Auctioneer Fritz Hatton gets the room a-rockin’.
Would you pay $2,083 for a bottle of fine Napa Valley Cabernet?
Ichizo Nakagawa, a Japanese wine importer, did at the Napa Valley Vintners’ Premiere Barrel Auction yesterday.
In fact, Mr. Nakagawa bought more than one bottle. He bought 60, bidding $125,000 for five cases of 2009 Scarecrow Cabernet Sauvignon, ironically labeled Toto’s Opium Dream: Scene II.
The bid was the highest ever for a single lot in the 15-year history of Premiere and helped propel the auction to raise $2,366,000, the largest sum ever garnered in the event’s history.
Yes, I know you’re asking, “What recession?”
What the room looked like to Fritz…
The results certainly bode well for wine sales in general as the winter auction tends to be a barometer of what follows in the general market.
Mr. Nakagawa was joined by more than 500 wine retailers, wholesalers and restaurant wine-buyers, who assembled from many countries in St. Helena to aggressively outbid each other for unique auction lots of mostly 2009 Napa Valley Cabernet wines.
As if Napa Valley hasn’t been cold enough this February, bidders whipped up the chilly air with their wooden paddles, pledging record sums for unique cuvees, most which won’t be released for at least a year.
Premiere Napa Valley, held at the Culinary Institute of America’s campus, is organized by Napa Valley Vintners, the non-profit trade association responsible for promoting and protecting the Napa Valley wine-growing appellation. The association represents nearly 400 local wineries, half of which produce unique wine cuvees for this annual auction.
Funds raised are used for marketing and promotional purposes in the year to come.
Biggest single lots
+ $125,000 for five cases of 2009 Scarecrow Cabernet Sauvignon. This works out to $2,038 a bottle, which may not be expensive compared to “futures” for first-growth Bordeaux wines, but don’t tell this to an unemployed car assembly worker in Detroit.
+ $45,000 for five cases of 2009 Schrader Cabernet Sauvignon called Double Diamond “B2 Bomber.” This works out to $750 a bottle. Mr. Nakagawa likely wouldn’t invite you back to his home if you if you brought such a cheap wine for dinner.
+ $38,000 for a five-case lot of Shafer Cabernet Sauvignon. The fruit for this 2009 Cabernet came from a single block called Sunspot, which forms the backbone of Shafer’s Hillside Select. This works out to $633 a bottle. Yes, I know, the auction prices are dropping dramatically; you’d expect to find wines in this low price range at your neighborhood Trader Joe’s, not at the NVV Premiere Auction.
2009 Vintage of Napa Valley wines
Premiere Napa Valley is really the first time each year that the trade gets a peak at the next-to-be-released vintage of Napa Valley Cabernet. It’s a collective chance to assess the vintage and determine how consumers will like the wines.
“Many winemakers say, ‘we picked before the October rains in 2009 and saved our crop,’” says Aaron Pott, winemaker of Pott Wine. “But I spent six years making wine in Bordeaux and can tell you that the Cabernet grape can take rain, and we made a great wine picking AFTER the rains.”
Napa Valley was struck by rain in October 2009. “Some appellations recorded as much as five inches of rain in one day,” says Aaron. Generally, wines from this vintage are considered winners.
Aiming to add some humor to the mix, Napaman posed a common question to winemakers, asking them to assess the quality of the 2009 vintage as though it were a celebrity.
The question I asked:
“If the 2009 vintage were a celebrity, who would it be – and why?”
I also asked each winemaker, or producer:
“Of the 11 vintages in this decade (2000 through 2010), name your favorite three.”
I figured that if there were uniformity in choice, napaman.com readers would get a sense of which vintages are worth hunting down in the secondary, or auction, market.
For each winemaker’s response, I have listed vintages chronologically, though often they listed their preferences in a different order. But still, these are their respective Three Favorite Napa Valley Vintages over the last 11 years.
Tom Farella, winemaker, Farella-Park Vineyards
“2009 is the Katy Perry of vintages. The wine is forward, friendly, pretty, but not something you would accuse of being intellectual challenging.”
Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 05, 07.
Philippe Melka, consulting winemaker to 14 premium Napa Valley wines
“For me, 2009 is the Juliette Binoche of vintages. The wine is filled with lots of ripe berries, red fruit and has brisk acidity. But there is also a serious side to this wine. It is pretty, has great energy and is sexy – like Juliette.”
Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 05, 07.
Aaron Buoncristiani, winemaker, Roy Estate
“2009 is the Halle Berry of vintages. It is elegant, seductive, has beautiful color. In a word: stunning!”
Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 03, 08.
Robin Lail, owner, Lail Vineyard
“2009 is the Cate Blanchett of vintages. It is wonderfully complex, has a great sense of self and place, is extremely versatile, and glows with an inner beauty.”
Favorite three vintages of this decade: 02, 05, 07.
Jeremy Weintraub, winemaker, Seavey Vineyard
“2009 is the Scarlett Johansson of vintages. The wine is generous, voluptuous, and exhibits strength and power.”
Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 03, 07.
Mary Ann Tsai, co-owner, Moone-Tsai Vineyards
“2009 is the Anne Hathaway o vintages. The wine is elegant, new age, young, vibrant, shows finesse, power and structure. Besides, I think it has a long future ahead.”
Favorite three vintages of this decade: 05, 07, 09.
EXTRA: You read it here first! Mary Ann and her press attaché, Toby Baird, confirmed that the Moone-Tsai winery will open May 2 in the space previously housing Luna. Napaman will continue to follow this story; look for an update when the winery opens.
Todd Graff, winemaker, Frank Family Vineyards
“2009 is the Angelina Jolie of vintages. It is big, voluptuous, smooth, gorgeous, curvaceous, yet has strong backbone.”
Favorite three vintages of this decade: 05, 06, 09.
Rich Frank, owner, Frank Family Vineyards
“2009 is the Meryl Streep of vintages. It is big, strong, will stand up to anything, has great character and knows what it wants to be.”
Favorite three vintages of this decade: 00, 05, 07.
Aaron Pott, winemaker Pott Wine, as well as Blackbird Vineyards
“ 2009 is the Audrey Hepburn of vintages. The wine appears lean but it is very elegant.”
Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 05, 07.
Ryan and Nicole Hill, owners, Hill Family Estate
“2009 is the LeBron James of vintages. The vintage shows well across all grape varieties, not just Cabernet. Like LeBron, the vintage is showy, full of potential – and it delivers. It’s hard to find a better player, or a better vintage.”
(Ed Note: If you don’t know LeBron James – he’s the hot, talented, point-scoring forward for the Miami Heat basketballers.)
Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 07, 09.
Jennifer Rue, winemaker, Livingston Moffett
“2009 is the Natalie Portman of vintages. The wines are youthful, filled with complexity, display inner strength and are multi-layered – like Natalie’s performances.”
Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 07, 09.
John Arns, winegrower, and Sandi Belcher, winemaker, Arns
“2009 is the Jim White – AKA napaman – of vintages! The wines exhibit zest and are full of life; they are vibrant, forward, powerful, even exuberant!”
(Ed note: Aw shucks, Sandi, you didn’t have to say that!)
Favorite three vintages of this decade: 01, 02, 07.
The day before
The day before the auction, Napa Valley Vintners and the Rudd Center for Professional Wine Studies at the CIA, typically host a wine-tasting event, allowing auction guests to sample Napa Valley wines from recent vintages. This gives participants a way to benchmark different vintages – and learn how the wines are aging.
My issue with this annual tasting is one of operations: in order to serve the hundreds of guests three different vintages (06, 07 and 08 were poured this weekend) from 12 different wineries, servers start by blending two bottles of a vintage to fill a large decanter… and then keep topping up the decanter with wine from a third, fourth, etc., bottle from the same vintage.
You could call this the “solera method” of wine tasting. What one tastes is really a blend of several bottles – something which gives a general impression, or overview, of a wine.
Obviously, this is not how professional tastings, or critical evaluations, are conducted, but the NVV has been unable to invent a better system to enable hundreds of guests to partake in such a tasting.
I must add this note about the best wines of the tasting, in case readers are interested in hunting down some tremendous unheralded wine.
Tasters were presented three vintages of wine blind from 12 different Napa Valley wineries. The decanters from a winery identified only as “Number 2” held my top-scoring wines. I tasted and swore these wines must be Shafer Hillside Select. They were delicious, thrilling, had texture, grip and a thoroughly engaging finish. Elegance, too.
How surprised was I to learn that the 2006 wine, which I rated 95 points, the 2007 wine, which I rated 96 points, and the phenomenal 2008 wine, which I rated 97 points, were all Bennett Lane Cabernets, crafted by winemaker Grant Hermann.
Grant Hermann, winemaker, Bennett Lane
Way to go, Grant! These were my favorite wines of the weekend, and the good news for readers is that they don’t cost like top-tier wines; you don’t have to have deep pockets like Mr. Nakagawa to enjoy them.
Atelier Melka
Napaman chose to attend a few of the nearly two-dozen open houses held at wineries and retail wine stores during Premiere weekend, which stretched into four days of revelry.
Philippe Melka, a celebrity consulting winemaker in the valley, brought together eight winery clients for whom he made their Premiere auction lots. Hundreds of out-of-town visitors crammed into 750 Wines, in St. Helena, to make the scene, swirl, sip and spit.
At Hall Winery, also in St. Helena, 10 wineries assembled to pour their top wines and Premiere barrel samples. The place was a beehive of wannabe bidders.
It’ll be June before the dust settles around here and probably that long before Premiere bidders get the purple wine stains off their teeth – just in time for the year’s grand auction, the heralded Napa Valley Wine Auction in June, which raises millions for charity.
Napaman’s tip to the organizers: Be sure to encourage Mr. Nakagawa to return for the event!
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