February 28th, 2014
12:00 PM ET
Ray Isle (@islewine on Twitter) is Food & Wine's executive wine editor. We trust his every cork pop and decant – and the man can sniff out a bargain to boot. Take it away, Ray. I had the good fortune last week to be in California for Premiere Napa Valley, a glitzy shindig for which the valley’s top wineries produce special, one-off cuvées to help fund the Napa Valley Vintners (the local trade association). Usually five or 10 cases, but sometimes up to a full barrel, these cuvées are then auctioned off to wine shop owners and the like for, ideally, huge heaps of cash. Nothing is ever cheap at this event, and at this year’s auction—which demolished previous records for revenue—some things were very, very expensive. Take, for instance, the top lot: five cases of wine from the beloved-by-billionaires cult–Cab favorite Scarecrow. It sold for $260,000. That’s about more than four grand a bottle, give or take. Or, you know, for normal people, a house. Here, for those of us (wine writers included) who could no more spend four thousand bucks on a bottle of wine than we could fly to the moon on the backs of magical swans, some ideal Napa bargains. More from Food & Wine: Get to know: Tempranillo, Pinot Noir, Burgundy, Vinho Verde, Pinot Bianco, Malbec, Torrontes, ice wine, Albarino, Muscadet Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc and Dolcetto © 2011 American Express Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved. |
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$260,000 for a bottle of wine? If it turns out to be "off" after sniffing the cork, will they get their money back?
Some people just have too much money (and not much sense) on their hands.
$260k was for 5 cases, but that's still stupid money for glorified grape juice.
260,000 sure seems like a lot of money to spend on wine.
I've been to Sonoma County and the Russian River Valley more recently. And those are wonderful wines too.