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More than a third of the day's receipts ($77,166) was spent on wine that is still stored in wooden casks and will not be ready for bottling for two years or longer. Speculators bid for it in the hope that when the wine is finally aged it will be declared a superior vintage and gain in value. Prices on many varieties of stored wine have doubled in the past year, giving rise to a market in what aficionados call "wine futures." The association with finance offends Heublein's McNally. "It's a more personal investment than stocks or commodities," he says. "It's more like adopting children."
