The King Kong of Chardonnay?
As I have grown more and more interested in wine, I have tried to seek out the good winery mailing lists to join. So far, I’m on several of interesting lists (Sea Smoke, Radio-Coteau, etc.). For some reason, most of my attention seems to have been focused on joining the lists of Pinot Noir producers in California. Of course, I do love Pinot Noir, but I want to broaden my focus a little bit.
With that idea in mind, I joined the Kongsgaard winery mailing list a couple of months ago. This particular California winery is interesting to me in part because they don’t make a lot of different wines, but also because they do the whole “mailing list allocation” thing that gets me excited about rarity of the wine and whatnot.
So, when I received the 2006 Kongsgaard offer letter this morning, I got excited to see what they had available. It’s an interesting list, sort of:
- 2005 Roussanne/Viognier - $75/bottle
- 2004 Chardonnay - $75/bottle
- 2004 Syrah - $150/bottle
- 2004 The Judge Chardonnay - $175/bottle, only available if you order at least 12 other bottles of wine
My allocation limits are quite interesting:
- 2005 Roussanne/Viognier - 4 bottles ($300)
- 2004 Chardonnay - 24 bottles ($1,800)
- 2004 Syrah - 6 bottles ($900)
- 2004 The Judge Chardonnay - 6 bottles ($1,050)
So there you have it! The wishful thinkers at Kongsgaard are hoping I’ll spend up to $4,050 for their wine. While I would certainly love to do that, I don’t really think I can afford a $75 bottle of Chardonnay, or a $150 bottle of Syrah. Then again, I’m the one who signed up for their mailing list, so I can’t be too surprised. However, of all the wineries who have offered me wine through allocation, these prices are the highest yet.
This brings up another interesting question for me: Many of the expensive US-produced wines I see are red. It’s not as common to find, say, a $175 bottle of brand new Chardonnay. In fact, with winezap.com I can only find a handful of French producers whose 2004 Chardonnays are $175 or over. I don’t see any other US wineries with Chardonnay over $175 per bottle. All of which, of course, makes me want to try The Judge…but there is absolutely no way I could justify spending that much on a bottle of wine right now. Maybe in 30 years!