The High Cost of Sipping

Part way through Heublein Inc.'s third annual wine auction in San Francisco last week, Auctioneer J. Michael Broadbent apologized for being unable to distribute samples of his next offering, Lot No. 56. He did not have to explain why. Lot No. 56 consisted of a single 24-ounce bottle of Chateau Lafite, vintage 1846, that was described as "quite unfaded and fantastic." After several minutes of quiet, tense bidding, it was sold to Laurence Bender, a 25-year-old officer of Boston's venerable wine and spirits merchants, John Gilbert Jr. Co. The price: $5,000, more than ten times the previous world record for one bottle and enough to make each sip of the classic Bordeaux worth $100.

Spirited Selling. Heublein, which in recent years has bought several wineries in California's Napa Valley, stages its auctions to promote the expanding U.S. wine market (TIME, March 1), which has grown by 60% in total sales during the past decade. The price of rare wines, both foreign and domestic, is apparently rising even faster. Last week's auction grossed more than $230,000 (v. $55,000 and $106,000 in 1969 and 1970), and many lots fetched four to five times the price that Heublein's experts had expected. Broadbent, wine director of London's Christie's auctioneers, hesitated over one lot and confessed to the audience: "I'm sorry--at these dizzyingly high prices, I'm losing my place."

During the bidding, an anonymous Californian bid $5,000 for a case of rare Inglenook wine from the Napa Valley, by far the highest price ever paid for domestic produce. New York Restaurateur Joseph Santo paid $12,100 for a 55-case collection of French, German and American wines, which until recently was reserved by Manhattan's Carlyle Hotel for the exclusive sipping of visiting Presidents. After the headlining items had been displayed by a brocaded, powder-wigged chamberlain and sold, connoisseurs and individual collectors were able to bid on the less celestial vintages: a case of Chateau la Gaffeliere Naudes 1952, a red Bordeaux, was gaveled down for $160.

Wine Future. Heublein reserved about 2% of the stock, part of which was assembled from the private cellars of French chateau owners, for open tasting, a practice unheard of among European sellers. The samples included several bottles of 79-year-old California Pinot Noir and some Chateau Mouton Rothschild a year younger.

According to Heublein's international wine manager, Alexander McNally, the tasting sessions effectively dispelled several popular oenological myths, including the notions that great wine does not travel well, that very old wine fades almost immediately upon opening (some proved better several hours after being uncorked), and that white wine does not last more than seven years (one case of 1928 white Bordeaux brought more than $1,300 at the auction).

More than a third of the day's receipts ($77,166) was spent on wine that is still stored in wooden casks and will not be ready for bottling for two years or longer. Speculators bid for it in the hope that when the wine is finally aged it will be declared a superior vintage and gain in value. Prices on many varieties of stored wine have doubled in the past year, giving rise to a market in what aficionados call "wine futures." The association with finance offends Heublein's McNally. "It's a more personal investment than stocks or commodities," he says. "It's more like adopting children."

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