To Heck With The Dow, I’m Investing In WINE!

This morning as I was checking my email and sipping my first glorious cup of coffee (the other liquid consumable that I’m obsessed with), I stumbled across a message from our friend Michael Brill at Crushpad. (I don’t actually know Michael, but I love their concept, hope to try it someday, and thus I’ll call him friend).  The fine folks at Crushpad are offering their own version of a bailout for those of us watching our 401K’s slide down the hill.

For those of you who don’t know about Crushpad, check ‘em out.  The San Francisco based company allows folks like you and me to produce their own wine (they do all the heavy lifting, provide the grape choices, push the corks in the bottles, etc.).  It’s a brilliant idea.

And those same folks are bringing us Bailout Wine. Here’s the skinny:

They’re selling bottles of the “2007 Bailout Napa Valley Cabernet” on this website for $39/bottle.  They’ll record the closing value of the Dow Jones Industrial Average the day that you buy the bottles.  Then for every 100 points the Dow drops from your starting point, you get $2 off each bottle.  They’ll bottle the wine on August 14, 2009 and use the Dow closing level to determine your final price.  God knows I hope the market is doing better in fall of ‘09 (and so do the folks at Bailout/Crushpad by the way).

They point out that even if the market does well and the price remains $39 a bottle, the wine is a great deal.  Bailout is a blend of fruit from premier Napa vineyards in Oakville, Mt. Veeder and Pritchard Hill that they say routinely go into $75 to $275 wines. And they’re using French oak: Taransaud, Darnajou and Seguin Moreau barrels.  The cab will be blended with Malbec, Petite Verdot, Merlot and Cabernet Franc.  Their team of winemakers and consulting winemakers has produced numerous “big point” wines (Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate 92-96 points).

By the way, it’s worth  mentioning that my 401K is non-exsistent.  I spend most of my spare money on…  well, I’ll let you figure that one out. Check out the Bailout video here.