Chianti as Collateral

Italian banks may soon accept fine wines and dry-cured hams as collateral on loans. The country already accepts large wheels of parmesan cheese: one Italian bank stores hundreds of thousands of the wheels as they age. Gianni Zonin, chairman of the Banca Popolare di Vicenza and head of Zonin, a wine producer, said, “We’ve done it with cheese, why not with prosciutto and good wines like Brunello di Montalcino and chianti classico?” (HT: Planet Money) [%comments]