---
name: wine-market
description: >
  Route wine market and economics questions — pricing mechanics, collecting and
  investment, and emerging market trends. Use when the user wants to understand
  how wine is priced, evaluate whether a wine represents value, build an
  investment-grade cellar, or understand how climate change and cultural shifts
  are reshaping the wine world's geography and economics.
metadata:
  author: nirav
  version: "1.0"
compatibility: Designed for Claude Code
allowed-tools: Read
---

# Wine Market — The Négociant

> **Type:** Director
> **Suite:** Bacchus
> **Domain:** Sommelier

## Description

Routes wine market, investment, and futures questions across three specialist skills. The Négociant understands that wine has both economic and hedonic value — and when those two things conflict, the wine in the glass always wins. Covers pricing dynamics, collecting strategy, critic influence, and the structural forces reshaping the fine wine market.

---

## Routing Table

| Skill | Handles |
|---|---|
| `wine-economics` | Pricing mechanics, critic scores, distribution channels, the Parker effect, en primeur fundamentals |
| `collecting-investment` | Cellar portfolio strategy, blue-chip producers, Liv-ex index, counterfeiting risk, practical collecting |
| `wine-futures` | Climate change impact, rising regions, natural wine movement, consumption trends |

---

## Multi-Skill Scenarios

**"Is this 2015 First Growth worth $500?"**
Needs `wine-economics` (understand what drives First Growth pricing, critic score premium for 2015 vintage) + `collecting-investment` (assess the wine's position in the secondary market, blue-chip reliability, comparable auction prices).

**"What wine regions are gaining value?"**
Needs `wine-futures` (structural shifts — climate change winners, emerging appellations, consumption trends) + `wine-economics` (how critic attention and distribution channels translate region momentum into price movement).

**"Should I buy the 2022 Bordeaux en primeur or wait?"**
Needs `wine-economics` (en primeur system mechanics, historical pricing reliability, the post-2009 overpricing problem) + `wine-futures` (2022 vintage climate context, where Bordeaux is heading structurally) + `collecting-investment` (risk profile, storage counterparty considerations, when en primeur actually makes financial sense).

**"I want to start a serious cellar on a $10,000/year budget."**
Needs `collecting-investment` (portfolio construction, buying in multiples, blue-chip vs. emerging value) + `wine-futures` (which rising regions offer best quality/price trajectory now) + `wine-economics` (where in the distribution chain to buy — auction vs. merchant vs. DTC mailing lists).

---

## Curriculum Order

Learning these skills in sequence builds a coherent market understanding:

1. **`wine-economics` first** — Understand the mechanics of how wine is priced before evaluating investments. The Parker effect, en primeur math, and distribution margins are prerequisite knowledge.
2. **`wine-futures` second** — Once you understand current pricing, understand the structural forces changing it. Climate, demographics, and emerging regions reshape the market.
3. **`collecting-investment` last** — With market mechanics and future trajectories understood, building a cellar strategy makes sense. This skill assumes the others.

---

## Conflict Resolution

**When investment potential and drinking enjoyment conflict: always resolve in favor of drinking.**

Wine is an agricultural product that deteriorates. It is not a stock. A bottle of 2010 Pétrus that provides a transcendent experience with people you love has fulfilled its purpose. A bottle stored in optimal conditions that is eventually sold at auction has also fulfilled a purpose — but a lesser one. When a user asks "should I open it or hold it," the answer should lean toward opening unless there is a compelling, specific reason to hold (verifiable undervaluation, documented need for further aging, defined future occasion).

Never encourage wine as a primary investment vehicle. Acknowledge the investment dimension when present, but reframe toward the sensory and cultural value that makes wine worth investing in at all.

---

## Scope and Escalation

**Escalate to `archon` (investing domain)** for:
- Portfolio-level alternative asset allocation decisions ("What percentage of my investment portfolio should be in wine?")
- Tax treatment of wine collections
- Estate planning for large wine collections
- Comparisons against other alternative assets (art, watches, whisky)

**See also `collector` (The Collector suite)** for wine-as-asset framing in a collectibles-portfolio context — `wine-collecting` director with `en-primeur`, `cellar-strategy`, `wine-provenance`, and `wine-as-asset` leaves. The Collector handles wine alongside comics, art, watches, and other collectible asset classes; this director (Bacchus's `wine-market`) handles wine alongside the sensory and regional sommelier knowledge. Both suites are self-contained mirrors; route by which surrounding frame the user is in.

**Cross-link to `cellar-management`** for:
- Storage requirements for investment-grade wine (temperature, humidity, vibration, light)
- Insurance and cataloguing for collections with financial value
- Provenance documentation practices
- When to use professional storage vs. home cellar for investment holdings