This dog is mine

There is much shite - pyramidic deposits, in fact- concealing the essence of fine wine-making. It is the reason this blog mixes the subject with investing, a surprisingly similar parallel universe.

Once upon a time I thought terroir was the most - but not the all - of wine making. I gave shelter to similar, touchingly naive in retrospect, thoughts concerning the skills of company managers. If not a financial PR bitch I was certainly a paying punter.

I recall dismissing as exaggeration (fortunately in silence) the words of an older, wiser, experienced and (though unknown to me then) dying man who simply instructed that, first, comes the sun. And it is a factor of Pareto proportions.

If one is to be really fortunate that sun follows a wet, dismal winter. Something approaching perfection might then be achieved when the rain only falls in amounts sufficient to keep a bountiful harvest honest and on track.

And so it is with business.

These are (truly) truths obscured by a vast vested marketing interest whose efforts at persuasion are akin to a flea colony arguing over who owns and controls the dog.

So place not your faith in Robert Parker and the immense business he has unwittingly spawned. Nor be a slave to even the most sensible Bloomberg interviewees be they christened Rogers, Roach, Faber or El Erian.

As skilled as they may be, first, look to the sun.