I’m working on a little project and a Fermentation Newsletter Issue that deals with the identification of today’s CA Cult Wines. In working on this project, I was working through the set of criteria that all cults must satisfy and possess in order to legitimately fall into that category. I think I’ve come up with my list of criteria that is defensible but I wanted to test my conclusions against the Wine Berserkers, who collectively have a great deal of experience talking through this kind of topic.
SO…Here’s my question: WHAT CHARACTERISTICS MUST A CA WINE POSSESS IN ORDER FOR IT TO FALL INTO THE CATEGORY OF “CULT”?
Two such examples of such a criteria, that I don’t think is controversial, are:
1. They are sold first primarily from the producer directly to the consumer
2. The wines commonly appear for sale on the secondary market at higher prices than they originally sold for from the winery
These are not the only criteria I’ve come up with to justify calling a wine a “cult”. I just wanted to give an example of where I’m going.
I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR OTHER’S SET OF CRITERIA. Thank you, Berserkers.
Has to be priced on par with 1st growth Bordeaux.
Has to have a list waiting time of no less than 7 years.
(I don’t think of MACDONALD as a cult, but while the former is not applicable, the latter is.)
There have been a number of threads about this, as I recall. I don’t say that at all to criticize you starting this one, but just if you’re curious to hear opinions, you could probably look them up. Maybe search “cult” plus then name several of the obvious wines and see what threads come up.
BTW I don’t agree with Michael that they have to be priced like first growths. Hardly any California wines are priced that high (given current First Growth pricing). I’d probably say they need to be $250 or more? In addition to having the scarcity, hype, ratings and all.
I can take it. I recognize that there is a bit of fuzzy math in coming up with a set of criteria for a wine’s inclusion in the category. What I’m looking for is the most defensible set of criteria. I’m realizing there are “market-based” criteria as well as more subjective criteria.
For sure, but that’s why I said “In addition to having the scarcity, hype, ratings and all.”
SQN is clearly a cult wine, and I think those sell in the $200s on release. I don’t know what MacDonald and Scarecrow sell for, but I think it’s $200s or $300s and those are widely regarded as cult wines. Certainly a lot less than half the price of First Growths.
I think a lot of it is where in the cycle of the cult is a given wine. Wines like MacDonald and Scarecrow are the more recent ones, so their pricing is still well below market (at least as far as I know). That was once true for wines like Harlan, but over time, the release price gradually migrates up towards the market price, letting the winery realize more of the market value and leaving less of it for the flippers.
SQN might be a bit different because the wines are Rhones, and there doesn’t seem to be as high of a ceiling for California Rhones as there is for cabs.
I think one of the obvious criteria is that the wine regularly sells on the secondary market and sells for more than the winery release price (indicating more demand than supply). The idea that the wine must be priced at a certain level by the winery is interesting. And it think there is a certain amount of arbitrariness to identifying a winery release price in order to fall into the “cult” category.
Here is an interesting thing… According to the criteria I’ve created for this project, Diamond Creek wines qualify as a cult. BUT…They seem like a different animal than Screaming Eagle, Harlan, SQN, etc. But I can’t identify why they seem like that different animal.
I agree, or at least the wine did for a long time before the price got up near the market price (e.g. Harlan is still a cult wine even though there’s little or no flipping value to it anymore; same for Shafer Hillside Select if you consider that a cult wine).
I think a big part of the model is that you sell well below market price, creating a long waiting list, scarcity, a cool factor to being one who is on the list, and pressure on the buyers to take their full allocation every year. Then bit by bit, you drift the price up towards the market price, as much as you can year over year without surrendering those other factors and your loyal customer base, at least not for a number of years.
I would say that 3/4 are required for my “personal” definition of a cult cab with the caveat that #1 is probably a non negotiable. Something like Opus One, for instance, would not qualify by that metric. I do think wines like Harlan and Bond qualify as cults for my “what feels right” personal definition. Also, while Harlan and Bond may not sell for a whole number multiple at auction like Screagle or Macdonald, they do still sell above mailing list price.
Uber-ripe, thick oakshake wines that cost way too much money for the quality in their anvil-esque bottles, leaving one to wonder if their customers, who mindlessly fork-over gobs of cash going “all in” on every offer, are — you know — members of a cult.
But since it’s a non-objective term, my thinking is that there are no cult wines any more. Partly because one criterion left off the OP was that they had to be highly scored by Parker. In 1992 he awarded Screaming Eagle something like 99 points. Then he changed it to 100 points and the idea of a “Cult Cab” came to be. How many wines got 100 points from him before that?
Then you had Wall Street types spending money on everything, and soon the first internet bubble so there were a lot of people with new money who didn’t know anything about wine. It was the heyday of Parker and Napa. Those guys collected Napa Cabs just to have them, and the prices and scarcity of the wines made them “cult” wines.
I don’t think there will be any more.
There’s no Parker or Parker-like figure and there never will be. A guy like Suckling moves wine, but he has a lot of competition and isn’t blindly followed like Parker was. On this board there are people who ridicule him and few, if any of the people on this board were ridiculing Parker in those days. That all came much later.
Second reason for no more cult Cabs is that there are a lot more wines and wine regions and more diverse styles available. In 1992, nobody was making wines like Halcon. Big and bigger were the orders of the day. Now there’s the AFWE brigade as well, likely to ridicule the idea of “cult” status.
And finally, wine isn’t something that only a few people care about. It’s not a new trend, it’s mainstream and even a bit passé in some circles, and there’s no prestige in telling your Wall Street buddies that you’re “into wine” and you got this great bottle of whatever. These days, those friends would just go out, buy a vineyard, and hire one of the half dozen big name guys to make a 100 point wine that tastes like all the other 100 point wines. Celebrities in particular have made wines anything but “cult” objects. In the 1970s guys wore shirts open at the top with big gold chains and medallions to go with their bell-bottoms. Nobody does that any more. The 1990s and cult wines are kind of the same.
Are there expensive wines made? Sure. But expense is very different from being a cult object.
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