Nick Goodway: Lord Ashcroft could be first to spot a wine gap

Outlook Tory peer Lord Ashcroft raised many eyebrows a year ago when his listed vehicle, Shellproof, started buying up land in Kent and East Sussex to turn into vineyards for English wines.

In September he went a step further and spent £7m buying the award-winning Gusborne Estate which has now become the name of the company.

What on earth was Lord A up to? This was no quick buck-turning venture. Some of the land will take at least six years to produce wine-yielding grapes. Wineries take time to build and yes, wine takes time to mature.

Then, ping, in comes the regular global update on the wine industry from the investment bank Morgan Stanley.

It predicts a serious gap between world wine production and world wine consumption of around 900 million cases in the next year or two, partly thanks to growing Chinese demand. That's an awful lot of wine.

So is Lord A simply preserving his own supply of vino or has he actually made a very shrewd investment? Perhaps both.