Pasadena Wine and Food Society | President's Letter

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Pasadena Wine & Food Society www.PasadenaWineAndFood.com

President's Letter

I trust you all had a wonderful summer relaxing and having fun with family and friends, perhaps enjoying a new wine experience. As I write the President's letter, I am relieved that the largest forest fire recorded in Los Angeles County never repeats itself. What a tragedy for all

So to start, please mark your calendars with the following four Monday evening dates which the Board has scheduled for our dinners this new season: 16 November 2009, 01 February 2010, 22 March 2010, and 17 May 2010. Speaking of the new season, we'll be celebrating our 200th dinner with members guest/wives on May 17th and the Board, that's right, the Board will be organizing this event.

Our BGA representative, David Felton reports: "Our wine inventory continues to be one of our grand assets. We're slowly diversifying the list away from the virtually 100% dominance of red Bordeaux which we carried as recently as a decade ago. Indeed, we elected NOT to participate in the Bordeaux futures market, in both 2007 & 2008, for the first time since the mid-80's. The huge costs advantage that once accrued to us by buying "en primeur" no longer seems to exist, so dollars once allocated for Bordeaux are being redirected toward other wine regions of the world. But while I'm on the topic of Bordeaux, please glance through our current inventory. We now have 16 cases of 1st growth names in our cellar: Mouton, Lafite, and Latour & Haut Brion. I should guess that there are few other wine societies of our size with such an abundance of first growths resting in our cellar. Note, too, that the carrying cost for our current wine inventory is approximately $60K. A few years ago, I did an informal exercise of estimating, via auction & retail store pricing, the then current value of the inventory. Although we've had healthy turnover during the intervening years (other than the first growths), I believe our wine cellar would be valued at a number north of $120,000 at this point - or worth $2,500 per member. We have some fine drinking in front of us."

Thanks Dave for your thoughtful comments and analyzing our wine value. Yes, we do have some interesting wines to drink in the near future.

I might mention that we have a web site that I encourage you to peruse at www.PasadenaWineAndFood.com.

I look forward to seeing all of you at the first seasonal member dinner.

Chuck Livingstone
President