The Lowdown on C-Note Cabernets

This is not a column for the faint of heart. What I am about to tell you is a true story. Nothing will be held back. No one’s feelings will be spared.

There are wines in this country, right here in California, that carry price tags of $100 and up. And, though their number is but a trickle in comparison to all the wine available, that trickle is growing into a stream, and that stream shows signs of becoming a raging river if the trend continues.

A friend told me of a recent conversation about a much sought-after Cabernet Sauvignon. Several years ago, it had sold out just six weeks after release, even though it was priced at a then-respectable $45 a bottle. To avoid the angry phone calls that come with unavailable wines, the winery raised the price the next year to $60. Still it sold out in six weeks. More angry calls. The next year the price was upped to $80. Again, sold out in six weeks; again, angry calls.

This year, the winery took the big jump and bumped the price to $110 per bottle. This time, the wine stayed on sale a whole eight weeks. And now that the wine is no longer available from the winery, some retailers are selling it for more than $250 a bottle.

I won’t bore you with explanations of the laws of supply and demand, but it does seem to be true that the supply of great wine is growing less rapidly than the dollars chasing that supply.

In fact, even the growth of a strong and wine-loving upper-management class in Europe is partly responsible for the rise in prices here. Historically, the prices for the top French wines have exceeded prices of the best from California and have acted as a cap on California prices.

One need only look at the $175 to $300 per bottle prices for the top red wines from Bordeaux (places like Mouton-Rothschild and Margaux) to see how high that cap has been lifted. Coupled with the rise in French prices has been the increased pursuit of California’s top Cabernets. Though the French still lead the way in pricing, the gap has closed to some extent.

Whether any bottle of wine, no matter how rare or beautiful, is worth more than $100 is a matter of individual taste relative to depth of pocket. Few of us have ever tasted a $100 wine, let alone contemplated buying it.

Every conversation on the topic ultimately ends with someone pointing out that very fine wines of similar quality are available for a lot less money. And some of us simply do not want to pay big money for wine even if we could afford it.

I compare it to the cost of the Olken golf sticks. My new clubs set me back a few hundred dollars, but I could have spent a lot more if I felt the need to have the latest and the greatest. I have friends for whom the clubs named Big Bertha and Tri-Metal are worth the money. They don’t understand why I will pay $50 occasionally for great bottles of wine. I don’t understand why they pay hundreds of dollars for Bertha just to hit a little ball that does not behave anyhow.

Well, I do not really begrudge them their fun with their expensive golfing implements, nor can I really begrudge those who enjoy wines more expensive than I can afford.

But I do get to taste and evaluate those wines, so I know that some are exquisite works of art and others are overpriced and underwhelming.

Someone must be buying those high-priced nonperformers, but there’s no reason for you to waste your money. What follows is a primer on wines that few of us will buy but many of us wish we could. If you are going to indulge, at least this will help you know the winners from the expensive also-rans.

Prices shown for these wines are full retail. Some may occasionally show up for less, but the high-priced end of the wine marketplace is not likely to yield many bargains.

It should also be noted that this list does not include the so-called cult Cabernets--wines like Araujo, Bryant Family, Colgin, Grace Family, Harlan Estate and Screaming Eagle, which are sold only to mailing lists and never find their way to retail.

* * 1996 Beaulieu Vineyard “Clone 6,” Rutherford, $110. Ripe, focused and lavishly oaked, this bottling is worth the money if you’re dying to taste Beaulieu’s latest experiment with Cabernet Sauvignon clones. Otherwise, fans of the winery can stick with its justifiably famous Private Reserve bottling, $75, also rated at two stars.

* 1996 Cardinale, Napa County, $100. This Kendall-Jackson product is always very ripe and full in body. It rises to the top of the achievement charts in some vintages, but not in this one. Despite rich oak and deep fruit ripened to the point of achieving a syrupy, cherry brandy intensity, the center of the ’96 simply lacks the brightness and aging potential it ought to have at the price. A fine wine, yes, but why pay the price?

* * 1995 Caymus “Special Selection,” Napa Valley, $135. Caymus was among the first to reach the $100 plateau with its Special Selection Cabernet, and this latest bottling confirms why the wine has enjoyed such widespread popularity. It is deep, rich, full of the finest oak seasonings and simply loaded with the curranty, rooty, loamy complexity that comes from its home vineyard. I like it a bit more than a similarly rated Caymus 1996 regular bottling at $65, also rated at two stars. But, except for the very rich and the very adventuresome, the less expensive bottle is the one to buy.

1994 Kathryn Kennedy, Santa Cruz Mountains, $100. Maybe it’s scarcity, maybe it’s chutzpah, or maybe it’s the old story of putting a high price on something, hoping to establish the value based on price rather than on quality. Whatever. This wine sells for prices that make me cringe. Sure, it’s a well-scrubbed and generously oaked wine, but it does not have the central fruit to deserve even one star.

* 1995 Lokoya Winery, Mount Veeder, $100. I admit that one star is a less-than-generous rating for this less-than-generous wine, and I admit that it might improve with age if you have a couple of decades to find out. For the moment, though, it is so tight and tannic that it will appeal only to gamblers. (There seem to be a fair number of them, though. It has sold for three times this price at auction.) I like it, but I can’t see paying $100 for it, and even those who believe the stock market will go up forever can find better wines for the money.

* * 1996 Joseph Phelps “Insignia,” Napa Valley, $100. Here, at last, is a wine worth $100, if any wine is worth that much. To begin with, Phelps Insignia is, for my money, one of the best wines we make here in California, and it has been that way vintage in and vintage out. It is never overly tannic or over-oaked or overripe; it trades on balance, depth, fruit and complexity. I may have preferred previous vintages of Insignia to this one, but if someone put $100 in my hand and told me to choose a wine that would knock his socks off, this one would be near the very top of my list.

* * * 1996 Gianni Paoletti “Ne Plus Ultra,” Napa Valley, $125. I have purposely put this wine slightly out of alphabetical order because I wanted to end this discussion of very expensive wine with it. It is, in a word, stupendous. Outgoing, rich, deep, beautifully formed Cabernet aromas buttressed by roasted cream and caramel tones of the finest oak lead to deep, tannin-laden but totally promising flavors. I would bet on this one for two decades of perfect development. But it is very expensive, and I am pleased to direct your attention to another wine from the same Los Angeles restaurant owner. Paoletti’s regular bottling Cabernet also rates at three stars, is much more widely available and carries an amazingly (at least in relative terms) low price of just $42. If the “Ne Plus Ultra” is one of the finest wines of this or any other year, the regular bottling must be one of the most reasonably priced among its peers.

Definition of Symbols

* * * A world-class wine, superb by any measure, the top 1% to 2% of all wines tasted.

* * An exceptional wine, well worth the effort to find, 10% to 12% of wines tasted.

* An admirable wine, tasty, focused, attractive, about 25% of wines tasted.

No Rating: The best are quite pleasant and can be good buys when moderately priced.

$ Good value for the money.

x Below average quality, to be avoided.