Liquid gold

Why does wine cost so much?

Uncorked by Thor Iverson

A thousand dollars for a bottle of wine that won't even be in a bottle for another year; $53,273 for a case of that same wine from 1978; $156,450 for a 200-year-old Bordeaux that has long since turned to vinegar.

Whether it's these absurd futures and auction prices for wines you and I will never even see, or an "everyday" $10 cabernet sauvignon that suddenly costs $35 at the store, there's no question that wine prices are out of control. You simply cannot buy the best Bordeaux for less than three figures. Burgundy, Barolo, and Barbaresco (what is it with the letter B?) are rarely drinkable under $25. Top California cabernet sauvignon and chardonnay? Be prepared to drop $30 to $50.

Why are prices so high? Many reasons. First among them is a rampant, speculative consumerism among the new rich of America and Asia, who have turned top wines into commodities to be bought and sold like stocks. Many of these trophy hunters don't even like wine, but their aggressive pursuit of wines that rate highly in The Wine Spectator or in Robert Parker's monthly newsletter The Wine Advocate means that those of us who do are quickly priced out of the game.

It's not all speculation, of course. Some wines, like Champagne or Eiswein, are just inherently expensive to produce. And specialized, boutique wineries that produce limited quantities of high-quality wine need to charge more to stay financially afloat.

Finally, there are fads. Mediocre American merlot now sells for $30 on up; five years ago, this happened to chardonnay, and five years from now, it'll happen to syrah. And sometimes it's pure manipulation: wineries hype their products far beyond their ability to meet the demand. This technique is so successful that even wines produced in large quantities -- like vintage port and red Bordeaux -- are released a batch at a time, with the price of each successive release higher than the last.

So is the wine market going to keep getting worse for the average consumer? Probably. In much of France, Germany, and Italy, the classic names in wine are already produced at peak capacity. There will never be more Domaine de la Romanée-Conti La Tâche than there is right now, yet the worldwide demand for it increases unabated. The highest bidder will, unfortunately, always get this wine.

In the search for more reasonably priced wine, many people have turned to Australia, Spain, Portugal, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, Greece, South Africa, and other countries. But producers in those countries are already catching on to the pricing game (the best young wine I had in the past year was the 1994 Téofilo Reyes from Spain, for which I paid $30 -- not debilitatingly expensive, but not exactly cheap, either).

Anyway, the search for bargains and stand-ins misses an essential fact: there is no substitute for the greatest Barolo, Burgundy, Bordeaux, and so on. I didn't used to believe it either, but the first time Château Latour hit my lips, I was transported to an entirely new world of wine appreciation. Sure, California makes good chardonnay, but it is brutally outclassed by Corton-Charlemagne from a good producer ^[*]. Although there are pretenders and impostors, most of the world's legendary wines are legendary for good reason.

So how do us regular types get to taste this stuff? Aside from inheriting a fortune, there are only two ways that I know of. The first is the easiest: attend tastings and wine dinners whenever possible. The second requires accepting this idea: some things are worth the price. I'm not suggesting that we all go out and blow $150 on a Gaja Barbaresco every week, but I am suggesting that we should occasionally be willing to stretch our personal spending limits. Rather than spending $50 for five bottles of decent wine, why not spend $50 on one really great wine?

Here are a few higher-priced wines worth the splurge.

1979 Le Colline Gattinara Monsecco ($28.49 at Martignetti's). Like Barolo and Barbaresco, this Italian red is made from nebbiolo grapes. Overwhelming nose of truffles, soil, baked fruit, wet cedar, fresh leather, and mint. Still fairly tannic, but bright, juicy red cherries and cranberries shine through the sharpness. Decant it carefully (there's lots of sediment), and let it air out for at least two hours before serving it with a really flavorful hunk of roast beef.

1986 Domaine des Comtes Lafon Volnay Santenots-du-Milieu ($31.75 at Brookline Liquor Mart). A fully mature red Burgundy, with leathery game, smoke, strawberry, and cherry scents that set up a lovely, smooth red-berry palate. The restrained elegance continues through a long finish. Also needs decanting; serve it with veal or duck in a cream sauce.

1981 Château Rieussec ($50 at BLM). This wine is liquid gold; a creamy, lush, almost unbearably delicious dessert wine from France's famed Sauternes appellation. Constantly changing honeyed peach, orange, caramel, apple, and buttered lemon flavors continue through the nearly endless finish. Give it a very slight chill, and serve it alone at the end of a meal.

---

One of the best ways to drink expensive wine without winning the lottery is to form a tasting group with wine-curious friends. Here's how it works: each member of the group purchases a bottle of wine and brings it to someone's house -- or a restaurant that allows BYO -- where they are tasted and compared by all. Usually, serving the wines "blind" (i.e., with their labels masked) leads to more honest evaluations of well-known wines, but this is not a requirement. In this way, $50 spent on a single bottle can turn into an opportunity to taste $250, $500, or even $1000 worth of wine. And that is a little like winning the lottery.

Thor Iverson can be reached at wine[a]phx.com.

---

The Uncorked archive

---