Good Grape Wine Company

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With BBQ season fast approaching, every stockbroker and financial planner is equipping themselves with disarming factoids or pat answers.  After the grill has cooled off, after sports topics have been tread, the kid diversion has been milked, and the deflection to the wives have been made, the eventual conversation always comes around to work and if you’re a financial planner, you’ll get stroked for a good stock pick.The world of wine has really been beat up the last couple of years with a lot of companies choosing to go private--AFTER they were already public--Golden State Vintners, Chalone Wine Group and a number of others, if I’m not mistaken.  Mondavi and a good number of other guys have been bought up, as well.  Mondavi by Constellation, by the way.So, if you’re looking to invest in some shares of a wine stock, in the stock market, the pickings are kind of slim.  Which is unfortunate, because the growth curve would make it interesting if there were some stock choices aside from a couple of huge producers.This is even more interesting because Constellation, one of the big guys, is at polar opposites of the buy/sell spectrum according to Charles Schwab research and Standard & Poors research.Which is kind of appropriate, I supposed, when you consider that Constellation owns both Blackstone and Ravenswood which usually receive good wine ratings and they produce Arbor Mist and Almaden, which I think some discerning palates at Wal-Mart don’t even drink.From the Constellation Web site:Constellation Wines is a division of Constellation Brands,a leading international producer and marketer of beverage alcohol brands with abroad portfolio across the wine, imported beer and spirits categories.Constellation Wines produces, markets and sells a broad portfolio of winesthroughout the world. Selling nearly 90 million cases annually, ConstellationWines is the world’s largest wine business, operates the leading independentdrinks wholesaler and a cider business in the United Kingdom, and produces bulkwine and other related products.Caveat Emptor on this one.Standard & Poor’s gives the stock (STZ)  trading in the $24 dollar range, a strong buy recommendation with a 12 month price target (estimate) of $31.  Rueters research calls it an out-perform which means it should do better then the entire stock market in aggregate as measured by the S&P 500.  Yet, Schwab gives it a D.My stock-picking advice?  Don’t do it.  Save your money and buy some 2004 French wine futures which will probably pick up some collateral steam from the 2005 vintage--if the early reports continue with overzealous fawning.  Both are a gamble, but at least you’ll have the benefit of having the wine in your possession and that’s a liquid asset everybody can get behind.  http://www.goodgrape.com/index.php/86/