Sotheby’s Wine NY is delighted to continue its autumn sale series with “Vine | A Fine West Coast Cellar,” which charts the high points of Burgundy, Bordeaux, the Rhône, Spain and Napa. Leading the sale is a compelling selection of Burgundy, featuring DRC, Leroy, Comte Liger-Belair, and JF Mugnier, followed by parcel-quantities of top-class Bordeaux, in a variety of formats, focusing on the region’s excellent 2005 vintage. Rayas and Vega Sicilia carry the flag for the Rhône and Spain, respectively, and Napa is well represented by Harlan, Bond, Colgin, and parcel quantities of Silver Oak.
Anchoring the sale are 180+ lots celebrating the great 2005 Bordeaux vintage, featuring top-class chateaux, including first growths, “super seconds,” and right-bank equivalents, many available in parcel quantities.
The Domaine, as it is known, is iconic. Much more important, it also produces the most extraordinary wines in Burgundy - and it has been doing so for a long time. The generations responsible for the Domaine change, but the terroir remains. And these are very special vineyard parcels indeed, married to meticulous care and philosophy leading to low yields and healthy, ripe grapes, at whatever cost. From the 1990s, vineyard policy has been organic, with co-owner Aubert de Villaine monitoring everything with his usual attention to detail. Domaine de la Romanée-Conti wines evolve and develop dimensions in a way that resembles a mosaic – points of bouquet and flavor making up a harmonious whole that becomes more beautiful as it unfolds in the glass. Yes, these are hedonistic wines and yes, they are not like any other. The trick is in capturing what these remarkable plots of vines can give and letting them express themselves through minimum intervention and enlightened nurturing.
– SERENA SUTCLIFFE, MW
A formidable name with which to conjure in the Northern Rhône. Marcel and Philippe Guigal are a brilliant combination and the heavenly trio of great Côte Rôtie wines, La Turque, La Landonne and La Mouline, bear witness to their talent. These wines capture that elusive combination of power, depth of flavour and harmony, amazingly created from very long aging in 100 percent new oak. But wines of such substance and individuality can take it. La Mouline emerges from the Côte Blonde of Côte Rôtie, La Turque and La Landonne from the Côte Brune, but La Landonne contains no white Viognier grapes amongst the Syrah. There is little in the wine world to equal a comparison between these three magisterial wines.
– Serena Sutcliffe, MW
Vega Sicilia is a name that resounds throughout the world, a vinous flagship for its country and a landmark for serious wine collectors everywhere. The wine is a true reflection of its region, climate and the area's oenological traditions. Ribera del Duero, with its affinity with the Tempranillo grape, its high altitude and its hot days and cold nights, is one of the world's classic wine regions. These treasures are part of Spain's patrimony and shining examples of what can be achieved when terroir and dynamism meet.
– Serena Sutcliffe, MW
This is quintessential California Cabernet Sauvignon for me, whether it is Alexander Valley or Napa. The wines are emphatic, rich and redolent of the American oak barrels in which they are matured. The spicy black fruit has overtones of mint, cocoa and Russian leather, all of which is extremely attractive! The Alexander Valley wines are scrumptious and ready a little earlier than the complex Napa Valley version. Recently, winemaker Daniel Baron put on an amazing vertical tasting of both wines when I visited the winery and I found the quality superbly consistent. The pleasure factor is high and the wines highly gulpable – they cry out for steak!
– Serena Sutcliffe, MW
