Breaking News in Napa Valley

WINE TALK
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Araujo Estate Wines Acquired by Artémis Group, Owners of Château Latour. News just coming my way.

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Here’s a link http://www.fortmilltimes.com/2013/07/25/2845760/araujo-estate-wines-acquired-by.html

Edit:
Here’s a more detailed report San Francisco Restaurants and Food News - SFGATE

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Wow! Did you see this coming?

At least the qualifications of the new owners couldn’t be better.

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Do you suppose they’ll keep Francois since she trained at HB? neener

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Might be a perfect time to cash in.

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My understanding is that Francois will be replaced by Salma Hayek…

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Breaking news from Robert Parker:

Cos buying Montelena!

[oops.gif] newhere

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nicely done. by you and the new owners champagne.gif

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Perfect match

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Better Pinault than Bernard Arnault of LVMH.

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Makes me think that times are still really tough at high end of the marketplace.

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The good news is that the customer service can’t get any worse.

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Congrats to Bart and Daphne Araujo! This will be interesting. Latour is a completely different business model. I wonder how they will approach it.

Just another example of assets landing on U.S. shores perhaps because the U.S. is “the cleanest dirty shirt”. Or maybe they simply believe they can increase production/prices even more. Sadly I dropped Araujo when there was no incentive to be on the list. Recent releases could be found rather easily at mailing list prices…or lower. Good wine for sure.

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No question, which is why when I was out in Napa, I found it so odd to find many wineries I’ve never heard of selling $100-$150 Cabernet like it was nothing. And wineries like Cakebread, with all these single vineyard offerings at $125+

Regardless, you’re right. There’s a local retailer with Bryant, Araujo, Colgin and Maya sitting on the shelf. They’re all priced at $400 and up, but they’re there. Never would have seen that before.

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That change would get Tex to move to Napa. flirtysmile

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Lyrics from one of my favorite songs! [cheers.gif]

This is quite shocking. Doug, thanks for bringing it to everyone’s attention.

Best,

Kenney

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Maybe they will adopt a futures program… Maybe the wines will be less expensive in bad years… Haha, silly rabbit! Wishful thinking.