Screaming Eagle Dollars
Screaming Eagle Snubs The Wine Trade - Vinography: A Wine Blog
In the above post Alder Yarrow tells a tale of the now famous Napa attitude. It must have been tough for the Screaming Eagle folks to spend time with the wine rabble. We should all remember that it is a privilege, not a right to drink their wines. However, what really stuck me in Alder’s post was this statement:
Bond. Production: not sure, but low. Release price: ~$400
Futo Wines. Production: 200 cases. Release price: $250+
Dalla Valle. Production 2000 cases. Release price: $250+
Forget the IQ test, here’s a new intelligence test. If you pay $700 for a bottle of a current vintage of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon you obviously skipped too many days of school. We’re in a golden age of wine quality: especially in this style. There is no shortage of high-quality. oaky, jammy red wines in the world these days. Anyone paying these prices for these wines is involved only in conspicuous consumption; not in being a wine connoisseur.
A quick look on Wine-searcher.com shows 2005 Screaming Eagle Cabernet going for $1600 and up a bottle. As they say, a fool and his money are easily parted. In my opinion you can set an arbitrary intelligence level of $100 a bottle for these cabernet based wines as there are just too many other wines on the market that are almost identical. Take a look at any of the wine rating guides and while you’ll always see wines like those listed above at the top of the pointy rankings, you will also see scattered among them wines of essentially equal ratings at a fraction of the price these wines command.
As a wine drinker you have to decide if you want to spend your money on the wine in the bottle or the label on it.
Tags: Napa, Cabernet Sauvignon, Screaming Eagle, Harlan Estate
Original post by Craig Camp