What is the Nature of Wine?

To be honest, I’m not sure of the etiquette of responding to a comment on a blog by way of a new post altogether, but the remarks, by my friend and colleague Miguel Lecuona, about my “Great Wines” piece earlier in the week, seem to warrant something more serious than the usual rhetorical nod of the head and moving on to the next subject.

This is primarily a result of the confluence of two key factors: The subject being discussed (it’s of huge importance to wine-lovers everywhere) and the trenchant manner in which Miguel addressed it.

To begin, I’d like to offer some clarification to my remarks in the original post. My issue is not with treating certain wines as trophies. In all honesty, if I had the space and the funds, I’d certainly display my most prized bottles. As a wine lover and wine collector, I of course appreciate the pride that comes from showing off the bottles that you most covet. Rather, my issue is with collectors who purchase the wines for the sole purpose of display, without ever intending to open them up, and who hold onto the bottles until they have more in common with vinegar than anything they’d want to swirl and sniff and savor. That, to me, seems to defeat the purpose of the wine having been created in the first place.

Miguel makes an interesting point when he compares “the aspirational collector who displays wines...[with] the collector who displays art, watches, guns, books, big game, or whatever they're into.” And, indeed, there are similarities there--but only to a point. Visual art’s raison d’être is to be displayed; there’s nothing else you can do with it but admire it, study it, etc. It can’t be consumed, and as long as it is treated properly, it will continue to serve its intended purpose forever, or close to it. Watch collectors, too, tend to wear their prized possessions, even if it’s just once in a while. Maybe that vintage Patek Philippe gets taken off its display stand only for weddings or other events of the sort, but generally, it’ll get worn once in a while...or had been worn at some point since it left the factory in Switzerland. Same with the other examples: Books get read, even if it’s a digital version; guns, even the most prized antique ones, were ostensibly shot at some point; and big game serves the same purpose as any other work of visual art on display.

It seems to me, however, that there’s a significant difference when it comes to wine. Yes, displaying it can be a beautiful thing, but to do so without ever having the intention of consuming it seems to miss what its essential purpose is, which is to be consumed. (Even if the producers' main objective in creating it was motivated solely by profit, which, either way, seems inextricably linked to the quality of the product itself, and the pleasure it will ultimately bring when it gets consumed.)

Now, I would never argue with Miguel’s contention that “the reason some fine wines sell for what they do is because [they] offer something more than mere consumption. The 2008 Lafites are now worth 10x more to the Chinese than they are to me. It's a $2000 bottle in Hong Kong! The businessman who can give the gift of Lafite in China honors his guests, and also demonstrates his own power (or his prescience if he bought them at $200).” But we have to ask ourselves why these particular wines fetch such prices and command such respect in the first place. And the answer, I think, is that they generally have a history of performing at a higher level, of providing greater pleasure when consumed and therefore possess and confer more prestige, than their lesser counterparts. So while that hypothetical Chinese businessman may never have tasted, say, a 2008 Lafite, he knows that it will be valued, and confer honor on the recipient of such a generous gift, because of its reputation for excellence and its long, illustrious history. Nothing about it is based on a hypothetical; rather, that chateau’s pedigree is inextricably tied to its history and performance right now. Lafite’s etching an “8” into its bottle is smart business, as is Mouton’s label-art, but neither would mean a whole lot were it not for the juice in the bottle. (Plenty of producers feature original artwork on their labels, but none approach the level of prestige of Mouton’s.) To use Yellow Tail, as Miguel did in his comment, an “8” etched into that bottle would have precious little impact on its desirability. Why? Because it’s not Lafite. Or Latour, or Margaux, or DRC, or any of a dozen other producers whose products have proven their worth, and justified the passion with which people covet them, as a result of what they have historically provided when the corks are popped and the wine consumed.

Over the years, Miguel and I have shared several great wines--I remember one particular Bacchanal of an evening for which the wine list included Margaux 1983, Leoville Las Cases 2000, Leoville Barton 1995, some older Figeac, and more. I even recall trading--like kids with really expensive baseball cards--a bottle of Gaja Sperss 2003 for a Cos d’Estournel 2003. And while that bottle of Cos is still resting in my cellar, I fully plan on opening it one day, when it’s reached the level of maturity that I’m waiting for, with friends and family...just like we did that evening at Miguel’s house. It’s display-worthy, of course, and I do show it to my friends when they come by. But the fact that it’s being displayed is just a temporary step along the road toward its being consumed.

I will, however, agree unequivocally with one observation Miguel made: I absolutely started tearing up when I first walked into the vineyard at Cheval-Blanc. And yes, my Facebook profile photo is of me walking through the vineyard at Chateau d’Yquem. (In fact, Miguel took the photo!) And while I respect Chaddsford, and very much believe in supporting the local wine producers wherever you live, it’s history is unarguably different from that of the great growths of Bordeaux. But using those photos doesn’t imply that I wouldn’t drink their wines if I had them in my collection. On the contrary, popping the corks and the drinking the juice will actually afford the wines the chance to achieve what they were initially crafted to do: To end up in the bottom of a glass and be consumed.

(Finally, to end on a perhaps anti-climactic parenthetical, we could argue the nature of “intent” for an inanimate object for years and not come to a conclusion. When all is considered and tallied up, my real issue is this: Not drinking a bottle of great wine seems an awful waste. It is, of course, the owner’s right to do whatever he or she wants with the bottle--drink it, display it, blend it with ice cream and fruit and make a really expensive smoothie--but to never experience the wine itself seems anathema to the long history of wine and its essential nature as a consumable product.)

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Great Wine, Greed, and Truth in Drinking

Among wine lovers, certain bottlings enjoy a mythical, almost mystical status: Cheval-Blanc '61, Lafite '82, and Petrus '47 immediately come to mind when considering the wine pantheon of the last century. And it’s the last bottle, reputedly the greatest Pomerol ever produced, that concerns us today.

In January, Mike Steinberger published a piece on Slate.com dealing with this and other wines that most people will never have a chance to see in person, much less taste. What makes the article so interesting is its dealing with the intersection of connoisseurship, investigative journalism, and that oldest of all motivating factors, greed.

As with so many stories about counterfeit wine these past several years, this one involves Hardy Rodenstock, the man who may or may not be responsible for the presence of countless fake bottles of great old Bordeaux, including the so-called Jefferson bottles made famous in the excellent Ben Wallace book, The Billionaire’s Vinegar.

Rather than paraphrase Steinberger’s wild ride of a column, I’ll just strongly recommend carving out 15 minutes of your day to read it. While it may deal with wine that most people will never lay a single taste bud on, it’s fascinating stuff, seriously entertaining storytelling, and in unexpected meditation on the nature of greed, reputation, and how the pleasures of the senses are affected by them. It’s linked up right here.

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Cleaning Out the Cellar

Like many so-called wine people, it recently came to my attention that my collection (a very, very modest one) had gotten out of hand. I don’t own all that much wine compared to some collectors, but enough age-worthy bottles had accumulated in my in-house cellar that I had completely lost track not only of what I had, but also where specific bottles were located within it.

So I decided that the time had come to follow my friend Scot “Zippy” Ziskind’s advice, take everything out, catalog it, and move any bottles that I wouldn’t be drinking in the next two years to an off-site, professional storage facility. Scot, as I’ve written about here before, is one of the country’s foremost experts in wine cellar design, cooling, and humidification, owner of ZipCo Environmental Services, Inc., and My Cellar, one of the region’s best wine storage facilities.

And now, after having gone through my precious bottles, and having reacquainted myself with what I had, cataloging everything in Cellar Tracker, and purging my poor overstuffed cellar, I’ve come to two important conclusions: First, I need to buy more wine; and second, I should have moved my most important bottles to the My Cellar warehouse a long time ago for guaranteed safe-keeping.

I bring this up because I’ve been hearing some real horror stories lately from friends who have had people over for dinner, had a bit too much to drink, and decided, in their impaired state, that they would pop the corks on bottles that were nowhere near ready. And while having trophy bottles on hand to show off is perfectly fine, it’s also dangerous unless you have some sort of fail-safe mechanism in place to protect yourself from your own worst impulses.

Trophy wines are nice to look at, but they’re even better to drink--when they’re ready.

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Closing the Circle

I received a call earlier this week from a friend of mine who I’ve written about here before—Scot Ziskind, the highly regarded custom storage, humidification, and cooling expert, owner of ZipCo Environmental Services, Inc. and My Cellar wine storage firm. A long-time client of his had recently passed away, and, as per his instructions, Scot was to open his locker, catalog the wines in it, and sell them off, with the proceeds to go to his wife.

Over the course of a couple of hours on a damp afternoon, we unpacked, cataloged, and repacked over ten cases—everything that this man had left of his collection, all the bottles he hadn’t had the chance to open with family and friends while he was still here. (The good news, Scot told me, is that his client had made a point of pulling his favorite bottles to share before it was too late.)

It was a bittersweet afternoon: This, after all, was all that was left of another man’s beloved wine collection, of another man’s passion. There was something touching and surprisingly intimate about the process: With the sale of the bottles he had left behind, his wife would receive a bit of a financial windfall; and on our end, we were handling (very carefully, of course) bottle after bottle that he had chosen himself, each, ostensibly, for a different reason that only he, ultimately, ever really knew.

And what bottles they were. With each case we sliced open, we discovered new, often unexpected treasures. Certain ones, of course, weren’t all that surprising: The bottles of Lynch Bages, the assortment of Ducru-Beaucaillou, the smattering of Cheval Blanc and marquis California producers and Gaja Barbaresco. We even found a single 1982 Lafite, which will benefit his wife immeasurably. But other wines were less expected, and spoke of a man who loved experiencing all that the wine world had to offer just as much as he loved collecting its most prominent examples (there’s often a big difference): JL Chave Hermitage Blanc, Chateau de Beaucastel Chateauneuf-du-Pape Blanc, a couple of older Echezeaux from Mongeard-Mugneret—wines whose value, despite their higher cost, are far more about idiosyncrasy and personal taste than anything else.

In the end, it took just over two hours to complete the project. The sale of the bottles shouldn’t be all that time consuming, either. But despite the brevity of the work itself, there was something undoubtedly intimate about it. I didn’t know the man who once sought out, purchased, and stored these bottles. In fact, I’d never even met him. But in helping to close the circle on his wine life—in helping to do the final accounting of the wines he left behind and, in some small way, contributing to the reward that the wife who survives him will ultimately reap—I feel as if I’m connected to him now in some small way.

Wine, perhaps more than anything else, has the unusual ability to bring people together that way. Even if they never knew each other.

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"The Billionaire's Vinegar"

After much discussion in the press and a fascination with the subject that seems to have gone well beyond traditional wine-loving circles, Michael Broadbent, wine columnist and expert in all things vinous, has been awarded an undisclosed settlement in his law suit against Random House, publisher of the excellent “The Billionaire’s Vinegar.”

“Mr. Broadbent, the world-renowned wine expert and former head of Christie’s wine department, had claimed in his suit that the book falsely depicts him as complicit in a crime,” The New York Times reported. “‘The Billionaire’s Vinegar’ traces the history of the Jefferson bottles, vintage Bordeaux said to have belonged to Thomas Jefferson, which were auctioned by Christie’s for exorbitant prices. The Jefferson ownership, though, was never clearly established, and many experts have concluded that the bottles were never Jefferson’s.”

The full article in the Times is available here, and is well worth taking a look at. And the book, which I can’t recommend highly enough, is available at Amazon.com right here. Finally, take a look at this article that The New Yorker ran two years ago; it provides a very good overview of the topics that “The Billionaire’s Vinegar” deals with.

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Second Labels

So-called second-label bottlings of great wines are nothing new. And, in fact, they make perfect sense: They’re a great way for producers to make the most out of less-than-perfect fruit, or of their vines that are just too young to plumb the depths of profundity that their more mature ones do. From a consumer’s standpoint, they often afford the opportunity to experience the general character of a great wine without the necessity of spending all the money that the big brother requires, or giving the juice as long a repose in the cellar before it’s ready to be enjoyed.

What is new, however, is the price being asked for some of these second labels, most notably Carruades de Lafite. According to a recent news item on Decanter.com, “Carruades 2008 is still at around £1,000 [per case], but it is predicted to keep climbing closer to the other first growths once in bottle.

“Gary Boom, managing director of Bordeaux Index, told decanter.com, ‘Today a case of Carruades 2004 would set you back £1800, which is considerably more than the £1650 you would pay for a case of Mouton 2004.

“‘And this for a wine that cost around £280 at initial release. The 2008 may not climb as high as the firsts, but it is likely to go higher than Cos and the other Super Seconds.’”

So the question is this: Is the second wine of Chateau Lafite worth as much as, or more than, a bottle of top Second Growth like Cos d’Estournel, Leoville-Barton, or Pichon-Lalande or –Baron? Or, for that matter, a top Fifth Growth like Lynch-Bages?

It’s a tough call, and, like so much in the world of wine, a matter of personal taste. I’ve personally found that my preference is vintage-specific. For example, a recent bottle of 1996 Lynch-Bages was absolutely wonderful, but comparing it to the 2000 Carruades (opened at the same dinner) is unfair to both, since the latter was just starting to develop, even 9 years after the fruit was picked. It will be singing in another five to ten years. And give me a Leoville-Barton anytime and I’ll be a happy man.

So, really, it comes down to this: Drink what you love, try wines that you haven’t had before, and keep in mind that every vintage is different. And always look for opportunities to taste wines that are too young, at their peak, and slightly over the hill. It’s the best way to start building a sense of context for everything you taste, and you never know when you’ll find your next favorite bottling.

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Chateau Lafite 1975

This is the second installment in what will be a continuing series of reviews of Chateau Lafite throughout the years. My last tasting note was for the 1966 and is available here. This one, though, focuses on the 1975, which is one of the most unexpectedly profound wines I’ve ever tasted. Its shows a sweet, floral nose leading the way to a dried-fruit and –flower mid-palate tinged with fresh raspberries, leather, and earth. You can feel this wine all the way down the tongue, its cinnamon and clove notes lingering for what seems like an eternity. This 1975 exhibits the perfect balance between freshness and bottle-age characteristics, and is nearly impossible to stop smelling and sipping.

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Chateau Lafite 1966: First in a Series

It’s a rare treat anytime you open a bottle of First Growth Bordeaux. A privilege, really. These are wines, after all, that have literally stood the test of time, even if the cork you’re popping has been used to seal off a more recent vintage from the world outside the bottle. Indeed, these greatest chateaux of what is arguably the world’s most famous wine region have been making the hearts of wine-lovers flutter for hundreds of years. Even our founding fathers knew of the superiority of these wines; Thomas Jefferson was—and remains—famous for his love of great Bordeaux. (Incidentally, for a riveting, wonderfully written account of the so-called Jefferson bottles, Benjamin Wallace’s excellent book, The Billionaire’s Vinegar, has just come out in paperback.)

Over the course of the last year, I’ve been lucky enough to taste a dozen or so vintages of what has become my favorite First Growth, Chateau Lafite, going back more than 70 years. In the coming weeks and months, I’ll be posting occasional tasting notes on these wines, discussing where I tasted them, and comparing them to one another. I’ll even have video from the day I tasted the 1995 in Lafite’s barrel room during the Wine School’s recent trip to Bordeaux.

I’ll start, though, with the Lafite I enjoyed most recently—the 1966. As is the case with so many of the great old wines I’ve had the opportunity to taste, this one was courtesy of my friend Scot “Zippy” Ziskind, owner of the My Cellar wine storage facility and of ZipCo Environmental Services, Inc., one of the country’s most respected custom storage, cooling, and humidification specialists. He is also a great collector of wine in general and Bordeaux and Port in particular.

His main goal in opening up a great bottle of wine has nothing to do with the so-called prestige of the vintage and everything to do with the pleasure of sharing it with friends and family. His enthusiasm for wine is contagious, and his desire to enjoy it with those close to him is unmatched. Which is why he brought a bottle of the ’66 to lunch that Friday—because he wanted to experience it with family and friends, and he wanted to see how it was evolving.

So after getting settled at our table at Philadelphia’s Café Estelle with his wife, my wife, and my parents, he ever so gently extracted the cork and poured small sample glasses. With very old vintages, the saying goes, there’s no such thing as great wine—just great bottles. As the years tick away, minute differences in cork quality, storage conditions, and the like can be magnified tenfold, meaning that you never quite know what’s waiting for you inside the bottle.

But from the first smell it was clear that this one was in absolutely pristine condition. The brownish, age-typical color led to an almost shockingly vibrant nose that exploded from the glass with notes of blueberry, smoke, leather, black and oolong tea, tobacco leaf, and violets, and led to a silky palate kept lively by amazingly fresh acidity and flavors of raspberry, grapefruit skin and oil, and a whiff of gentle vanilla.

As is the case with so many older vintages of Lafite that I’ve had the chance to taste, this one was yet another example of the incredible longevity of the great wines of Bordeaux, a testament to how beautifully they age over the long-term, and, perhaps most important of all, proof, yet again, that enjoying even the most prized bottles with family and friends, in an atmosphere full of camaraderie and devoid of any sense of pretense, is the best way to make the most of whatever it is you’re drinking.

Even with great bottles—especially with great bottles—it’s the way they were meant to be enjoyed in the first place.

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Lafite...And McDonald's

Today was a day of highs and...well, if not lows then unexpectedness. It began with a tour and tasting at Chateau Leoville-Barton with Lilian Barton, the daughter of proprietor Anthony Barton (the 08 barrel sample was amazing!) and continued on to Chateau Lafite, where we were not only shown the entire production facility, but where we were treated to a bottle of Chateau Lafite 1995, a legendary wine that more than lived up to its reputation.

The unexpectedness is where I'm actually typing this blog post: At the McDonald's in the town of St.-Foy le Grande. A quick explanation: There have been massive thunderstorms here the past several nights, and yesterday's knocked out a key telephone line. Which means that, with no Internet in the farm house, I was relegated to traveling to the nearest publicly accessible source of it with the President of The Wine School and a number of our students:

To Le Macdo, as it's called here. And this is a borrowed computer, one sans the videos I've been filming.

So from 95 Lafite to a large Coke and fries, it's been a full day. But with wines and tours like these, a bit of fluorescent lighting and soggy fries are a small price to pay.

Stay tuned...there are certainly no dull moments here!

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