$100,000 for a Bottle of Wine! Just, Why?

[Georgia_Peaches]

7 hours ago, markeb said:

Unfortunately the two aren’t necessarily the same. 

That’s for sure!  I tried an Opus One on the Connie once and just didn’t like it. Probably the most expensive wine I’ve ever tasted. Maybe my palate just isn’t that sophisticated. Frankly, I’m glad I didn’t like!  Now Caymus on the other hand, I quite enjoy. 

[drakes2]

58 minutes ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

That’s for sure!  I tried an Opus One on the Connie once and just didn’t like it. Probably the most expensive wine I’ve ever tasted. Maybe my palate just isn’t that sophisticated. Frankly, I’m glad I didn’t like!  Now Caymus on the other hand, I quite enjoy. 

Caymus is good but I've tasted other cabs as good or better at cheaper price points. 

[markeb]

1 hour ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

That’s for sure!  I tried an Opus One on the Connie once and just didn’t like it. Probably the most expensive wine I’ve ever tasted. Maybe my palate just isn’t that sophisticated. Frankly, I’m glad I didn’t like!  Now Caymus on the other hand, I quite enjoy. 

 

The Opus One was probably a current vintage. It's a wine that's meant to be laid down for several years. It would have been harsh and tannic. Caymus is made to be drunk "now" and to be essentially the same wine year after year.

[Bo1953]

On average, which bottled wines currently aboard X's vessels would anyone recommend for purchase to drink now and/or request decanting starting a few hours before arriving to drink and dine?

 

Cheers and bon voyage

[Georgia_Peaches]

16 minutes ago, Bo1953 said:

On average, which bottled wines currently aboard X's vessels would anyone recommend for purchase to drink now and/or request decanting starting a few hours before arriving to drink and dine?

We enjoyed Conundrum on our most recent cruise.  A red blend that wasn't half bad and was available in most every venue we frequented.

[chemmo]

1 hour ago, Georgia_Peaches said:

That’s for sure!  I tried an Opus One on the Connie once and just didn’t like it. Probably the most expensive wine I’ve ever tasted. Maybe my palate just isn’t that sophisticated. Frankly, I’m glad I didn’t like!  Now Caymus on the other hand, I quite enjoy. 

Perhaps we should start a club for the unsophisticated wine drinkers! A good excuse for drinking more, we are trying to educate our palates!

[dateacher]

16 hours ago, markeb said:

This is great fun, of course, but welcome to the world of highly allocated luxury products.

 

You want to go on the waiting list for a GT3 RS? How many 911's have you bought from us in the last decade?

 

You want a stainless steel Daytona? How much have you spent on jewelry? How many gold and diamond Datejusts have you bought?

 

You'd like a bottle of 25 year old Pappy Van Winkle? (Actually I don't know how you get on that list...)

 

The interesting (unanswerable) question here is if there's a reverse allocation at work. Did buying the 2015 at $40,000 or so give you access to the other wines at a mere $6K (probably less than $2K wholesale)? And it's for show for their wine awards. Because actually opening an 8 year old Grand Cru Bordeaux (which this would be if he'd used the traditional grapes of Bordeaux) would be criminal! It probably needs at least 12 more years to think about peaking.

 

Don't think of it as inventory; it's marketing and advertising...

You forgot which Hermes items have you purchased if you intend to acquire a Birkin?

[NMTraveller]

3 minutes ago, chemmo said:

Perhaps we should start a club for the unsophisticated wine drinkers! A good excuse for drinking more, we are trying to educate our palates!

They do.  It is called the classic package 🙂

 

Anyways drink what you like.  Everyone's tastes in wine are different.

[drakes2]

57 minutes ago, Bo1953 said:

On average, which bottled wines currently aboard X's vessels would anyone recommend for purchase to drink now and/or request decanting starting a few hours before arriving to drink and dine?

 

Cheers and bon voyage

Freemark Abbey cabernet was on the Equinox last fall. They gifted me 2 bottles in my cabin one of which I brought home. 

[Whinenowine]

6 hours ago, waddle said:

Imagine opening the bottle only to find it has corked 😳

Indeed!  Just in the past few years I've been to wine dinners where people brought four-figure bottles of Lafite and Mugnier that were corked.  It's a fact of life.

[NMTraveller]

6 minutes ago, Whinenowine said:

Indeed!  Just in the past few years I've been to wine dinners where people brought four-figure bottles of Lafite and Mugnier that were corked.  It's a fact of life.

Is it a fact of life or storage issue?

[markeb]

2 minutes ago, NMTraveller said:

Is it a fact of life or storage issue?

Fact of life. It happens because the cork is infected with a fungus. Nothing to do with how the wine is stored. 

[Whinenowine]

Just now, markeb said:

Fact of life. It happens because the cork is infected with a fungus. Nothing to do with how the wine is stored. 

Yup.  And you could buy a case of wine where 1 bottle is corked and the other 11 are fine.  Generally it'll affect 3-5% of bottles....until they develop an artificial cork porous enough to allow aging while eliminating cork taint (which is a funny term).

[George C]

We really like a good bottle of wine but most we ever spent was about 300 in a restaurant, even if I won the powerball or mega million I wouldn’t spend that .

[markeb]

1 hour ago, Bo1953 said:

On average, which bottled wines currently aboard X's vessels would anyone recommend for purchase to drink now and/or request decanting starting a few hours before arriving to drink and dine?

 

Cheers and bon voyage

 

That's hard to answer, Bo. I'd tend to say anything under about $100 is unlikely to benefit from decanting. I'm looking at the wine lists for my Equinox sailing in the fall, and am frankly pretty disappointed. I've weaned myself off of California Cabernet in restaurants; they're badly overpriced and tend to be young fruit and alcohol bombs. But the Pinot Noir that was there last fall is gone...

 

Looking at Murano, the more expensive red wines ($300 and up) are almost certainly not ready to drink, and there's no vintage given in the app. There's a Chateau Mouton Rothschild (no vintage) for $933 a bottle; it's probably around 5 years old (I "think" they hold them 3 years before release). That's a Grand Cru Bordeaux that will peak at 20-30 years in the cellar. They have a Gaja "Sperss" for $495 a bottle (sounds expensive; it isn't). That's probably the 2017 (latest vintage I see). Gaja's Barolos and Barbaresco will lay down as long as a Bordeaux; the last one I drank was 14-15 years old. Opus One is $480, which is pretty amazing as it's currently retailing in the high $300s, but again, that's almost certainly a 2019 and you taste that as a wine future!

 

A couple of things that jump out at me on a quick scroll:

 

Montes Alpha M from Chile. $134 a bottle; retail $75-95 so not much of a markup. Might or might not benefit from decanting.

Hartford Court Zinfandel from Russian River Valley. $106. Might or might not benefit from decanting.

 

Tuscan Grill has a couple of decent sounding Super Tuscans from Antinori that should be good and are young enough they probably won't benefit from decanting. There's a very affordable Ribera del Duero and a Crianza from Rioja that I'd probably try. And a potentially nice Amarone.
 

Beyond those, there are several non-Napa (and mostly non-Cabernet Sauvignon) wines from Washington, Argentina, Spain, and Sonoma County that are $40-55 that should all fit your question (that's the Luminae wine list).

[markeb]

19 minutes ago, Whinenowine said:

Yup.  And you could buy a case of wine where 1 bottle is corked and the other 11 are fine.  Generally it'll affect 3-5% of bottles....until they develop an artificial cork porous enough to allow aging while eliminating cork taint (which is a funny term).

 

I would guess with 500 bottles they'd buy individually inspected corks; they're not really worried about cost!

[Baggy178]

Talking of wine how closely do Celebrity inspect the two wine bottles pp that are allowed on embarkation ?

I presume they go through x-ray but are they checked individually as well ?

Asking for a friend ...

[NMTraveller]

2 hours ago, Baggy178 said:

Talking of wine how closely do Celebrity inspect the two wine bottles pp that are allowed on embarkation ?

I presume they go through x-ray but are they checked individually as well ?

Asking for a friend ...

They may just pull them out quickly to determine that they are wine and look to be 750ml.

 

My friend says that you probably can get away with two wine bottles pp when checking in and two wine bottles pp in luggage.

[NMTraveller]

4 hours ago, markeb said:

Fact of life. It happens because the cork is infected with a fungus. Nothing to do with how the wine is stored. 

OK.  They should be stored in high humidity environments...  I did not know that.

[NMTraveller]

6 hours ago, drakes2 said:

Caymus is good but I've tasted other cabs as good or better at cheaper price points. 

Which cabs do you like at less expensive price points?

[jelayne]

6 hours ago, Baggy178 said:

Talking of wine how closely do Celebrity inspect the two wine bottles pp that are allowed on embarkation ?

I presume they go through x-ray but are they checked individually as well ?

Asking for a friend ...

It seems that the 2 bottle per person has been returned to 1 bottle per person in the past few weeks.

[Whinenowine]

2 hours ago, jelayne said:

It seems that the 2 bottle per person has been returned to 1 bottle per person in the past few weeks.

Which is so weird....I'd think X would be fine with people BYO'ing b/c those folks will drink less of the other alcohol.  

[neverlaysup]

This 2015 is what most in the wine world would call the "Holy Grail" of wines as only 500 bottles were produced. Retail on this bottle is $34,000. It's on par, rarity wise, to a bottle of Sauvignon Blanc from Screaming Eagle. I'm sure both are amazing but not at this price point!

Edited July 16, 2023 by neverlaysup

[drakes2]

16 hours ago, NMTraveller said:

Which cabs do you like at less expensive price points?

Freemark Abbey. I decant for about an hour.  Austin  Hope from Paso Robles. Also Auros from Napa. All wonderful cabs.

[Bo1953]

I said earlier that I would bring, what I considered, a very good bottle of wine on my next sailing in a month, not thinking there is no way I would pack and pray that the bottle would withstand a 14 hour travel day by vehicle, plane and taxi... 

 

Fortunately, I have a few buddies who are wine connoisseurs, IMO, who will spend a day or so with me to purchase a few good bottles of Spanish wines to bring with us... at a price point I can live with.. and drink!!! LOL

 

Cheers and bon voyage