. Its €90bn valuation would hardly be out of reach for a business that is valued at $1.2trn. Meta is not the only tech giant looking for deals. Alphabet, the company that owns Google, was reported last week to…

Activist investor Politan Capital Management is suing US medical-device maker Masimo to push for an immediate annual meeting and ensure its board nominees are accepted, says Reuters. Masimo postponed its shareholders’ meeting to 19 September from 25 July, supposedly to give them time to review changes made to documents. The US hedge fund, with a near-9% stake in Masimo, has nominated two candidates for the five-member board. Masimo previously filed a suit against Politan to “correct material misstatements and omissions” in documents sent to shareholders. Politan had raised concerns about Masimo’s capital allocation and board oversight, notably its $1bn takeover of audio products firm Sound United.…

During the early 1980s, the US dollar rose significantly against those of its major trading partners. Tight monetary policy by the US Federal Reserve under Paul Volcker, together with high government spending under the Ronald Reagan government, had led to high interest rates. This resulted in capital inflows from foreign investors that pushed up the dollar, which ultimately appreciated by about 50% against the Japanese yen, the West German deutschemark, the French franc and the pound between 1980 and 1985. The strong dollar created problems for US businesses, by making their goods more expensive on world markets, while making imports cheaper in America. Some companies began lobbying politicians to shield them from foreign rivals. To avoid a trade war, the US, Japan, West Germany, France and the UK signed an…

“People took advantage of me over that time. I had $18m saved… but when I got back into my bank account, it was all gone… everything was in other people’s names. I had zero money.” American actress Sharon Stone (pictured) on losing her savings as she recovered from a stroke in 2001, quoted in The Hollywood Reporter “There is hardly anything in the world that cannot be made a little worse and sold a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that man’s lawful prey.” John Ruskin, quoted in The Times “Cassandras make terrible investors.” Hedge-fund manager Mark Spitznagel’s advice (do nothing) on how ordinary investors should react to his pronouncements of impending doom “Even with plenty of money to pay my rent, when the landlord would leave a…

conservativehome.com A once formidable election-winning machine retreats feebly into opposition, and a fight for the soul of the Tory party begins, says Keval Nathwani. This situation is not dissimilar to what happened in 1832, the first election fought under the new Reform Act, when the Tories won 175 seats with just 29% of the vote, compared to 67% for the Whigs. All appeared lost. But “out of the ashes of electoral devastation”, Robert Peel, the Tory leader in the Commons, pulled the party together – and paved that way for a victory that would “annihilate” the Whigs as a political force. How did he do it? By accepting the public’s verdict, and remaking the party along more progressive and pragmatic lines that widened its support; through personal competence in decision-making…

Most people in the UK agree that something needs to be done to improve access to housing. With house prices so high that people have to save well into their thirties to get onto the property ladder, some experts estimate that as many as three million homes will need to be built to achieve other countries’ levels of affordability. The new government has made clear that building more houses will be a priority, with the chancellor outlining major changes to the planning rules, along with a national building target for 1.5 million homes a year for at least the next five years. A different approach All this is good news for house builders such as Vistry (LSE: VTY). While many firms in the sector have been accused of hoarding land…

With a new government looking for ways to raise cash there is one tax loophole that springs to mind. When you make a profit on assets you sell you are usually liable for capital-gains tax (CGT). Levied at up to 28%, it can put a big dent into money you make from the sale of anything from a second property to art or shares. In recent years the Conservative government attempted to raise more money from CGT by slashing the tax-free allowance. In 2022 you could make gains of up to £12,300 before you had to pay CGT. Now you get a tax-free allowance of just £3,000. There are various ways you can plan to reduce your CGT bill. One option is to space out when you sell assets so…

Proposals for a new “value-for-money test” represent the other significant component of Labour’s reforms to pension-scheme rules. The idea is that introducing such a test would lead to a reduction in the number of pension schemes currently available in the UK, but that those remaining would be better governed and deliver stronger returns. The detail of this reform has yet to be published. There is no information, for example, on what a standardised test of value for money would consider, or how schemes that fall short would be treated in practice. Charging levels would be one obvious feature to scrutinise, but other criteria could include the investment options on offer from a scheme, and the returns these generate, as well as the features and benefits available. In practice, savers should…

While many growth investors buy into the promise of artificial intelligence (AI) through mega-cap players such as Nvidia, Microsoft and Meta, companies whose products are necessary for building the supporting infrastructure are often overlooked. One of these is Corning (NYSE: GLW), the long-established $38bn US speciality glass and ceramics company. It is often dismissed as an industrial group, but investors have slowly been recognising that the company is an emerging technology stock playing a vital role in AI. Moving up a gear Earlier this month, the group gave an upbeat report on current trading; it formally announces its second-quarter results next week. Turnover in the second quarter is now expected to reach $3.6bn, compared with previous expectations of $3.4bn. Corning’s markets are buoyant enough for management to anticipate continuing sales…

Tennis ace Andy Murray (pictured) has “finally accepted defeat after years of injuries and will hang up his racket” following the Olympics, which start in Paris this week, says Tom Morgan in The Telegraph. Now Murray “faces the question he has dreaded most: what next?”. Coaching is one option, but Murray, 37, has made “no secret of his plans to build a major business portfolio” with his £50.7m in career earnings, and he has steadily been growing his investments in recent years. He already has his own tennis-apparel brand, AMC, and his wide-ranging portfolio of business interests encompasses various tech projects, including start-ups Perkbox and WeSwap. Latest accounts for his firm 77 Sports Management show that it is valued at £21.4m, a £900,000 increase on the year before. But when…

“No amount of blood or political rancour” can shake the market’s positive mood, says The Economist. From global wars to an escalating trade conflict with China to an assassination attempt, signs of political instability are multiplying. Yet stocks are “at, or close to, all-time highs in America, the eurozone and Japan”. The widespread belief on Wall Street is that a second Trump presidency will be good for investors. True, proposed tax cuts and looser public spending might boost profits, but if Trump abandons Nato or initiates “total decoupling from China”, then stocks will not be spared from the resulting “economic chaos”. With stock valuations already “sky-high”, an unambiguously protectionist president would be “a recipe for a crash”. Trump trade 2.0 Investors have been piling into assets expected to benefit from…

Ryanair’s share price dropped by 17% on Monday after it said profits plunged by nearly half between April and June, says Mark Sweney in The Guardian. It made only €360m (£303m) in the spring quarter, 46% less than in the same period last year. While passenger numbers rose by 10% to 55.5 million, the airline was forced to slash its prices by an average of 15% as customers baulked at “double-digit percentage ticket price increases”. What’s more, the downward pressure on fares is unlikely to abate. In the next few months they are likely to be “materially lower than last summer”. Falling fares as a result of passengers “holding out for a bargain” isn’t the only thing that has hurt Ryanair’s bottom line, says AJ Bell’s Dan Coatsworth. It has…

Five to buy Rotork The Times Despite slow growth over the past decade, engineering firm Rotork has maintained attractive margins and a healthy balance sheet, with a 34% return on capital employed and a 120% cash conversion rate. With a focus on electric actuators, used to open and close valves in order to capture methane, it is aiming for mid-to-high single-digit sales growth. It trades at a premium to its peer IMI, which is fair given its “leading position in a niche, growing market”. 350p Edinburgh Worldwide The Telegraph Elon Musk’s SpaceX reaching a $210bn valuation has given hope to its investor Edinburgh Worldwide’s (EW) shares. The £587m Baillie Gifford-managed investment trust has a hefty 11.8% exposure to SpaceX; at £80m it is EW’s biggest position. EW’s shares have partly…

Nguyen Phu Trong (pictured), Vietnam’s de facto leader, has died, beginning a “complex process to choose a successor to steer a fast-growing economy that has become a prized partner for both the US and China”, says Feliz Solomon in The Wall Street Journal. Trong’s 13 years in power “brought dramatic changes to the southeast Asian nation at home and abroad”, while his “zero-tolerance” anti-graft campaign sought to “cleanse the country’s image and attract more foreign investment”. Vietnam has also “sought to firm up friendships with countries across geopolitical divides”, with trade between the US and Vietnam reaching $124bn in 2023. The leading candidate to succeed Trong seems to be president To Lam, says Richard Paddock in The New York Times. His current role is “largely ceremonial”, but he has been…

● ”Investors in spirits giant Diageo could probably use a stiff drink,” says Ian Conway in Shares. The maker of Johnnie Walker has seen its stock price decline 10% this year, reflecting concerns over weak sales in the US and the Caribbean. Fans of the company – including star fund manager Nick Train – say that Diageo is “anything but an average company” and reckon its shares should trade at a premium. Yet “the uncomfortable truth is that more people – in particular young people – are drinking less as a lifestyle choice”. After slumping during Covid, sales of spirits took off again, but “there is no evidence to suggest consumption will return to historic levels”. ● Three big jobs in Britain’s investment industry are vacant, says Chris Hughes on…

■ Shares in the Gore Street Energy Storage Fund (GSF) fell by 7% after Britain’s biggest battery investment company cut its annual dividend to 7p from 7.5p owing to “challenging” conditions, says CityWire. The net asset value (NAV) per share for the year to 31 March 2024 was 107p, down from 115.6p the year earlier. The firm blamed the poor showing on high inflation and interest rates affecting asset markets and the UK energy-storage market. It avoided scrapping the dividend, as its two peers did, thanks to its diverse portfolio of energy assets in Texas, Ireland, and Germany. The £556m fund expects a further 332 megawatts (MW) to come online by December, including a 200MW asset in California, bringing total capacity to 753.4MW, boosting revenues. Labour plans to make the…

James Anderson, managing partner, Lingotto Investment Management US chipmaker Nvidia could be worth nearly $50trn in a decade if it retains its leading position in AI chips, says James Anderson, the former manager of the Scottish Mortgage investment trust, known for his early bets on firms such as Amazon and Tesla. “The potential scale of Nvidia in the most optimistic outcome is both way higher than I’ve ever seen before and could lead to a market cap of double-digit trillions.” Demand for chips capable of running generative AI models, such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT, has already propelled Nvidia’s market value to more than $3trn, up from $150bn in 2018. However, there is still immense potential for growth due to its “persistent exponential progress”, “competitive advantages in hardware and software”, and strong…

aei.org China’s economy is in “deep trouble”, says Desmond Lachman. The credit market bust and property crisis, weak consumption and high unemployment all mean that China is at risk of a Japanese-style “lost economic decade” without major reforms to boost domestic consumption. The root cause of its problems is the unbalanced economic model of the last 30 years, which has been too reliant on investment (especially in housing), exports and a steady supply of cheap labour. And now China’s prospects are blighted by poor demographics, crippling local government debt, and souring trade relations with the US, no matter who’s in the White House. What can Beijing do? Increased liquidity and fiscal pump-priming would only add to long-term debt, while trying to boost exports would be “playing with fire” given the…

Two years ago, the US introduced a tax on share buybacks. Initially, there were signs that this was working. The annual amount spent by US companies on buybacks fell by 17% in 2023. However, there are signs that share repurchases are coming back into fashion. Goldman Sachs predicts that total US buybacks will break the $1trn mark in 2025, thanks to strong earnings from technology companies. This isn’t just a US strategy: around 40% of FTSE 100 companies engage in share buybacks. The idea of share buybacks is to bolster a company’s earnings per share, and share price, by reducing the number of shares, even if the underlying earnings don’t rise. Supporters of the strategy argue that this is better than returning money to shareholders via a divided, because capital…

● The government’s Renters Reform Bill is to include a ban on Section 21 no-fault evictions. “There were 2,682 such repossessions between January and March this year... a rise of almost a fifth on the same period last year,” says Aine Fox in the Evening Standard. The bill is also likely to give “tenants the ability to challenge rent increases and... end... bidding wars”, adds Ed Magnus on This is Money. “It will introduce the same Decent Homes standard that applied in the social-housing sector and also ensure landlords don’t discriminate against tenants in receipt of housing benefits or with pets or children.” However, The Telegraph warns it could leave landlords facing “eviction chaos” and being left “without a means to evict problem tenants”. Evicting a difficult tenant currently takes…

● Hundreds of employers still running final-salary schemes for staff may look for a windfall by cashing in some of the surpluses many of these arrangements now boast. Favourable investment returns and market conditions mean that 90% of 5,050 private-sector final salary schemes have more assets than they need to fund the pension promises they have made, according to the Pension Protection Fund. With a collective surplus of £469bn, a refund of some of this cash could prove valuable to employers. But such moves will be controversial. Employees may feel they should also benefit from surpluses, and worry that a change in market conditions could leave the scheme short of what it needs to pay their pensions. ● Trade unions and employee groups at pharmacy chain Boots are demanding that…

2021 Kaesler, The Bogan Shiraz, Barossa Valley, South Australia £34.50, jeroboams.co.uk It was a joy to meet up with Kaesler winemaker Tim Dolan and vineyard manager Nigel van der Zande in London the other day, and their suite of wines has never been better. My featured wine, The Bogan, is the least expensive in the line-up and has the air of a truly serious creation. You might think I have lost my marbles writing up a Barossa shiraz in July, but this is one of the silkiest and most sonorous I can think of, not least because in its folds there is fruit harvested from vines planted as far back as 1899. Plummy, fruit-driven, red/purple, not black, this is a precise wine with a prim, orderly, and refreshing finish. It…