Trying to make sense of cult wines
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Cult wines, to me, are wines that have a huge following but a limited supply.
Limited-edition Hello Kitty plush toys are in huge demand all around Asia when released. Both products are enthusiastically made “out of stock” by collectors.
Cult wines very often achieve near maximum points from critics around the world and are worshipped by fans.
The term that is linked with the American wine industry is used to describe some “super” wines, usually with low production. Many of these wines have a list of clients who are allocated a specified number of cases or bottles year after year.
And very often too, there is a waiting list of people who are willing to pay big sums of money to possess these wines. Original buyers of cult wines can easily make a profit of double or triple the amount they invested.
In my opinion, this is more a case of “super” press or “super” marketing. Creating demand is more difficult than creating supply.
The demand for these exotic wines boomed in the 1990s. Wines from Harlan Estate, Screaming Eagle, Sine Qua Non, Colgin Cellars and several others catapulted into a price orbit most of us can’t afford.
In Bordeaux, wine people are fully accustomed to en-premeur purchases, in which wine is sold before it has even been bottled. Famous chateaus from the left-bank have often successfully sold as much as they were willing to release.
These wines have buyers year after year and it takes a significant amount of money to have some of these vintages in your cellar. What is obviously different is that the production could reach as much as 200,000 bottles.
Would you then consider grand chateaus from Bordeaux cult wines as well? And at this point, what does it mean to a consumer if this wine is a cult wine of not?
Is a non-cult wine lesser than that of its counterpart? I do not wish to sound like a broken record but what is fundamentally different between these categories of wines? How do we classify the grand chateaus of Bordeaux in this cult wine world?
I personally think that cult wines give the owner bragging rights and added face value.
As an oenophile, I am hesitant to simply discuss the wines based on the taste and what is in the glass. Should we get a chance to taste these wines blind, would they stand out from others? Would they stand out from the grand chateaus from Bordeaux just like Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars did in the Paris Wine Tasting of 1976?
What I think makes sense to wine people is the investment value of these wines as opposed to how they taste.
I am an advocate of looking at wine as wine and not as an investment or a business. But in reality, this is only the case for poor men like me.
Therefore the investment returns and the ability to stand up to economic downturns are important factors for investors when deciding whether to make a purchase. It has been proven statistically that history favors the grand chateaus of Bordeaux.
I would like to end with a few final thoughts. Will the pendulum swing due to the power of the Chinese wine market? Will cult wines end up being revived due to demand from wealthy Chinese consumers? Will there be a day when the cult wines of the world attain the status of the Bordeaux wines among Chinese oenophiles?
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