Cult wines command big bucks

By CHRIS SHERMAN

© St. Petersburg Times, published September 27, 2000

There are two words that will make your wine merchant sigh, cry or just laugh: Screaming Eagle.

The Screaming Eagle that brought $500,000 for a 6-liter bottle of the 1992 vintage at the Napa Valley auction this year, the most ever paid for one single bottle? The Screaming Eagle that's posted on Internet auctions for $1,350, one of only 6,000 bottles made every year for a world full of fans? Yes, that Screaming Eagle.

Ask David Black of Bern's Fine Wine & Spirits in Tampa, and you get a gentle chuckle. "I laugh like I just did," he says. "Not a mean laugh, though. It's just such a phenomenon."

What has astonished Black and other wine merchants across Tampa Bay and around the country is a mania that has raised a handful of wines, generally from tiny vineyards, to cult status at several hundred dollars a bottle. It has set off a Pokemon scramble to find these rare wines in stores, restaurants and mostly on the Web and at wine auctions.

Other labels that have reached cult status, according to Wine Spectator magazine, are Araujo, Bryant Family, Colgin, Dalla Valle, Grace Family, Marcassin, Shafer's Hillside Select and Harlan Estates, which brought $700,000 for six bottles at the same Napa auction.

Mention of any of those names will generally get an "in your dreams" reaction from Florida retailers and restaurateurs. Most are sold immediately upon release and often only by mailing lists, "and there are people waiting to get on the waiting list," says Bobby Sprentall of B-21 in Tarpon Springs. (Also making these wines difficult for Floridians to purchase are state laws that prohibit direct shipment from wineries).

Wine prices have always reflected supply and demand. Costs of cult wines, however, are soaring at Internet speed, fueled by New Economy riches and the manic appetite of a collectibles market. Cult wine collectors are chasing a limited number of targets as soon as they get extremely high ratings, to drink in immediate triumph, resell now or later, or occasionally to have and to hold.

While demand fluctuates, supply is clearly scarce. Two older idols of the cult, Dalla Valle and Grace Family, have been auctioned in Sarasota and Clearwater. Only the Hillside Select from Shafer, made from a few very steep vineyards in the prestigious Stag's Leap area on the east wall of the Napa Valley, is made in enough supply that Florida gets a meaningful allocation.

Exact figures are difficult to get, but approximately 600 bottles of the '96 vintage were released in Florida this month; perhaps 100 came to the Tampa Bay area, to a handful of retail stores and restaurants. "Each account is chosen by Doug Shafer," says Enrique Ibanez of Augustan Imports.

"A wine like this must be handled carefully, not treated like a commodity, stacked on the floor. It should not even be on the shelf, but sold one or two to a customer," Ibanez says.

But to which customers? Wine store owners will distribute their handful of bottles to Shafer fans or favorite customers lucky enough to pay $150 a bottle retail. The rare restaurant that has them will charge $250 or more.

Although the passion has reached new heights, certain wines by their nature have always been in limited supply. More and more top brands today are, in the jargon of the trade, "on allocation."

These bottles are expensive, but unlike the cult wines, they're available, if only just barely.

Some are the prestigious Burgundies and Bordeauxs of the best vintages, famous and expensive California labels such as Beringer's Private Reserve, Beaulieu's George de LaTour, Caymus or Cakebread. Opus One, the popular Mondavi-Rothschild wine, is now produced in 20,000 to 30,000 cases, and that's still not enough. The super Tuscans and other proprietary wines of great Italian winemakers, Tignanello, Sassicaia, Solaia et al., are also prized.

Wine stores might get only four or five cases or six-packs, or just one, and be forced to divvy it up among good customers, when they could sell 60 or 100.

For years, B-21 held a "scramble" on a Sunday during the holidays. Allocated bottles were displayed randomly around the store, a rare Bordeaux among cheap sherries and so on, winner take all.

Sprentall called that off a few years ago. "It got to be . . . not violent, but rude," with scavengers plucking prizes from each other's carts and such.

That past frenzy doesn't compare to what he hears now on the phone from demanding buyers scouring the state or the globe. The wise should be informed that rudeness doesn't work on the phone or in e-mail, and neither does claiming to be a big customer. Wine store owners have good memories -- and good records.

What causes the most puzzlement in wine stores is that the shelves are lined with great wines for far less money. "It (the cult wine hunt) doesn't have anything to do with the real wine business," said Black at Bern's.

Even Lee Neal of Pic Pac Liquors in St. Petersburg, who searches out the most expensive rarities, says that his best finds are great buys for $30 or less and that the bulk of his market is between $8 and $15.

You don't have to pop hundreds of dollars to taste California's best cabernets; the ordinary $10 bottle drinker who wants a splurge need only give his store the price of a ticket to a big game or concert, say $30 to $50, and ask the staff to pick something special.

Or ask yourself. One wholesaler guessed there might be 3,000 or more cabernets made in America and pointed out, "There's no store in the country big enough to carry them all. So if there's a wine you've heard about, ask for it."

Ultimately, is the frenzy over a tiny number of wines crazy? Of course. Yet for all its novelty and out-of-reach prices, this fad confirms many old truths about wine buying:

California's worth it: Maybe the cult members are immature or xenophobic in their tastes, but the Japanese and others are buying, too. America's best wines certainly can be worth big money, $50 to $100 on reasonable terms, or more for those who won't be denied.

Napa's still the big dog. Vineyard areas that have grown great cabernet for years, such as Rutherford on the Napa Valley floor or Stag's Leap, Howell Mountain, Eisele and Spring Mountain on the mountainsides and Knight's Valley in Sonoma, remain the favorites. Great wines do come from all over the state and the Northwest, too, but customers and investors are spending the most for old Napa names. More wines will carry single vineyard designations, and more prized vineyards will become their own wines.

Winemakers matter. Start with America's most tested vineyards, and genius in the winery can elevate them further. The names of winemakers who oversee the process from crush to blend are increasingly important as employees, consultants or owners, and often on their own labels, now and in the past: Helen Turley (Colgin, Turley, Marcassin, Bryant Family, Harlan Estates, Pahlmyer), Tony Soter (Araujo, Dalla Valle, Etude) and Nils Venge (Groth, Robert Craig, Venge).

Red over white. White Burgundies are sought out elsewhere, but American buyers have a taste for red, especially cabernets. Few chardonnays command cults as devout, although Marcassin made theWine Spectator list, Kistler's is hard to find, and Far Niente and Peter Michael fetch high prices.

Youth rules. Great wines are designed to age, and even cult wines could benefit from a few years' bottle age, but even the most expensive of these new wines are made for modern impatience, with a rich ripeness and distinct fruitiness that can be -- and is -- drunk now.

Good vintages help. A string of terrific California vintages from 1994 to 1997 has justified this steady boom. Lesser vintages in the future will test both winemakers and wine buyers.

Bordeaux was right. California's most expensive reds remain largely cabernet sauvignon, but often at less than the typical 75 percent, and are sold as meritage blends. They carry proprietary names and include more than merlot. Cain Five and Chateau St. Jean's Cinq Cepages include all five grapes traditionally used in Bordeaux: cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, malbec and petite verdot.

Wine does change. The 1990s saw an abundance of new labels, and a millennial burst of entrepreneurship and collaboration among star winemakers and vineyard owners guarantees a steady flow of new labels from small, high-end wineries.

Relationships count. Personal connections and past business deals play a big part in which stores and restaurants get which wines. They work on a retail level, too; patronage and loyalty to a local merchant, whatever your budget, will reap rewards.

Chris Sherman, who writes about food and wine for the Times, is the author of "The Buzz on Wine" (Lebhar-Friedman Books, $16.95), which should be in bookstores in October.

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