One morning in October 1997, Pierre Lawton, a Bordeaux Wine merchant, sat down in Hong Kong, with one of his good customers, an importer who placed a substancial order for the top châteaux in the acclaimed 1995 vintage.
After lunch, the importer discovered that the Hong Kong market had crashed. Apologetically, he canceled his order.
Lawton who founded his firm 10 years ago at 29, was disappointed but not concerned. "I knew the wines were excellent and would increase in value," he recalls "and in any case I had plan my trip around a sailing competition in Japan."
A week later Lawton's team won the championship in the Dragon Class at Osaka, and within 6 months the price of the 1995s in his inventory had doubled.

This worldly combination of insouciance, risk tasking, wide-ranging travel, and non-vinous interests is typical of many of the new generation in the Bordeaux wine trade, a group that includes merchants, brokers, and public relations professionals, as well as the sons and daughters of château owners.

WINE ENTHUSIAST NOVEMBER 1998