Wine In The ?Shark Tank?

Reality TV is all the rage these days but I rarely watch this genre outside of a few cooking competition shows like Top Chef or Masterchef. But I have been hooked this year by ABC’s ‘Shark Tank’. The show’s premise is simple; entrepreneurs pitch their products to a panel of well known investors (‘sharks’) such [...]

Wine In The ‘Shark Tank’ originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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Rockin? at Wine & Cars

Everyone had a great time at Wine & Cars Under the Stars last weekend. Don’t believe me? Check out the video: The evening was a great success, netting nearly $50,000 for the foundations at Fairplex and their programs. If you missed Wine & Cars, you can taste the award-winning wines of the Los Angeles International [...]

Source: http://blogs.fairplex.com/blog/wine/?p=100

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Last Call for Scoop the Spectator 2012 Entries

It's been a fun couple weeks seeing the entries pour in for Scoop the Spectator 2012.

A well-timed post by @EvanDawson over on Palate Press -- In Defense of the Wine Spectator Top 100 -- discusses the Top 100 list and has some interesting data on price increases for the winning wine.

the Wine of the Year does indeed see a sharp increase in price. Over the past decade, the average release price for the Wine of the Year was $67.60; the current average price is now $172.50. That?s an increase of 155%. But if we discard the past two winners, the Kosta Browne 2009 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir and the Saxum James Berry 2007 Paso Robles, the price increase falls to 95%.
Dawson goes on to note that the price hike generally evaporates for the next vintage of the winning wine and that the price increases trail off quickly as you go down the Top 10.
How about the rest of the top ten? Turns out only the runner up wine sees much of a spike in price soon after the list comes out. The average release price for the runner-up wines was $68; today you can get those wines for an average of $100.50 per bottle, an increase of nearly 48%. The 10th-ranked wine has seen a price increase of 22%, which is not nothing, but not exorbitant in the higher-end wine market.
The piece goes on to mention our Scoop the Spectator contest and notes that you all have successfully predicted the winner each year the contest has been run.
Now, I used to think the entire concept of a Top 100 list was silly. This year, mine was the first guess on Dwyer?s site. As Dwyer explains, his contest is designed to help consumers. 
?The fundamental motivation for knowing the winning wine ahead of time is to provide an opportunity to buy that wine before the street price goes up,? Dwyer told me. How do you know that you can get the winning wine based on Dwyer?s contest? Well, so far, Dwyer?s contestants have sniffed out the winner in advance.
Have one of you guessed the winner already? I think so.

The Wine Spectator reveal starts Wednesday (pushed back a couple days by Hurricane Sandy). We'll keep the contest deadline tonight - November 9th, 2012 at 11:59 pm Eastern.

While you're waiting, jump on Grapes the Wine Co's wine offer email list. Despite being without power at home and at the store he's still been pounding the offers, with a particular focus on 2010 Rhone (How Could it Not Be 2010 Rhone?). Gotta love it.

Subscribe to the WWP for commentary as the wines are revealed next week

Thanks again to all who have entered. And good luck!


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Finding Wine Spectator's Top 10 by Seeking out Dusty-Bottled Retailers Off the Grid

Looking to find wines from Wine Spectator's Top 100 list? Especially for wines in the Top 10 I've found Wine-Searcher.com -- usually the most convenient and efficient way to find specific wines -- to be less effective than usual due to listings that lag fast changing inventory. A better approach, I think, is to seek out dusty-bottled stores off the grid and make phone calls.

Some might call the pursuit of the Top 10 wines to be a fool's errand. I disagree. In choosing their Top 10 wines, their senior editors get together and taste a bunch of candidates wines and come to a consensus on the Top 10. This is different than how they normally taste whereby a single editor determine's a wine's rating. So you've got a lot of respected palates agreeing on the top wines, so as long as you don't pay a premium for the Top 10 wines you're getting some of the better values in wine today.

But how do you find them? You've got to act fast and, I think, you've got to employ unconventional techniques. You've got to look where deal hounds aren't looking.

A friend tipped me off that a retailer about 20 miles away had the #7 Shea Willamette Valley Pinot Noir for $44.99 before 15% off a case. $38.29. I wonder how he found it because the retailer does have an e-commerce site, but it's not listed on wine-searcher. Making matters worse for this wine, Shea supplies grapes for a lot of other producers so listings for other wines make it hard to perform a precise string match.

They did indeed have a listing on their site for 11 bottles of 2009 Shea Pinot Noir, but during the course of the week the listing changed to the 2010. Vintage variation being a real thing in Oregon I thought it was a mistake that was corrected after they got a lot of calls about the 2009. But they also had a listing for the 2009 Anderson's Conn Valley Reserve for the impossibly-low price of $23.99. I had to go down there and see what was going on.

So I get there and wouldn't you know it, there's 11 bottles of 2009 Shea Pinot Noir on the shelves for $44.99! I load up a basket and start eyeing other bottles to round out my case. The 2009 Anderson's Conn Valley was, sure enough, a listing for another wine - the Prologue. Good thing I didn't order a case for delivery and then have to get into an ugly discussion about returning it (including shipping costs).

Then I spotted a stack of 2009 Beringer Knight's Valley Cab for $21.99/btl before discount (not the reserve, but still a 91 point WS wine). High volume retailers are on to the 2010s by now so it was great to see the 2009 still for sale. Again Wine-Searcher doesn't turn this one up, but it's because the wrong vintage is listed on their site. They list the 2006 but it's the 2009 they've got stacks of!

I asked the wine director there what the heck was going on with the inconsistencies between the store and the website. He says he runs the bricks and mortar wine business and someone else runs the website.

So I'm thinking I may be on to something. Even for a retailer with an e-commerce site there's all kinds of hidden gems popping up because of inconsistent vintages being listed. Imagine the gems that might be out there for retailers without e-commerce sites. Heck, without websites! The way to find these wines is to look in wine shops off the beaten path. Off the grid. Away from Wine-Searcher types like myself.

Of course, just as I say this I happened to find a bottle of 2008 Shafer Relentless via Wine-Searcher at a nearby MA retailer for $35.99. A $60 release price wine, it was correctly listed as being Wine Spectator's Wine of the Year. But also, incorrectly, from France. (?) After some quick back and forth with the retailer we discovered quite a mix-up of SKUs. They actually had the 2009 Relentless (not the 2008) but it was $74.99. The $35.99 listing was for a bottle of 2008 St. Cosme Gigondas (hence the part about the Relentless being from France). Crazy stuff.

I don't get mad about mix-ups like these at this point. I actually find it interesting. So long as I don't get into a sticky situation where a jerky retailer ships me the wrong stuff then get contentious about rectifying the situation.

One strategy this makes me consider: Use Wine-Searcher to find retailers who list availability of back vintages who might not have updated to newer vintages yet. Then pick up the phone and call them. You never know what a retailer has, and neither do they it seems, until you have it in your hands.

Wine online: What a fun and chaotic circus.

Wine Spectator is set to release their Top 100 list today (in addition to their reveal last week of the Top 10). They have free site access through November 27th, 2012 so check it out.

Question of the Day: What tips and tricks have you found work well for tracking down hot wines like these?


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Spectator Surprises with Wines 10 through 6

Wine Spectator began revealing their Top 10 wines of 2012 today and there were more surprises than ever. Of the 5 wines revealed only 1 was guessed in our Scoop the Spectator 2012 contest - a shockingly low number.

Here are the 5 wines revealed today, along with some commentary on each along with Wine-Searcher links...

10. Achával-Ferrer
Malbec Mendoza Finca Bella Vista 2010

95 points / $120
1,250 cases imported

Surprising because Spectator tends to favor wines south of $100 for attainability purposes, plus Argentine Malbec is a value driven category so this pick is seems particularly strange. Where's the value?

Wine-Searcher from $88.99

9. Ciacci Piccolomini d?Aragona
Brunello di Montalcino 2007

94 points / $60
3,750 cases made

A bit of a surprise because it didn't hit 95 points. But $60 is a good price for a really nice bottle of Brunello and thanks to healthy availability it can be had south of $40. Definitely buy a bottle of this one.

8. Beringer
Cabernet Sauvignon Knights Valley Reserve 2009

94 points / $45
3,602 cases made

This one was the only one that wasn't a surprise. In their 2009 Napa Cab report this wine sticks out like a sore thumb in a good way. It's hard to find a 94 point rated 2009 Napa Cab for less than $100 let alone less than $50. Expect this one to vaporize quickly. Buy buy buy!

7. Shea
Pinot Noir Willamette Valley Shea Vineyard Estate 2009
94 points / $40
3,555 cases made

I think this was the most surprising of the surprising picks because none of the wines from the heralded 2008 vintage made the Top 10 and now a 2009 makes the list? Crazy.

The availability, at least according to Wine-Searcher, is a bit quirky. I'd expect to see more of this wine around given its production level. Maybe they've moved on to the 2010s by now? I'd be up for trying some. < $40 for a 94 point Oregon Pinot Noir is hard to find. Shea puts out a classy bottle of wine.

Wine-Searcher

6. Château Léoville Barton
St.-Julien 2009

95 points / $105
21,000 cases made

Okay, this one wasn't a huge surprise in hindsight either. Bordeaux isn't cheap but the metrics here stack up well and the wine is still available.

Wine-Searcher


I'd expect one more 2009 Bordeaux in the Top 5 (Pontet Canet maybe?) but I'd be really surprised if less than 2 2009 Rhones were in the Top 5.

So as of now, Joe C is in the lead for the $200 Amazon gift card courtesy of Grapes the Wine Co.

Further Reading:

Check back tomorrow as Wine Spectator reveals wines 5 through 3 tomorrow.


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Reader mail: Parker?s selective Spanish reviews

A reader writes in: I have just seen that Robert Parker has tasted the wines for Jorge Ordoñez and given points instead of Neil Martin. What is going on? I thought after the No Pay No Jay scandal they would be doing things by the book. Very disappointed as I was very happy how Neil [...]

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The Cellar ? Dublin, Ireland

Our trip to Dublin was nothing short of spectacular. The entire trip was amazing,from our accommodations, to our meals and certainly the company. One of the highlights most definitely was our dining experience at the Cellar. rooms. Service is 5-star It is located on the underside of the Merrion Hotel. We could have chosen anything [...]

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