Curious how you see this playing out going forward. New release price for the 2013 is $150 at the winery, and they have a library 2003 for sale at $250.
Wine searcher pricing is about 10% lower on both, but way above the values list on CT (even the “wine market journal” pricing), which lists most of their older cabs between $60 and $100, depending on vintage.
Do you think the new ownership and pricing going forward is going to drive prices on earlier bottles up to those much higher levels?
I saw the 2010 for $95 and the 2012 for $125 recently at a local high end grocer. I imagine that price creep might happen.
2014 Chard is still $50 here as well
New owners want it priced at their perception of ‘market value.’ Not a surprise. Buy all you can of old stuff on the market at old pricing, I guess.
When Robert Parker recently gave some high scores to Monte Bello especially the 2001, I believe that is a huge reason why the prices of all vintages of older Monte Bellos shortly skyrocketed. Might happen here. Galloni I think rated some much older Mayacamas highly and I think that increased the prices on 1970’'s Mayacamas even more. But with Mayacamas were are talking about a few different eras of winemaking, less so with Monte Bello.
Remember that they have also spent a lot of money on upgrades as the winery itself and vineyards were in disrepair.
While sections need to be replanted because they were dead.
YMMV, but if the price is to your liking but the wines are stellar and still fairly priced.
Disclaimer: I sell Mayacamas
I think it’s going to become one of those things for me like G Mascarello Monprivato, where I always loved it but didn’t accumulate a large enough cache of it before the prices went crazy, and now I’ll probably hoard my small collection way too long because I can’t replace them, plus they’re both types of wines that you always feel could use still more age.
By the way, the Mayacamas merlot is excellent, and you can still find it for low $50s. That and the chardonnay remain a good value play for the moment.
Good point. People focus on the Cab.
I think Brent nailed it - people want to recoup their investment and they’ll price it at what they think the market will support. I don’t think that Antonio’s scores or anyone else’s really affect the pricing so much as the financial imperatives.
I grew up in Napa, relatively close to Mayacamas, and so I bought a few bottles of 2000 and 2003 as birth year wines for my kids. Both those years are probably the lowest rated vintages of that decade, with critics calling the wines from those years less ripe and somewhat green.
My kids don’t even like wine (they’re in high school now) so it seems a bit silly to pop what might be a $300 bottle of wine on their birthday if it’s solely for the enjoyment of me and my wife. So I might just gift them the bottles and let them sell them down the road, but the wines will be 21 years old at that time.
I do have some of the merlot and agree it’s a good wine and value relative to the cab. Heard great things about the chard but never tried it. My wife and I enjoyed a 1995 Mayacamas cab a couple of years ago (our anniversary year) and it was really beautiful. The wines do age well for a long time.
Wine Market Journal reflects my auction experiences — most vintages 1990+ can be had for <$100. Older vintages, particularly 1970s, tend to trade much higher.