The perils of buying fine wine for investment have been widely highlighted - particularly following the collapse in March of Croft & Dupont, a company to which many Irish clients appear to have paid high prices for poor vintages of wine that was never delivered. Even so, news of appalling exploitation is still trickling in. A reader has written about the purchase from Amsterdam of two cases of Chateau Batailley 1980 for £10,720 - the total to include five years' storage. But 1980, a mediocre year, isn't worth buying at all, never mind keeping. The current retail value of two cases of Batailley 1980 (only curiosity value, really) can't be more than £300 to £400, if that. The moral: don't attempt any wine investment without extensive knowledge or utterly reliable advice.