Tag Archives: expensive wine

Expensive wine 128: Chateau d’Epire Savennieres 2017

Chateau d'Epire SavennieresThe Chateau d’Epire Savennieres shows chenin blanc can make classic white wine

Chenin blanc has a crummy reputation in this country, since it’s moistly used to make sweet bulk wine or soft, drab white blends with a cute label. Both approaches overlook the grape’s ability to astound, as it does in wines from various parts of France’s Loire. The Chateau d’Epire Savennieres is just one such example.

The Chateau d’Epire Savennieres ($25, purchased, 13%) is gorgeous, delicious chenin blanc from the Savennieres region in the Loire. And, frankly, at this price it’s an infinitely better value than much of the $25 chardonnay made here or in France.

Know that chenin blanc can be similar to chardonnay, especially in pear and apple flavors. But it is also quite different. For one thing, oak is rarely used to temper the wines, so the fruit flavors are a little more crisp. And classic Savennieres is quite minerally, almost steely.

The Chateau d’Epire Savennieres fits the classic mold: A pear sort of fruit, but also steely and minerally. It’s ready to drink now, and should age for at least several years. Highly recommended, and it’s easily one of the best wines I’ve tasted in the past couple of years.

Pricing note: All prices are suggested retail or purchase price before the October 2019 tariffs unless noted

Imported by Kermit Lynch

Expensive wine 127: Charles Joguet Chinon Cuvée Terroir 2015

Charles Joguet Chinon The Charles Joguet Chinon Cuvée Terroir demonstrates that French red wine is more than cabernet sauvigon and merlot

Red wine from Franc’s Loire is made with cabernet franc, which explains why most of us have never tasted red wine from France’s Loire. Which is too bad, given the quality of the Charles Joguet Chinon.

The Charles Joguet Chinon Cuvée Terroir ($25, purchased, 13%) is from Chinon in the Loire — not quite coastal, but close enough. That means a cooler climate and less fruity wine, though the Joguet doesn’t taste like that on first impression. But that’s what makes it such an interesting wine — it is fruity (black cherry?) at first. But that gives way to something more Chinon-like: that graphite, almost pencil lead quality that defines Old World cabernet franc, plus a sort of pine forest something or other.

Highly recommended. This is holiday food wine at an incomparable price, whether prime rib, roast salmon, or a vegetarian mushroom dish.

Imported by Kermit Lynch

Expensive wine 126: Patricia Green Pinot Noir Reserve 2017

The Patricia Green PiPatricia Green Pinot Noir Reservenot Noir Reserve offers value and quality just in time for Thanksgiving

Oregon pinot noir has long enjoyed a reputation for value and quality, and little has changed about that despite all of the other changes in wine since the end of the recession. Case in point: the Patricia Green Pinot Noir Reserve.

The Patricia Green Pinot Noir Reserve ($24, purchased, 13.7%) is one of the best values in wine today – a top-notch red made with quality fruit that speaks to the region’s terroir and the pinot noir grape. In this, it offers a standard that others need to pay attention to (and probably explains why the Wine Spectator likes it as much as I do).

The best part about this wine may well be that it’s still young, and will need a couple of years to show off its best qualities. Because there are plenty of those. It’s a subtle wine, much closer to Burgundy than California, but still very Oregon in style. That means earth and the tannins found only in quality pinot noir. There is brambly black fruit, but it’s more zesty and less pronounced than elsewhere in the state.

Highly recommended, and just the wine for Thanksgiving. Or, frankly, when you want to enjoy quality at an unbelievable price.

When is buying expensive wine worth it?

expensive wine

“So this is really worth $50, and not some over-priced, premiumiuzed thing I won’t like?”

Three things to keep in mind when your’re deciding if expensive wine is worth the extra money

This post from the Lifehacker website, “When spending the extra money is worth it,” didn’t include wine. Which is probably a good thing, given Lifehacker’s track record with wine.

But it did get me thinking: How do we know when it spending extra money for wine is worth it?

The Lifehacker post poses an intriguing question in our “lots of crap available to buy all the time” age, where any kind of junk is just a click away on the Internet. It’s also relevant given that the holidays will soon be here, and that usually sets off all kinds of wine buying foolishness, where money takes a back seat to common sense.

In this, the post included some obvious choices – paying for movers and buying better quality sheets among them. But the wine question does not have an obvious answer, given how confusing wine is and how wine prices today reflect quality much less than they used to. Plus, there’s no need to spend more than $10 or $12 most of the time; what’s the point of paying $40 for a bottle for Tuesday night Chinese takeout or $50 for a Saturday afternoon barbecue with the neighbors?

So consider the Wine Curmudgeon’s three pointers for knowing when it’s worth buying more expensive wine:

• Is it a memorable occasion? The late Darryl Beeson always insisted the occasion made the wine memorable, and not vice versa. But I’d argue that if you’re celebrating a milestone, it makes sense to spend the extra money. Yes, my definition of milestone might differ from yours, but I don’t regret for a minute paying $150 for a bottle of red Burgundy to celebrate the Cubs’ 2016 World Series victory.

• Did someone you trust recommend the wine? I can’t emphasize this enough. How many of us, including people who drink wine for a living, have paid a premium for a bottle only to experience buyer’s remorse after the first sip? Most of the time that’s because we took the advice of someone who didn’t know what they were doing, had an ulterior motive, or just assumed we would like what they like. And that’s when the $60 of wine ends up being used for cooking.

• Are you in a position to appreciate the wine? That is, will it be a long leisurely event with lots of time to sip and assess, and to enjoy a couple of glasses or more? Or will it be a cocktail or holiday party, where you’ll get barely more than one taste of the wine and never remember anything about it? Or will the goal of the function be to get drunk, in which case Winking Owl will do?

How about some $5,000 holiday wine?

holiday wineDig deep, because who wouldn’t want to buy a $5,000 holiday wine?

If you spend $5,000 for a bottle of wine, do you actually drink it? That, to me, would be the most fascinating part about a wine auction next month at Christie’s in New York. Among the variety of rare wines for sale: a red Bordeaux, tthe 1990 Chateau Haut-Brion, expected to fetch between $4,000 and $6,000. And such a deal: it’s a large format bottle, an imperial, the equivalent of eight regular-sized bottles.

We’ve discussed this before on the blog: These auctions, their fantastic prices, and the idea that people who pay this much money for wine don’t necessarily drink it. Instead, they keep it in their cellar and show it off like an Old Masters painting or a rare postage stamp.

A good friend of mine, who associates with a much more Gatsby-esque crowd than the Wine Curmudgeon does, says he once knew someone like that. The guy would invite him over to look at the wine, but not to drink it. My friend, after this happened several times, asked the guy when he was going to open a bottle. “Never,” the guy said. “These aren’t for drinking. They’re for looking.”

Is it any wonder I worry about the future of the wine business?

The other thing worth noting is the price discrepancy between the French and California wines in the auction. The top estimated prices for California are about $600 a bottle, which is about half of the top price for a variety of red Bordeaux and Burgundy. Which makes this about the only place where paying $300 for a bottle of Shafer, a top Napa cabernet sauvignon, can be seen as a bargain.

Photo: “A Great Selection” by toddwight1 is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

Winebits 619: Premiumization, presidential wine, alcohol consumption

premiumizationThis week’s wine news: Another expert says premiumization is hurting wine, plus wine for world leaders and U.S. alcohol consumption

• “Doom loop:” Who knew a big-time market analyst would agree with the Wine Curmudgeon? Sonoma State’s Damien Wilson says premiumization “can be a path to ruin.” He even has charts and statistics to prove his point. Wilson, writing for Wine Business International, says “European wine market history shows that failing to recruit new wine consumers is the last thing the U.S. wine sector should be doing right now. As the number of wine consumers in the U.S. has stalled in recent years, the local wine sector should avoid profiteering in favour of new market investment. Here is where the US wine sector’s global leadership in business practices can come to the fore.” In other words, higher prices for the sake of higher prices scare off new wine drinkers and then demand slows. And we’re where we are today – flat growth and overpriced wine.

• World power wine: What does one serve the president of France and the Chinese premier at a leading international trade show? High-end French wine, of course. France’s Emmanuel Macron and China’s Xi Jinping sampled three amazing bottles – Louis Latour’s Corton Grancey Grand Cru 2010, Gérard Bertrand’s Château L’Hospitalet 2016, and the Cheval Blanc 2006. That’s about $900 worth of wine, though the Bertrand is a comparatively inexpensive $35.

• U.S. booze consumption: The typical U.S. resident drinks the equivalent of about a case of wine a year, according to the OECD, an international group that tracks a variety of economic indicators. The agency’s 2019 report on beer, wine, and spirits consumption shows that the U.S. is not only exactly average for the 36 countries in the survey, but that consumption is almost unchanged from 2007. So it becomes even less clear what the neo-Prohibitionists are complaining about.

Photo: “Modern wine tasting” by kellinahandbasket is licensed under CC BY 2.0 

Winebits 616: Direct to consumer, wine as a luxury, and the wine glass chair

Direct to consumerThis week’s wine news: Texas goes after direct to consumer wine shipping, plus has wine become a luxury and the wine glass chair

• Not so fast: The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission is cracking down on shipments to Texas from out of state wineries. The state agency will apparently review all of the roughly 1,600 license holders permitted to ship wine to Texas customers. And that will include a request for a voluminous amount of paperwork, including licenses, label approvals, and customer invoices, reports the ShipCompliant consultancy. Why does what Texas does matter to the rest of the country? Because the TABC often sets the example for alcohol cops in the rest of the U.S., and if they’re gong to this much trouble, other states may see the need to do the same thing. And if Texas is cracking down, the next question is why?

• Hard to believe: One of the wine critics who helped create the high-end wine world is asking: “Have you noticed how expensive wine is getting?” Yes, actually. But that Jancis Robinson, perhaps the most important European wine critic, is saying so complements the Wine Curmudgeon’s usual rants. That’s because her analysis is spot on – slowing demand yet rising prices. “Not so long ago, it seemed that prices were relatively modest initially, until reputations and/or high scores were won. But now, from where I sit, more and more wine producers dive in at the deep end, asking really quite ambitious prices from the get go.”

• Just for sitting: A Spanish interior and product designer has created a chair based on a wine glass – “The Merlot.” In one respect it doesn’t look all that different from what those of us of a certain age know as a Felix Unger chair. But the designer, Marta Del Valle, acknowledges they “aren’t ideal for tedious and work-oriented actions such as studying, working or consuming long meals. But for all you fun-loving design enthusiasts, and not to mention wine lovers out there, such a piece would only liven up any space it is placed in.”

Photo from Yanko Design, using a Creative Commons license