Christmas is coming, and the goose is getting fat. I’m going to be all out of ha’pennies after this week’s cellar, the final in our three-part Small Cellar Series, and the priciest of the bunch. I’m always amazed at how easy it is to spend $50,000 on 150 bottles, which comes out to $333.33 per bottle on average. That number sounds like a lot, but when you start shopping for the great names of the wine world, it starts looking more like Bob Cratchit’s wages. A bit of housekeeping before we jump in:
- As is tradition, I carried a few wines through from the $15k cellar to help bring my averages down in a bid for those big, flashy cases. “If it ain’t broke”, and all that.
- Only a single wine is hyperlink-free this time around, but fear not – we’re planning on offering it on a private client email in the coming weeks.
- 13% has been added to pre-arrival imports for tariff parity.
You can see the whole cellar at a glance here.
Sparkling
My general rule for this cellar was simple. If I didn’t have a visceral “absolutely, hell yeah” reaction when I looked at the name of the wine, it didn’t make the cut. It’s easy to spend $50k on names, but this cellar had to do more. These wines had to deliver on taste. We can’t afford Salon at this price point, but I think we’re still going to survive. Pierre Péters leads things off with the 2012 Les Chetillons. With our mineral-packed Blanc de Blancs bases covered, we nab a six-pack of Cédric Bouchard Roses de Jeanne Les Ursules Blanc de Noirs for when we need to appear impossibly chic, and some 2002 Krug for when we want pure deliciousness.
For our rosé, there are a lot of options at this price point, but I’m going with some 2004 Comtes de Champagne, not only because it’s a beautiful rosé, but also because 2004 is when I met my wife, so it has some added sentimental value and works great for Valentine’s Day, birthdays, and our anniversary.
Chardonnay
As usual, we’re going to blow our per-bottle budget here, but we’ll make it up elsewhere. There’s no reason to spend $333 on still rosé when you could siphon off some of that cash to go deeper on White Burgundy! The two best Chablis producers lead things off, Dauvissat in the excellent 2020 vintage and with my personal favorite 1er Cru vineyard, Vaillons, and Raveneau with a bit more age, and from another great Chablis vintage – 2017 1er Cru Butteaux. A duo of 2016 Côte d’Or legends rounds things out. Jean-Claude Ramonet with a vineyard that is criminally underrated – Saint-Aubin’s 1er Cru Les Murgers des Dents de Chien – and for when we’re pulling out all the stops, Pierre-Yves Colin-Morey’s towering Corton-Charlemagne.
Riesling
One dry, one off-dry, and one sticky sweet Riesling will provide us a wide range of pairing options. Weingut Keller’s GG Kirchspiel is one of the best dry white wines in the world, and the high-acid 2016 vintage will provide good drinking over the next decade. Our off-dry selection comes from the same zippy vintage from the king of the Saar – Egon Müller Scharzhofberger Spätlese. And for when only the stickiest of the sticky will do, the great Karthäuserhofberg Trockenbeerenauslese Auktion bottling from the legendary 2005 vintage. Yum.
Chenin Blanc
I am on record as a Chenin Blanc lover, but I don’t think you need $333 to get great Chenin. Sure, Richard Leroy and Stéphane Bernaudeau are up there (and even higher), but I’ve tasted a good handful of those bottles and always felt I’d rather be drinking a solid bottle of Boudignon Clos de la Hutte or Guiberteau Brézé. Does this conveniently also bring down my per-bottle average to offset my irresponsible Burgundy spending? It does. Sue me.
Other Whites / Rosé
We had some lovely flor-influenced Fino Sherry in the $5k cellar, and for the $50k version I’m headed back to that inimitable flavor. The Jura’s Château-Chalon appellation is one of the high points of flor-aged wine worldwide. There is a distinct lack of options on the market at the moment. I would have loved to have seen some Macle, for instance, but this Berthet-Bondet Château-Chalon is still a lovely choice to give us a wildly different flavor to play with in our cellar.
Rosé is another opportunity to achieve maximum enjoyment while bringing our cost average down significantly. Who needs $300 rosé? Nobody. This Pinot Noir rosé from Loire legend François Cotat is as delicious and refreshing as it gets. You don’t need to spend a cent more. Heck, you probably don’t need to spend this much, but let’s treat ourselves.
Pinot Noir
Enough with all these savings and values – let’s get back to spending! Burgundy dominates our Pinot Noir selections for this cellar, though if there was some older Littorai on the market, or maybe some GG Furst with some age, it certainly didn’t have to be this way. Alas, such is not our luck, so we’ll have to “settle” for three Burgundy legends in what are probably the three best red Burgundy vintages to drink right now – 2017, 2013, and 2010. Lafon’s underrated Volnay-Santenots du Milieu 1er Cru is first, followed by one of my all-time favorites, Georges Roumier Morey-Saint-Denis 1er Cru Clos de la Bussière. Last but certainly not least, a wine that needs lots of time in the cellar to show its best, Ghislaine Barthod Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru Les Cras.
Nebbiolo
Look, this Bartolo Mascarello isn’t ready to drink yet. I know that. You know that. But it’s the best Barolo, and we need it for this cellar. Part of collecting is planning for the future, and this, my friends, is a great plan. For more immediate enjoyment, Roagna’s ethereal Barolo Pira Vecchie Viti 2014 will more than suffice. Jancis Robinson ended her review of this vintage with a simple “I’m in love…”, and it’s hard to say any more than that.
Sangiovese
There was a time when Le Pergole Torte could be had at well under our target average cost, but sadly that time has passed. To be able to afford a mature bottling for this cellar, I’ve carried over the best Sangiovese I tasted this year, Sofia Ruhne’s Chianti Classico “ASofia”, from the $15k cellar. That way, we can splurge on a six-pack of 2010 Le Pergole Torte. My personal taste doesn’t often align with Mr. Parker’s, but The Wine Advocate wrote, “It is impossible not to be completely smitten by the 2010 Le Pergole Torte.” I have to admit, I agree.
Other Reds
Lopez de Heredia’s 2010 Tondonia Reserva appears again here, because why mess with something that is perfect? But we’re stepping up our Côte Rôtie game with Domaine Jamet’s 2010 effort. Every time I see the price of Jamet has gone up again, I raise my eyebrows and think, “is it really worth that much?” But each of the bottles I tasted this year allayed my suspicions – this wine is seriously good. To round things out, I’ve snagged six bottles of the overt and luscious 2000 Château Palmer Margaux, a wine that checks a few pairing and flavor-profile boxes otherwise lacking in our lineup of red wines.
In Conclusion
And just like that, another year of the Small Cellars Project is in the books. The prices of the wine world’s greatest producers continue to rise, but it’s still possible to put together a pretty legendary cellar for $50k, full of wines that are already drinking well and will continue to age gracefully over the coming decades. I doubt anything in this lineup would last that long if it were in my house.
Now that we’ve come to the end of the project, I’d love to hear from you! What egregious oversights have I committed? What vinous sins? How would you allocate $5k, $15k, or $50k? Drop me a line at calvin@grandcrudirect.com.