A bottle of 1811 Chateau d'Yquem was sold to a French wine collector yesterday for £75,000 pounds which set a record for a retail sale of fine white wine. You may think, how could a bottle of wine be worth that much? Well if it is still drinkable after 200 years, and it probably will be, then it will be worth it. Chateau d'Yquem is renowned for its longevity and longevity is one of the true measures of a fine wine. It will be interesting to see if some of the new pretenders on the investment wine market can last that long. I hope the buyer gets around to tasting his wine rather than holding it as a long term investment; wine can only really give pleasure when it is drunk with family or friends.
For people that cannot afford to pay so much for their sweet white wine, I recommend buying a really good bottle of Monbazillac of recent vintage and keeping it in an undisturbed cool dark place for about 8 years to 10 years. This "poor man's Sauternes" will not disappoint you, it is really great wine which improves in the bottle. My recommendation is wine from the Chateau Monbazillac itself. Better still buy half a case. Drink it with foie gras, dessert or blue cheeses.
Tuesday 26 July 2011
2010 Mollydooker Velvet Glove Shiraz
Recently a 462 case shipment of 2010 Mollydooker Velvet Glove Shiraz was dropped in by a faulty forklift truck leaving 461 cases smashed. That is 5532 bottles and each one was expected to retail at 200 USD a bottle. The loss is calculated to be over 1 million USD. The fact is most bottles of wine do not cost more than 16 USD each to produce, so maybe the losses were rather exaggerated. It is a good story however. I have never tasted Mollydooker Shiraz but is is probably a very good wine so it is a shame it was wasted.
You may ask why this wine is so expensive, well wines from this producer have been scored 99 out of 100 by a famous wine commentator. Fame, marketing and rarity value does the rest. This wine is produced in very small quantities. I do not know whether this wine is that much better than any of the other excellent wines produced in the Mclaren Vale. But I do know this, I regularly visit the Burgundy area of France and have tasted bottles of red which are of better quality, in my opinion, at 25 USD than wines from the region costing a lot, lot more. But the difference is not that great; one would expect a wine costing 150 bucks plus to be of high quality.
Many "boutique style wines" are now being used as investment instruments which causes their price to sky rocket further. My advice would be to taste before you buy especially if you are considering paying a very high price. The bottle of wine you are getting may disappoint you in comparison to the lower priced competitors. Even if you are investing for money only and are not really interested in the taste of wine, I still advise tasting first. There is nothing like the feel of a greenback to let you know what your investment is really worth.
You may ask why this wine is so expensive, well wines from this producer have been scored 99 out of 100 by a famous wine commentator. Fame, marketing and rarity value does the rest. This wine is produced in very small quantities. I do not know whether this wine is that much better than any of the other excellent wines produced in the Mclaren Vale. But I do know this, I regularly visit the Burgundy area of France and have tasted bottles of red which are of better quality, in my opinion, at 25 USD than wines from the region costing a lot, lot more. But the difference is not that great; one would expect a wine costing 150 bucks plus to be of high quality.
Many "boutique style wines" are now being used as investment instruments which causes their price to sky rocket further. My advice would be to taste before you buy especially if you are considering paying a very high price. The bottle of wine you are getting may disappoint you in comparison to the lower priced competitors. Even if you are investing for money only and are not really interested in the taste of wine, I still advise tasting first. There is nothing like the feel of a greenback to let you know what your investment is really worth.
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