Krug’s new single-vineyard Champagne, the 1995 Clos d’Ambonnay, will sell for between $3,000 and $3,500 a bottle. And it will sell all 3,000 bottles with ease; indeed, the price will be higher on the secondary market than it is on the primary market. Meanwhile, 2005 clarets are selling, in some cases, for well over double the price of their 2004 counterparts, and it’s not at all clear that the quality of the vintage justifies the price hike. But global demand for Bordeaux is relentless, and then of course there’s the falling dollar as well.
My recommendation? 2005 Heron Pinot Noir, at $13 a bottle. Put it in a blind tasting against Burgundies in the $50 range, it’ll knock their socks off. But of course it carries no cachet whatsoever.
(Via Wiesenthal)