Realm Release

Looks like Realm is live. Prices up a little over last year. Allocations guaranteed through Mon, Feb 13th, which is great!

'14 Moonracer (Estate) new @ $250 750ml; $625 1.5L
'14 Farella @ $150 (up from $135 last year); $375 1.5L
'14 Houyi @ $200 (up from $175); $500 1.5L
'14 Dr. Crane @ $200 (up from $175)
'14 To Kalon @ $200 (up from $175); $500 1.5L
'16 Fidelio White @ $60
'14 Absurd to be released in the Fall, $300 last year

Now I know that the purchase of Hartwell wasn’t cheap but WOW.

For $175 less than that, you could buy a bottle of the 2013 Hartwell Estate Cab…same vineyard…same winemaker.

I’m not knocking Realm. It’s just an eye popping price point.

So, just hypothetically, any idea what would happen if I only wishlisted and didn’t buy any of the original allocation? I’m mostly interested in the Dr Crane but I didn’t get allocated any of that…

2005 Realm Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer Dr Crane Vineyard available for under $200 today. Why buy the new release?

stan -

not saying one shouldnt buy the 2005 instead but there are lots of reasons why one wouldnt. I think 05 was their first year with the vineyard, am sure they have honed how to get the best out of the grapes, Different winemaker, preference for young wines, etc.

I’ve always been a big Hartwell fan since visiting there in 2005 on my first trip to Napa. I always thought the estate cab was one of the best buys in Napa at ~$75. If you go on the Hartwell Vineyards website you can still purchase the 2013 Hartwell Reserve Cab for $150 direct from the winery.

Since Realm is saying the Moonracer is a limited selection of the best Hartwell barrels the Hartwell Reserve seams like the most apt comparison. Realm produced 400 cases of Moonracer vs. 600 cases of 2013 Hartwell reserve (based on what it says on their website), so Realm was presumably ~50% more selective than Hartwell in selecting which barrels will go into Moonracer than Hartwell had been at selecting the reserve blend, and the price is a ~60% premium, so by that standard the price doesn’t seem that out of line. The question is whether being more selective and the resulting more limited production produced a wine that’s that much better than what Hartwell would have produced.

All true. Plus, SHINY NEW LABEL.

Benoit Touquette has taken the wines to a much higher level of excellence since he joined as winemaker in early 2011. While the early vintages were good, I would definitely pay more for the wines made under Benoit.

Has anyone tried the Moonracer? I told myself I was cutting my price-points this year but I do enjoy Realm.

Fair enough. I was just remaking my point of spending the same amount of money for a mature wine than one you have to lay down for a decade. There are many other examples.

Stan, I completely agree with your overall point, and there certainly are many examples of it.

i do too. there are lots of examples where i will buy the more mature bottle, and plenty where i will make the opposite choice

Plus, you may want to stay on the list or get larger allocations. Not sure what Realms policy is, but that does factor into the decision. Its not just this vs. 2005, but next year and so on. Also, no worries on provenance.

I am cutting way back with two kids in college, but I do love Realm and will certainly buy some if not all of allocation. Glad to have a few days to talk myself into it.

True.

I grabbed:

2 To Kalon
1 Dr Crane
1 Houyi
1 Moonchaser

Hard to say. I would think it might help you stay on the list but most wineries like their customers to chose clear across their allocation. Not much choice if you need to cut back in spending though. Good Luck!

Only allocated 3 total bottles…Moonracer, Farella, Houyi… but this is only my third offer. No brainer to take them! Maybe I’ll get lucky on a couple of my wish listed wines.

I can make an argument for Benoit as the best winemaker in Napa right now. What he’s doing between Realm, Fait Main and Kata, he’s absolutely killing it.

I maxed out. I should have wishlisted more Fidelio, thankfully he had some laying around last year, but wife was a huge, huge fan of it (I was too, not spending $60 on my wife’s house wine )

I have never bought. Not sure when I joined the list but I just received an email to able to Wish List a number of wines, including BTK.

I have had the Moonracer. For what it’s worth, below were my tasting notes from November (posted on Cellar Tracker):

Tasting with Juan at Realm.

Scheduled to be released at the next allocation, the Moonracer is Realm’s new “estate” wine using some of the sorted reserve fruit from the old Hartwell estate vineyards (now Realm’s new digs).

Beautifully rich and haunting, with deep black fruit, black currant, black licorice, dark chocolate, and hints of dark clove and anise. A bit of an underlying scorched earth quality about it as well. It was difficult to return to the 2014 Bard after having this wine.

The Moonracer very much came off like a To Kalon when I first tried it. In fact, Juan didn’t tell me what it was initially; I incorrectly supposed it was the 2014 To Kalon. Not shockingly, it also reminded me of a 2012 Hartwell Reserve Cabernet that I just had a week or so ago - and then I had the Hartwell again later that evening at dinner just to compare to make sure I wasn’t just making a cerebral comparison based on what I now knew about the Moonracer. Very, very similar… which is great because I love the 2012 Hartwell Reserve Cabernet. Same fruit. Same winemaker. No surprise.

95-96 points from me. I thought this was a real standout of a wine (and that’s after having a 2014 Outpost True Cabernet a couple of hours prior to the Moonracer - the Outpost still bested the Moonracer, but they are much different styles of wines).

I’ll certainly be buying my allocation of the Moonracer when it comes out in the next volley.

Allocated 1 of each and wished for Crane. Meager allocations compared to prior releases based on several conversations. Happy to get what I got, looking for more.