Beware the overpriced, overhyped California wines

Some of them just don't deliver much quality for the price. Exhibit A:

I attended an expensive dinner recently, where the food was triumphant but most of the (high-end) California wines poured were decidedly subpar. A 2012 Mer Soleil Reserve Chardonnay was absolutely fantastic, but a 2013 Belle Glos "Clark and Telephone" Pinot Noir was just OK (and I like the fruitier "more American" California Pinot style), and a 2012 Emmolo Napa Valley Merlot was actually quite bad-it offered up nothing but a little TCA. A pour from a second bottle was hardly better. Finally, a very spendy 2012 Caymus 40th Anniversary Cabernet (we're talking way over $100, I think) had little to show for itself--bland, with no bouquet and no distinctive features on the palate. There are at least fifty cabs out of Washington State that would blow it away.

Possibly the bad wines were just my poor fortune, and possibly the other bottles were great. But for those prices do you really want to risk a bad bottle?

I have a Quilceda Creek Red Wine ($40 about about 92 score) that was equally bad. But we know many expensive wines are wonderful (almost anything by Christophe Baron at Cayuse, for example).

I say again that too much of California is overhyped and overpriced; it makes me wonder how many Californians really understand good wine, or do they convince themselves, in a pique of insularity, that their swill is the best and other states' wines are inferior? That would be sad.

Have said all this, of course there are many, many wonderful California wines, and I intend to continue finding them. But there is SO much evidence that fantastic wines can be found for under $30 that do you really want to spend $150 on a bottle? Really?

Overpaying for wine is the easiest thing. Even a dunce could do it. What is much more impressive is locating well-made wines that don't break the bank.

If you think good wines must be expensive, Italy, Spain, off-the-beaten-track CA and WA would beg to show you different.

Researching the less-expensive 100 point (Parker's rating) wines on the market in the US:

Here are (IMO) the best choices for the wines rated 100 points by Robert Parker. (I omitted many on his list because they are either much more expensive, or I couldn't find them available on the retail market.)

Old World:

1. 1990 Montrose $500 (at this age, this is a good choice)

http://www.rlliquidassets.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=20401

2. 2009 Montrose $319 (only 1 bottle left)

http://www.winemadeeasy.com/chateau-montrose-saint-estephe-2009-750-ml-33680.html

3. 2009 Clos Fourtet: $295 (needs 5 years of cellaring, then it keeps for 50 years; this is a good choice)

http://www.finewinesinternational.com/do/product/2009_Clos_Fourtet_23470

4. 2009 La Mondotte: $395 (2015-2045)

https://kahnsfinewines.securemp.com/wine/wine-by-varietal/red-wine-blends/bordeaux/la-mondotte-st-emilion/mpsfi/6d063c49-cd32-447b-b7bb-d4b180b5ac92

5. 2009 Leoville Poyferre: $250 (2018-2040--very tempting and a Second Growth)

https://www.beltramos.com/wines/2009-Chateau-Leoville-Poyferre-Saint-Julien-w3132535d0

6. 2009 L'evangile $395:

http://www.sokolin.com/2009-l-evangile-45660-750-ai?fee=2&fep=19379&utm_source=Wine%20Searcher&utm_medium=Feed&utm_campaign=Product

and the older Bordeaux that I can still find are much spendier:

7. 2000 Lafleur: $1699

8. 2009 Le Pin: $3600

9. 2005 L'Eglise-Clinet: $769

10. 2000 Cheval Blanc: $600

New World:

1. 2005 Quilceda Creek Columbia Valley Cab: $250 K&L (now-2033)

http://www.klwines.com/detail.asp?sku=1038278&cid=TPV-Winesearcher

2. 2007 Quilceda Creek Columbia Valley Cab: $275 (2017-2037)

http://www.belmontwine.com/bwe03732.html

If I went New World, I would get one of the Quil Creek cabs. 

And here are the Napa cabs (ignoring the utterly ridiculous prices):

3. 2005 Colgin Cariad Proprietary Red: $375 (hold until 2015)

4. 2007 Colgin Cariad Prop Red: $500

5. 2002 Dalla Valle Maya: $585

6. 2007 Harlan: $940

7. 2007 Kapcsandy State Lane Cab: $400 (2012-2042)

8. 2008 Kapcsandy State Lane Cab: $400

Finally, there is also a Cayuse '08 Impusivo Tempranillo. Haven't been able to find it yet in the market, though.

Our almond habit is sucking California dry:

Fascinating Mother Jones story.

Seriously? Farmers are spending a million dollars to drill each well to 2500', in order to get enough water to grow almonds? This is drawing down the aquifers faster than they can replenish themselves. The San Joaquin Valley is dropping 11 inches per year.

A similar story is in West Texas, where the industrial-sized cotton farms are so thirsty that the aquifer there is going dry.

That is not sustainable. That is treating the Earth like it is a throwaway resource. Until our space travel capability gets much more advanced, this is nuts, pardon the pun.

Improving the Quality-Price Ratio (QPR)

QPR, in its simplest form, is a great concept but if you consider it even slightly, it quickly falls apart. It is clear that it's an inferior measure of wine value.

Consider an 85-point wine selling for $11 (whose QPR is 85/11 = 7.7) and an 91 point wine selling for $17 (QPR = 5.3). Does anybody really think that the $11 bottle is a 45% better value simply because it has a 45% higher QPR? Nope; in fact, the $17 bottle is likely the better value.

Clearly, something is wrong with QPR.

So I've been reading about different ideas regarding improving the QPR calculation. I borrowed one part of a solution offered by Robert Dwyer in this blog post: He notes that wine value increases exponentially as they rise through the 90-100 point range, and that makes a lot of sense to me, as the scores lie along a bell curve of distribution, so a 99 pointer is much, much rarer (and more valuable) than a 93 pointer (assuming that there is agreement on those two scores for two different wines).

I don't care for the proposed formula that Mr. Dwyer offers, but I borrowed one element from his article: I used the following factors as "weighting factors" to multiply by a wine's score:

90 points: 1.0 x (no effect on quality)
93 points: 2x
96 points: 4x
99 points: 8x

To take a couple of real-life examples: 2010 Chat Leoville Las Cases has average professional score of 98.3, so its QPR is: 98.3 x 7.3 weighting factor / $340 = 2.11.

A 2013 Lafite has average score of 93.5, so its QPR is 93.5 x 2.4 weighting factor / $480 = 0.47.

96-98 point 2013 Mouton at $360 (higher score and lower price) was hardly better, with a score of just 0.65. 

But 2013 Montrose (from a poor year, but it gets a great average score of 94 and the price is right at $90) gets the highest Bordeaux score in my 20-wine sample: 2.61. 

If you are choosing between the first two wines for investment purposes, the Leoville Las Cases (a Super Second Growth) looks like the far better choice. The Lafite might appreciate more, on a percentage basis, over time, but it has a higher starting price to overcome, so I expect its ROR to be less than the LLC, over time. We shall see.

I'm not sure if this revised method is close to accurate, but I think it's a huge improvement over regular QPR. I just used it to make a wine purchase.

What does this tell us? I think it suggests that First Growths on the market today are overpriced for the wine quality they bring. That's not shocking, but the corollary is a bit shocking: If you invest in the Super Second Growths (Pichon Lalande, Montrose, Leoville Las Cases, and a few others), you might do better over time than with the Firsts. Particularly in an off year where the prices are down but your target wine gets great scores. 

I think that, twenty years from now, people won't look at my 2013s and think, "oh, no! those are from a poor year." I think they will see the wine's age and its high scores, and buy those bottles. As I say, time will tell. Collecting Bordeaux is a Great Experiment. 

In a great year, the First Growths have CRAZY prices, and, via my revised QPR calculation, pretty lousy QPR, So I think my days of buying First Growths may be over. 

Life is all about finding, and exploiting, value. Let others overpay for wine; it is the easiest thing; any idiot can do it. Finding the best wines at the lowest cost--now there is a trick.


QPR

Scary news: Duckhorn is planting a vineyard in our precious Red Mountain (WA) AVA

In my humble opinion about this news, I hope Duckhorn doesn't screw this up. Every time I've had Duckhorn's CA wines, I've disliked them, and they are certainly not worth anywhere near their exorbitant prices. I view Duckhorn as a winery which screws over ignorant consumers with low quality and high prices, covered with an unfortunately-opaque marketing gloss. The wine world would be better off without them. So it was with not a little trepidation that I read that Duckhorn is horning in on one of America's best winegrape sites: Red Mountain AVA (near Benton City WA). It would be great if such fantastic land could be saved for winemakers and winery owners who know how to make good wine and are willing to sell it for a fair price.

Holding my breath . . .

Hail Bordeaux!

Acck.
On the heels of torrential hail damage in recent years, another mega-hailstorm has destroyed thousands of grape acres in Bordeaux.

Acck.

Bordeaux Futures - a bad deal?

This article asserts that a consumer who had bought Bordeaux futures in 2009, and sold them five years later, would have lost money. A lot of money.

While some are claiming that wine is a wasting asset and is always a bad investment, as always there are many complicating factors.

It's true that successfully investing in wine is very difficult. Here is a quick list of just some of the things that can go wrong if you try to make money by buying, holding, then someday selling fine wines:

1. You picked the wrong wines: either the market isn't interested in them later, or the wines didn't age well.
2. You chose the wrong vintage.
3. You stored the wines incorrectly.
4. The wines were stolen.
5. Your willpower is weak, and you drank the wines.
6. You couldn't find the right buyer or the right forum for resale.
7. You got divorced and your spouse took the wines.
8, Your friends or kids drank the wines.
9. You finally made money when you sold your wines, but you could have made more money if you had invested in something else.
10. The wines you bought were counterfeit.
11. The buyer you chose was a crook.
12. The wines were damaged when they were sent to you.
13. While in storage, some bottles were broken, or their labels were stained by other bottles that leaked.
14. You didn't hold the wines long enough.

However, if you choose the right wines (and First-Growth Bordeaux from a great year is always a good choice), and if you have superb storage and willpower, and can wait long enough, I still think that collectible wine is a worthwhile investment. Those bottles can improve for decades, and they become rarer over time as their brethren are consumed; this can provide a happy confluence of factors leading to higher prices for your wines.