HOW TO PLAY IT

According to Charlie Munger

Choice grapes and branding genius are at the heart of the business of vintner Jean-Charles Boisset and his $350 The Surrealist cabernet sauvignon. For that price, you could have bought the equivalent of 38 bottles of Kirkland Signature cabernet, sold at Costco, a wholesale club that generates upward of $2 billion in wine sales

a year. While Costco’s vino is cheap, its stock has aged like a Lafite Rothschild,

returning an annualized 17%

since its 1985 IPO, versus 10.7% for the S&P 500. Thanks no doubt

to urging by longtime Costco board member and shareholder Charlie Munger, Berkshire Hathaway has a sizable

position in its stock. In recent years, savvy wine shoppers have helped Costco maintain 5% growth, even as competitor Amazon has laid

siege to many brick-and-mortar

retailers.