St. Innocent futures @ $60? Are you kidding me?

WINE TALK
1

Having ordered some futures from Mark at < $30 a couple of years ago, I was pretty shocked to get offered '08 futures at $60 per. He did note that this is a great vintage, but even so…

[swoon.gif]

2

My typical response to any winery that does this: [middle-finger.gif]

Plenty of great Pinots out there for less than $60 on release. Think of it as an opportunity to try something new!

3

Why is it so expensive. I remember a couple of years back, it was just priced at around $25. [scratch.gif]

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ITB too.
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4

Woah. deadhorse

ITB too.
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5

What’s scary to think is that these wines will be priced even higher on release. Or at least, that is the point of futures, right? Hard to imagine demand is so high that these bottlings will sell out now. It may well be that St Innocent is making some of the very best Pinot Noir in Oregon, and seen from that perspective, why should it not be priced in line with the other handful of producers that can sell through at these prices? Good for them, but I’m priced out of their reds for good with this vintage. I might continue to buy some whites (which I increasingly think are the greatest strength of the winery and provide good value), but the Pinots now cost 40-50% more than every single other Oregon wine I’d like to drink, and 100% more than many. Not worth it for my palate, which is a shame, since I’ve been buying for many vintages and have a lot of their wine in my cellar.

6

$60 per is laughable. With wines like Ayres and Brickhouse out there for under $30 why would any of us consider St. Innocent?

7

Steve, I agree about Ayres and Brick House (and the list goes on and on) but I kind of feel bad for St. I. It is quite the new facility. I really enjoyed some of their 05s but not a single 06. Haven’t tasted their 07s and the prices don’t seem so bad for the Cuvee, Zenith, Temperance, and Shea. Tough times. I suspect they might need some massive ratings and/or impressive client base support to sustain those futures prices.

RT

8

The wines that he’s selling as futures are barrel selections from that vineyard. As I recall, there is only 50 cases or so from each vineyard, so what you’re really paying for is exclusivity. I tasted the Momtazi and something else (Shea I think), and I thought they were very good. I preferred the Momtazi, but I didn’t buy either - too many excellent alternatives at lower prices.

9

I used to be in the wine club and I have enjoyed many of the wines. As others have noted, I actually liked the whites better than the pinots. The pinot blancs from Shea, which are no longer available, were tremendous. The '04 and '05 Villages Cuvee’s were fantastic values and surprisingly (or perhaps not so surprisingly-Matt Kramer I believe once wrote an article noting that sometimes the “lesser” wines in a given wineries line-up have less oak and less other cellar treatment resulting in more transparent and more enjoyable wine) I enjoyed them more than the single vineyards. With the single vineyards, the oak regimen Mr. Vlossak uses has always bothered my tastebuds/brain-I get a weird spice element not dissimilar to dill. It does not seem to integrate with time, though maybe tens years plus would do the job. I must mention that I did not come up with the dill descriptor on my own-I read someone else’s note on the old WCWN Board-from Marshall Manning-in which he used the same descriptor, though he did not specifically attribute it to the oak as I do.
On top of the dill, the single vineyards have also been a bit weightier than I care for across the board. I opened an '05 Shea a few weekends ago. Normally I think of Shea fruit as tending to make heavier pinot. The Shea was actually more restrained and elegant than the other '05s from SI.
Sorry for rambling in multiple directions about SI, but the bottom line is that I am no longer a buyer of the single vineyard pinots at any price. If there was a bit less weight and elimination of the dill, I would be. There is something very compelling about the wines that is hard to pin-point other than saying that the raw elements are all there for great wine, this being of course all my subjective viewpoint.

10

I like how ageworthy these wines are, and have enjoyed a couple really nice bottles thanks to Jason Hagen. These prices seem a bit high. Much higher than even a year ago, no? You can probably do better at auction. What a shame. This is not the time to spike prices, even for a great vintage.

11

Rick is right, these are the Special Selection bottlings, only 98 cases of each. I can’t seem to find the email from last year, but judging from CT, the Momtazi and Shea SS went for $50 and $55 respectively in '07. I think I paid $40 for the regular Shea through their club.

I also find myself in a similar camp to Mitch with regards to their style. The wine that won me over was a 2000 Brick House, back when they still got some fruit from there. It was light and fresh and had gorgeous Pinot funk. I also really liked the '02 Seven Springs on release and didn’t find the oak obtrusive at all (haven’t had it since). Since then, the new releases have seemed to be denser and weightier on release and have less of a sense of inherent harmony, even if all the parts seemed to be in balance (i.e. lots of fruit concentration and a fair whack of oak). I did think the '05s showed a lighter touch though and I’m betting on them pretty heavily (for me) in terms of number of bottles in the cellar. But to get to the point, I’m not necessarily convinced that they will integrate their oak and mellow their fruit with time. I too have noticed the dill thing, most recently on an '05 Justice, and I found it really off-putting. I know Mark thinks his wines go through a bit of a closed phase, and maybe the oak signature will dissipate once they emerge on the other side of that. But to me the wines don’t seem over-oaked necessarily, it’s just this particular oak note that I don’t care for. And I don’t know how much something like that will change with time. It’s still too early to tell, I guess, for most of the vintages of this decade. But I have some doubts about whether I’ll like these wines in the future, that’s all.

12

Serge,
I don’t think the term has anything to do with appellation laws at all, nor with any actual villages. I think it’s just meant to evoke the hierarchy of blended wines giving the character of the area versus single vineyards giving their own character. Up until 2002, the bottling was called the Willamette Valley Cuvee.

13

Can anybody explain me what exactly are Village Wines as far as Oregon Appellation laws are concerned? I asked Mark and he couldn’t answer this simple question.

In response to this question and your much more pointed comment earlier in the thread, I have a question of my own; just what is your beef? I think I understand the thrust of your “point”, but what is the big deal? Yes, the term “villages” means something in the context of Burgundy that would not have a similar meaning in Oregon. We get it. Have you been duped? Do you think others would be duped? C’mon. “Villages Cuvee” in the context of an Oregon wine connotes an entry level wine. No harm, no foul. Though I have perhaps been a harsh critic on other grounds, give the man a break.

14

For me calling Oregon PN “villages” is equivalent to calling mango wine produced in Florida “Grand Cru”.

No it isn’t and you know it. I understand that it’s very clever to try to show up what you view as other people’s pretension by being intentionally obtuse, but it loses its charm quickly through its complete transparency to everyone.

15

Are you a lawyer or just Jewish to answer the question with a question!?
:wink:

Wow, wow, and double wow. The smiley doesn’t cast you in a much better light. Oh, and to answer your question; a proud “yes” to both. I won’t bother to ask what you are 'cause I think I know enough.

16

Now…what exactly was your offense or was it just a pigment of my imagination?

I have an idea. Let’s talk about qualitative issues pertaining to pinots, and not quantitative issues pertaining to penises.

17

Come on…The digs and jabs at each other in this thread and the board on the whole are getting tiresome this week

18

Wineries and Chateau do this EVERY year all over the place. Any particular reason you want to beat on Mark’s head Serge or can’t you leave history alone?

19

Say what you will Zach, but the Mango GC thing was funny.

20

Ah, actual content, how civilized.

There may be some increased demand for the quality of the '08 vintage, but that may be negated by lost customers over due to the economic situation. And '08 is also a fairly high-yielding vintage, if I remember correctly. So I really don’t doubt that the increase is from the owner. But I don’t think you can extrapolate from that that he needs money. Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t. Hell, who doesn’t these days? So he probably does. But you still can’t extrapolate that he raised the price because he’s trying to make up for coming up short somewhere else (like building a new winery). I think, if you can generalize from the negative reactions in this thread, you can extrapolate that he thinks too highly of the competitiveness of his wines. But if he can sell them at that price, then that’s also wrong.

FWIW, 2008 Special Selection futures are priced at 250% of 2002 Special Selection futures. 6 years is a short time for that kind of jump.