Old favourites draw high bids at auctions, but some merchants are not convinced of the investment potential of Italian wines

In March, a New York company IWM set up office in Hong Kong. The acronym stands for Italian Wine Merchants and the company is setting something of a new standard on our shores. Its focus, as its names indicates, is Italian wines, with brokers procuring classics alongside undiscovered wines from new producers. Requests are accommodated via portfolio managers, who tailor collections and manage cellars.  IWM also runs an investment leg, for those who wish to speculate.

Once upon a time, Italian wine was hard to decipher, but now that cloud is lifting. Top auction house Zachys sold off 10 Italian lots in April.  In June, another bidder celebrated winning a magnum of the Tuscan wine, Sassicaia, by opening the bottle while still at the auction. The lot was his for HK$31,460.

Michael Jessen, auction director of Zachys Wine Auctions, says interest in Italian wines has increased over the last few decades, adding that the country's produce is an important segment of business.

The new four-door XJ with its contemporary styling, is the first car to feature the next-generation of Jaguar's aerospace-inspired aluminium and magnesium body

A little more than a year after India’s Tata Motors acquired Jaguar in an all-cash, no-debt US$2.3 billion (HK$19.37 billion) deal from Ford Motor, the automotive world has witnessed the rollout of a new model in the flagship Jaguar range, the XJ. Decades after the first XJ rolled off the production line in 1968, the new saloon (or sedan as the Americans prefer to say) represents a design and engineering marker for Jaguar.

The new XJ has an aluminium and magnesium body and is a contemporary reinterpretation of the old XJ. A visually more appealing version.

While the marque, founded by Sir William Lyons in 1922, is now in Indian hands, Jaguar has been in a revival mode. Sales to China have increased by 25 per cent last year and it opened a showroom in India. Last year, Jaguar sold 65,000 cars in 60 countries.

 Sleek, sporting and sophisticated, the XJ, which will be available in Hong Kong and Asia early next year, combines striking design, premier performance and engineering.

Through a sculpture project, artist Bell Hui is helping to forge a connection between art and everyday life in Hong Kong

Six years ago, the Woman Wanted exhibition at Hong Kong Heritage Museum brought together Bell Hui Chui-hung, Kwok Ying, Lily Lau Lee-lee, Rosanna Li Wei-hen, Sin Yuen, Wong Wo-bik and Eva Yuen Man-wah. At the time, the museum website described it as, "seven Hong Kong women artists of different backgrounds, ages and characters," providing "multiple yet highly personal perspectives of the experience of being a woman".

Hui has always attempted to express her personal views of women's art through her choice of artistic medium and language. At the Hong Kong Art Biennial 2002, her simple style of turning an ordinary object into art earned her a name in the field.

"I am always passionate about site-specific installation art," Hui says, "like three-dimensional objects and sculptures that can be created, installed and demolished handily to interact with the site, or the surroundings. So I don't have a collection of my work."