The Herbfarm restaurant outside of Seattle has a lot of interesting things for sale. Particularly for aged wine from Oregon/Washington, there a number of things you just don’t have the opportunity to find that often. They’re not being given away, but I found a mixed couple cases of things I thought were very fairly priced, particularly when accounting for excellent provenance. They will ship as well. I should note I have no affiliation with them.
I think there has been at least one other post on this…maybe more?
worst UI ever
Thanks for posting. Some pretty bad prices (but, hey, it’s a restaurant) and also as posted above, a bad user interface (but, hey, it’s a restaurant).
I bought one thing: a magnum of 2001 Woodward Canyon Old Vines Cab for $250. Not a great price, but as the OP says, one I’m not likely to find easily especially with great provenance.
I bought one thing: a magnum of 2001 Woodward Canyon Old Vines Cab for $250. Not a great price, but as the OP says, one I’m not likely to find easily especially with great provenance.
Yeah some things I think are very good prices for older bottles (some discussion in the aging Oregon wine thread) and others just things you can’t find easily. Had a ton of fun just looking- felt it was like looking through auctions.
Interesting to see the comment about this being mentioned before…didn’t find anything in a search, but I admit I only went back 4-5 years…and seems a number of others weren’t familiar with it either. But feel free to combine with other threads if I’ve just missed it.
despite the prices being all over how many place can you find 07 Kelley Fox Maresh?? I had to email Dustin to check and make sure that wine even existed!
there were actually a few random bottling/vintage combos like that I could find
As with any restaurant list, you have a mix of pricing to drive sales and profits. The Herbfarm has always had a long standing reputation for having a large wine list with interesting wines at fair prices in all price ranges. I think a lot of the pricing is fair, especially given the provenance of it all. For example, where else are you going to find a Patty Green signed bottle from custom cuvée in magnum?
oh I agree. I actually posted about this the other day in the restaurants forum because I wasn’t sure if it was for real. I just wish I understood the reasoning behind why some things seem like steals (20+ year old Bethel Heights single vineyards for example) and some seem really expensive. :shrugs": ill take it for the fact that they’ve been at the restaurant probably since release and are super cool!
That’s exactly right about pricing. Almost all of the 90s wines are based upon release pricing.
There’s also some truly rare things on that list that are worth a flyer. I picked up a bottle of 92 Bethel Heights Estate Chenin Blanc, as they are one of the only Willamette Valley producers to ever have Chenin planted.
I’m sure someone more experienced with wine programs will chime in and correct me
But as I understand it, like any other business it’s meant to be a product mix incentivised to maximised profits and move inventory.
There’s almost never going to be any loss leaders in a wine program. Every wine there is usually priced to generate a profit of some form.
A lot of wine programs are going to place premiums on known brands. There’s going to be a lot of people just looking for the familiar label that they know and they are willing to pay a premium to purchase something “safe.” Those are big profit drivers for restaurants. For example, I went to a restaurant with outdoor dinning over the summer that charged $100 for Cloudy Bay. They probably go through god knows how many cases of it because people just recognise that name and would rather spend $100 on a known wine than $75 on something they don’t know. That’s the same reason why a lot of the time you see champagnes like Dom Perignon going for outrageous prices.
There are a few situations where discounts where a restaurant might have
Inventory clearance:
There may be some wines that the beverage director purchased or inherited some someone else that for whatever reason, people just didn’t and didn’t sell. A lot of the time beverage directors will place incentives for somas or waiters to push those to get rid of that inventory and they’ll maybe mark it down a bit
Mistiming:
Sometimes restaurant wine list are so large that beverage directors haven’t had time to update all of the wines up to market price. Those present great arbitrage opportunities for knowledgeable people. For example, a few years ago I was scrolling through a restaurants wine list and noticed several of their DRCs were priced well below market, something like 30-40% cheaper than the W-S low. I convinced a a few friends to make splurge for a wine dinner there and got to drink those. By far the most I’ve ever spent on any meal. No regrets though, great experience
There are early Matello wines on there too. I already have them, so I left them.
There’s also some truly rare things on that list that are worth a flyer. I picked up a bottle of 92 Bethel Heights Estate Chenin Blanc, as they are one of the only Willamette Valley producers to ever have Chenin planted.
Some interesting history there. Felt that way about the 92 Eyrie chard and picked up a bottle of the 90 Arterberry pinot for that reason. Although I believe Fred Arterberry passed away in 1990 and wouldn’t have made that wine, it’s still a piece of history.
Perhaps most fascinating to me of the Oregon wines is the 76 Eyrie Merlot. Didn’t end up with one (showed a small amount of restraint). But I had no idea he had made merlot. Found an interesting article from a couple years ago by Michael Alberty on that history. Merlot’s reputation is no longer sideways as Oregon acreage grows - oregonlive.com
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I believe that David also made a Sangiovese in the early years. Cash flow in establishing a winery(any of the early growth in production/planting) is horrible.
It’s great to hear that you picked up a bottle of the 1990 Arterberry. I picked one up as well for the same reasons. Fred Arterberry was making some of the Willamette Valley’s very best wines, and his passing was very much a loss for the industry.
The Herbfarm is a unique, or at least very unusual model. It’s a single seating, for a 9 course meal that is paired with 6 wines. You can not, to my knowledge, bypass the 6 paired wines. The owner has a VERY extensive list but because of the pairings, the rate of depletions on the long list is minimal. Wines stay on the list much longer for this reason.
The Herbfarm is very unique. I also believe they only do a single seating each evening, which is kinda crazy to me when I think about the economics of typical restaurants. But I believe you can order directly from their wine list if you wanted to. Though I have never done so as the wine pairing has always seemed worth it to me, and they are always extremely generous with their pours. I think most people do go with the pairings, leading to the slower inventory depletion you described. But they also have quite a big stock of expensive, old and rare wines that I don’t imagine they are opening for nightly pairings. I believe those are opened mostly by people ordering them directly. They have always done a great job at keeping their list updated and public for people to browse through in case they want to order something special while dinning there. Very unique place to dine at in WA
For those looking at some of their truly older wines, remember that the original Herbfarm burned to the ground in January 1997. My memory is maybe not totally accurate, but it turns out that due to a cellar remodel, the bulk of their wine had been relocated to a leased trailer parked on the property (IIRC, not refrigerated, just a trailer), so their wine was spared. However, it was left in that trailer for some time, until I finally convinced them to move it to Seattle Wine Storage (my business at the time), basically for free (trying to help them out). It stayed there for several years until their new restaurant and cellar was constructed. So most of the wines from earlier than the late 90’s might have seen a couple summers sitting in a trailer. There probably isn’t much of that left.
I had dinner at the Herbfarm about five years ago. A wonderful experience. It was a better dinner than Meadowood, and half the price. We toured the wine cellar prior to dinner. I do not recall seeing a secondary wine storage trailer, just an amazing collection of wines.
We had several pours of a 1795 Madera that night. I see they are selling their last bottle of if for $12,500. 1795 Barbeito Terrantez (woven reed top) Terrentez (750)
I sure hope this restaurant survives the lockdowns…
Michael, the trailer was only there after the fire in 1997. Since they moved and rebuilt, all their wines are stored in their onsite cellar, as far as I know. Ron Zimmerman was always proud of his Madeira selection.