The cocktail party chatter could usually be relied on to come round, sooner or later, to discussions of vintage. The seriously wealthy were not comparing notes on champagnes, or debating whether 1982 really was the best year for Château Petrus. They were talking about hedge funds.

It was one thing to have been able to invest with a well-regarded manager whose fund was normally closed; among those who were in, what mattered was when they got in. Whoever turned out to have invested earliest gained the most respect from their cocktail circuit peers.