The Ultra-Premiums: Why They Don’t Matter

Anyone who has ever had a good friend who is “into wine” runs the very real risk that this person will be a devout, unapologetic, possibly even over-bearing Francophile; occasionally a Burgundy geek but far more likely a stone, rock-ribbed Bordeaux fanatic.

Many of us who have friends who are “into whiskey” have good friends with Major ‘Tudes about Bourbon versus Scotch and these folks can be counted on to, at odd moments, display a nearly canine devotion or even outright FanBoy tizzy about this Bourbon, that Highland or Islay or Speyside – single-malts ONLY, please.

Both groups often gossip, in hushed tones usually reserved for making lunch plans during a church service, about legendary bottles that form the outer parameters of their obsession.

In 99% of all those discussions, the wines or whiskeys in question have one significant thing in common…

Your friend has never personally tasted them.

ALL their awed worship is, at best, received wisdom.

I was part of a discussion – real world, not online – in which a bunch of wine trade pros were sitting around, at someone’s home, drinking from a VERY impressive table of wines. Highly sought-after stuff from Spain and Italy and California and Australia and France. As often happens when wine folks opine freely, one of the guys launched into a lecture which began with, “Well, there are some very nice wines here but, of course, none of these compare with the great Bordeaux wines…” and continued on in that vein for several minutes. “…the sheer depth and complexity and subtlety and nuance of the ’47 Cheval Blanc, for example, an enormously profound wine that may well be the best ever made.“

As I had a certain degree of respect for this person, I sat and listened, fascinated. At that time, I had not yet soured on the general subject of Bordeaux and was intrigued about a wine which he was able to say was maybe the best wine ever made. So, I really was not trying to sandbag him when I asked exactly the wrong question: “When did you taste this stuff?“

His face went through something like the phases of the moon, first surprise, then a sheepish aversion of the eyes, and then clear irritation.

“Well, I’ve never actually tasted it, myself,” he admitted.

A kind of uneasy/stunned silence.

“Well,” I asked, puzzled and still not trying to embarrass him, “Then how do you know all of that about it? That sounds like tasting notes.”

He gestured broadly a couple of times and finally spoke, “Well…it’s common knowledge! Every credible wine critic says so. The list of best wines always includes the ’47 Cheval Blanc!“

“Every wine critic…now?” I asked, “So…have they tasted it?“

He heaved a theatrical sigh and shrugged, “I assume they have.“

Assumptions. Second-hand knowledge. Opinions…Gossip. A persistent assumption of the wine culture that operates much the same way, if several layers of erudition lower, as the idea that White Zinfandel is made from white grapes. (It’s not)

“…It’s common knowledge.”

There’s a fairly accurate synonym for that: folklore. Oral history. Rumors.

I’ve included a few photos, here, showing some of the most storied wines and whiskeys known to the beverage trade today. That ’47 Cheval Blanc, miraculously, IS still around. You could, theoretically and if you Know Somebody, buy an actual bottle. You won’t because it has now moved out of the realm of humans who drink wine. It has even moved past one of the more lofty sub-regions of wine obsession: collectibles. It is now what is accurately and reasonably considered an investment, just like real estate or gold bullion or a blue chip stock portfolio.

Wine, at its core, is about consumption, experience, and enjoyment of it. As with anything else, wines can and often do become traded commodities, their primary purpose – the pleasure of the taste, aroma, and texture – relegated to a fairly minor consideration versus the value of their reputations. Here is that ’47 Cheval Blanc, in its original bottle, unopened for seventy-six years…

The listed price for this immortal? A relatively modest $ 24,000.00. For ONE bottle of fermented grape juice. Now, bear in mind that ALL the pricing for these ultra-premium aged wines is all over the map. There is no set price. You might go online and find one for a measly 18 thou.

BUT – and this is the endless debate among wine geeks, going back at least a hundred years, here, and probably centuries before, Over There (Europe) – does it make any sense to buy and possess a bottle like that and actually drink it? The consensus: NO, not unless you’re Bill Gates or Warren Buffet or the Sultan of Brunei or that South African ass-clown who bought (and ruined) Twitter…or some other such uber-rich type for whom the term “$24K bottle of wine” is on the same plane as “$10K tip on my lunch bill.” To anyone for whom that $24K aches a little, drinking an investment is Not Done. That’s what used to be a year’s college for your kid. (Now, about a half a semester) A spouse would call it, “Have you lost your fucking mind?!?” Your financial advisor would spastically lurch to the floor and start speaking in tongues. Your kids would probably move out. (Okay, it’s not ALL bad.) But if you have a lick of sense, you know you’re going to wait two years, check the market, and sell it at a nice profit. So…now it’s seventy-EIGHT years.

The banner photo across the top of the page is a series of whiskeys the cheapest of which sells for $128,999 a bottle. PER bottle. It’s VERY nice whiskey in very fancy art glass. But…$129K? Here is a very nice bottle of Islay Scotch which has the price – the brand new, out-of-the-box, unaged cost – showing in the photo. Be holdin’ onto something when you scroll down.

Why, you ask? Because they can. Because there absolutely ARE people out there – rather a lot of ’em, lately – with far more money than sense. They are NOT buying this as a fine Scotch Whiskey. I don’t think even the folks at Isabella’s Islay, who make it, would dispute that. I don’t fault those people, that company for this sticker price. Hell, it’s an open marketplace. You charge $6.2M for a whiskey, you sell ONE bottle and you can retire. (I’m mulling over bottling my spinach and cashew pesto and pricing it at $4,600 a jar. I only have to sell ONE!)

So…what’s the Point, Steve, you big Fool?

The presence of such items – any items, from China plates to watches to the recent Royal Tokaji Essencia Hungarian wine that sells for a cool $40K a bottle (NICE bottle, though, have to give ’em that) – is superfluous to about 99% of humanity. We are fortunate to have, right here in blue collar ol’ Tacoma, WA, a whiskey purveyor which was recently chosen as The World’s Best Whiskey Store, McCallum & Sons, tucked away downtown behind the Tacoma main post office. I strolled through, two days ago. It IS drop-dead magnificent, both in terms of what they stock and the atmosphere. It deserves the title if, indeed, there is any such thing as “Best in The World”, in which such monikers are all objectively just matters of someone’s or some group’s opinion. But on their website, there’s a page devoted to ultra-premiums, with photos of bottles ranging in price from $21K to a miserly $850 for a bottle of Glenfiddich 30. (Gimme six and I’ll take my change in Laphroaig Lores)

I seriously doubt that any of those grand investors are reading The Poor Fool, a website predicated upon the premise that you do NOT have to have personal worth in seven figures to drink as if you do. They call those folks “One Percenters” for a reason: because that is the ceiling for how many there are, walking among us, paying far more than they have any need to, for everything. You, if you wander into a significant windfall, will probably have better sense than to make your primary investment in wine or whiskey (Beer, mercifully, is not there…YET. But It’s Coming...). You’d probably opt for some more stable investment, like real estate or the stock market or a llama ranch in Uruguay. The folks who should be thinking about what’s gonna become of that $6M bottle of Islay…won’t. They’re buying Status and Cool Factor. (OG and Gen Z, respectively)

I was perusing McCallum’s page and drooling a bit when it hit me: Even if I was one of the Uber-Flush, with disposable income literally straining the walls of my bank’s vaults, I would NEVER buy one of these whiskeys. NEH-VUR. Why? Because I would never open it. For me, it wasn’t even a matter of protecting some extravagant liquid investment or my grandkids’ college funds. It’s the potential for MAJOR, paradigm-shifting disappointment and – I absolutely PROMISE you – that is EXACTLY what would happen if I ever owned and opened one. (Above: ’45 Mouton Rothschild, $18,725) I’ve tasted three whiskeys priced at over $1,000 a bottle. I’ve had at least three, four dozen wines that go for $300 or more, one well over $2K. In NO case was what was in the bottle any better, to MY palate, than a comparable style of beverage that I could get for under $50. And since I don’t have use of any other palate than my own, these were NOT subjectively better beverages and flatly did not merit the extra $$$.

So my assertion here is simple: these things are outliers, rumours, unicorns, and they carry no real importance beyond that. I have a hard time imagining the poverty of spirit which leads someone to buy a beverage and not even want to taste it, to find out what all that time does to the liquid. But, in wine primarily, but also in Scotch and now Bourbon AND Japanese whiskeys, I URGE you to just ignore what will be received wisdom, the substituting of Other People’s Tastes for your own. I can state this categorically: In my 30+ years in the beverage biz, I never once tasted ANYTHING that could not, by OBJECTIVE comparison, in a blind tasting, be equaled or beaten sideways by something at a half to a quarter of the cost. NOT. ONCE. I firmly believe that, over a long period and a LOT of tastings, your experience would be very much the same. In any enterprise in which bedrock quality is subordinate to the dynamics of the market and the ego of the producer, price and quality re NOT related at all – not even third cousins, thrice removed.

Ultra-premium beverages do not matter. They are not a part of the universe that the VAST majority of us live in. And if we even care to have those bloated stickers ever lose some weight, it will only happen if we stop worshiping at the altar of alleged, unprovable supremacy.