This Christmas, Liv-ex sent a card to its members containing a crossword that touched on several themes of the year. Recipients were asked to email a picture of their completed puzzle for the chance of winning a bottle of wine. Two lucky winners have now been notified.
If you’d like to attempt the crossword yourself, you can view a blank template here.
The solutions are shown below:
Across:
4. Liv-ex is the fine wine ________ (6).
Answer: Market
6. The price you are likely to pay for a wine in the market with no condition issues. (6,5)
Answer: Market Price. It is calculated from the lowest prices advertised by leading stockholders in the EU.
9. Fine wine producer of 890 and 904. Also the name of a sub-region. (5,4)
Answer: Rioja Alta
10. Tool that helps you clean long lists in a matter of minutes (4,7)
Answer: Wine Matcher. This web-based tool was launched by Liv-ex in June. It allows merchants to take wine lists and transform them into a standardised set of wine names and formats with unique IDs (LWINs). These IDs can easily be shared with other systems or entered into a database for comparison in a matter of minutes. It can also return the clean list with wine price data – such as Market Price or last trade – from Liv-ex. You can watch a short video about it here.
11. Owner of Pape Clement, interviewed by Liv-ex in June. (7,6)
Answer: Bernard Magrez. You can read the interview in full here.
12. Trading contract that allows you to get wine instantly.
Answer: Special Now. Special Now cases are those that are instantly available to buyers because they are stored in the Liv-ex warehouse. Find out more here.
Down:
1. Place in Asia that Liv-ex flies wine to weekly (4,4,)
Answer: Hong Kong.
2. The home country of Liv-ex co-founder Justin Gibbs (9)
Answer: Australia
3. The official one was in 1855; Liv-ex creates one every other year (14)
Answer: Classification. The latest Liv-ex classification was expanded to include wines from all around the globe. You can view the rankings here.
4. Petrus is made with this grape (6)
Answer: Merlot
5. This wine’s LWIN is on the front of the card (4,3)
Answer: Opus One (see above)
7. The top wine in the latest Power 100 (6)
Answer: Lafite. Lafite was the top wine in both the 2016 and 2017 Power 100, making this answer valid even when the latest list was released. You can find view the 2017 Power 100, published last week, here.
8. The location of the Liv-ex office in London (9)
Answer: Battersea
12. Liv-ex’s standard trading contract (3)
Answer: SIB (Standard In Bond). SIB contracts stipulate condition and tax status requirements for fine wine. This standardises transactions, making for more a more transparent and safe marketplace, and allowing for like-for-like price comparisons.
13. The Liv-ex 100 is one of these (5)
Answer: Index. You can find it here.
14. Liv-ex’s unique wine identifier (4)
Answer: LWIN (Liv-ex Wine Identification Number). It standardises fine wine names, helping to keep transactions error-free. You can find out more about it – including a short video – here.
