I thought that 1993 (nekked label) was never imported by Chateau and Estates. I thought that they came up with a new label for the US only, because of issues with individual states.
Mouton did release the wine with an alternative blank label for the US, but noone ever forced them to. Indeed, I’ve probably seen more Balthus-labeled '93 for sale in the US than the blank.
Kenwood Artist Series had an issue one year as well. There was a reclining nude on a hilltop. Kenwood responded by removing the nude and putting a skeleton instead.
Kenwood intended to start its premium Artist Series collection in 1975 with the tasteful reclining nude by Mr. Goines’ reclining affectionately known at the winery as the ‘Naked Lady’ label. But it was not to be. The US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) claimed it was obscene and indecent, and only 50 cases with the label slipped through to get to market. As a protest the label was resubmitted with a reclining skeleton instead. But the BATF forbade this also. In 1997, the ‘Naked Lady’ was resubmitted to the BATF, and, well, times have changed… Twenty years after its original submission, the label was approved. What better way to celebrate the 20th Anniverary of one of the world’s most renowned collections of wine!
The '94 Nekkid Ladies label was a super wine. One of the first “high end” purchases of mine when I started getting serious about wine.
Who’s Danny? Danny Meyer? Danny Zuko? Danny Aiello? Danny DeVito? Danny Bonaduce? Danny Glover? Danny Kaye? Danny Phantom? Danny Boy?
Come on man, you can’t leave us hanging like that!
Danny Phillips, who lived across the street from us for years both before and at the start of Grateful Palate…
The quote in my post was from him.
So, as Danny’s mentor, are you jealous of his world wide success and fame?
Funny, he was more obsessed with terroir and story and authenticity at one time than I am but then he put his finger in the wind and saw which way the money was blowing and COMPLETELY sold out. As I said, he has lost his soul…
These days he lives on planes and in airports, not jealous at all.
Then you aren’t a very solid mentor, no?
And he built a huge house down in Adelaide, as I recall.
His company is not in good shape presently. David Hickinbotham and the Paringa brand recently left his portfolio.
No, he was not a strong follower. As one of his Yodi, I am deeply disappointed.
My favorite memory of him is when he was still a grunt on the street for another importer and he spent a week trying to sell what he thought was the greatest Chardonnay for $60-ish a case EVER (Cartlidge and Brown) and got NO takers. Then, a month or so later, RPjr declared it the poor man’s Corton Charlemagne meets Kistler and his phone was ringing off the hook…from the SAME people. He was SCREAMING about how A) the people evidently had no palates of their own and B) they didn’t trust him even after all the great deals on really good wines he had already gotten them. I think that might have been the moment he snapped…
Has anyone seen a bottle of Longitude? For the bottle alone to be worth $100, it must be a crystal bottle… Right?
This past weekend at Eldon’s OL, we did a blind tasting of California and Aussie Shiraz (and one S. African). There must have been about 30 wines. One of the top 3 that got the most votes was Mollydooker’s Carnival of Love. Surprised to say, I liked it!
The F.U. didn’t offend me, but just surprising to see (a little bad taste there), and I hope it doesn’t offend any customers. I’m pretty sure it’s high score was the main reason that it got a placement. Didn’t know it was released in the Spring. Thanks, Dan.
To even mention Hill of Grace and Grange in the same post as the above is rather like canvassing the merits of actresses by comparing Anna Nicole Smith with Katherine Hepburn.
With the possible exception of Dead Arm, pretty well everything in the above list was custom made to suit the extreme palate preferences of one prominent critic.* There are an awful lot of winemakers around this land who despair of what Robert Parker has done for Australian wine; the range of Oz wine widely available in the US is probably narrower than in the UK, and so much of it has a peculiar skewing towards certain South Australian regions. Because so much ‘highly acclaimed’ wine is something of an unclothed emperor, too many truly worthy wines will be lost completely, because they’re not so ‘unique’ as this lauded gloop.
*Actually, Duck Muck wasn’t. It was made as a joke. When someone rang Dave Anderson to tell him that Robert Parker had scored Duck Muck at 100 points, his response was “Who’s Robert Parker?” A friend of mine heard him speak at a dinner. Anderson said, “I soon found out…”
cheers,
Graeme
Seen it…no way in hell it is worth a C-Note.
No one on Wine Searcher is selling the “Longitude”
Besides the GP’s quotes, I have never seen nor heard of it.
Whatever the $1000 bottle is called, I saw one here in town and was very unimpressed with it.
Taste or looks?
Looks.
I have zero need for a $1K Aussie Shiraz.
Let’s see… $1K bottle of shiraz that will fall apart in how many years? I’ll check back on the board in 2011 and see if Posner is donating a bottle of this. [suicide.gif]
Jeb
I am way done with the Grateful Palate portfolio of wines.