Today, the LCBO (finally) posted the May 2008 Classics Collection on the vintages.com website.
Here's a link to the main page.
The order deadline to get your name in the lottery is: 5 pm, Wednesday, May 21, 2008
There's some impressive Burgundy and Rhone in this collection.
Good luck!
Vintage Assessments has the PDF for this weekends release available here.
While I have been buying less wine from Vintages locations and more directly from wine agents, the following release has some interesting wines that have piqued my interest…
2006 Chateau Montelena Chardonnay (#701748, $44.95)
From Napa, Chateau Montelena is a very reliable and renowned winery. This chardonnay is famous for having been judged the top white wine in the now famous Judgment of Paris tasting in 1976 beating out some of the best white burgundies available at the time.
2005 Nicolas Potel Meursault Vielles Vignes (#67850, $39.95)
Allen Meadows of Burghound.com fame gives this wine high praise calling it "Outstanding! Top value". It sounds like it is approachable and enjoyable right now.
2006 Perrin Reserve Côtes du Rhone Blanc (#499509, $14.95)
The owners of Chateau de Beaucastel have a very impressive portfolio from throughout the Rhone valley. I haven't tried this wine, but for $15, I'll give it a try. It could prove to be a great summer quaffer for the patio. Rhone wines are typically blends and this is 50% Grenache blanc, 20% Viognier, and the rest Marsanne and Roussanne according to Robert Parker's review.
2005 Chimney Rock Cabernet Sauvignon (#731810, $51.95)
I haven't had anything from Chimney Rock in several years, but it is very good to see this in our market-of-little-choice. Chimney Rock has a beautiful winery off of Silverado Trail in Napa and inspired by Cape Dutch architecture. The wines are bordeaux styled and $51.95 seems like a very good price for this wine as it appears to be more expensive south of the 49th.
2005 Kaiken Malbec (#58339, $14.95)
Argentina has really made Malbec the national grape. The high end offers, big, complex and age worthy wines. The lower end offer up a lot of early drinking enjoyment with wonderful dark fruit.. I've never tried this one, but it received a solid review from The Wine Advocate, especially given the price point. It could be a great BBQ wine this summer. Could Malbec start to wine over the Aussie Shiraz crowd?
2005 Château Le Doyenné (#61739, $25.95)
The 2005 Bordeaux is arriving and this looks like a solid wine designed to offer early drinking pleasure. From what I can tell from Robert Parker's review, it's mostly Merlot (70%) and was considered to be a "sleeper of the vintage".
2005 Clos Saint Jean Châteauneuf du Pape Tradition (#70888, $45.95)
It's a top scoring wine from Châteauneuf du Pape. That's good enough for me ;)
It's been way too long since my last update, but Vintages has posted the lineup for the Winter/Holiday Classics collection.
The Classics collection operates as a lottery for the most sought after wine so it's important to get orders in at or before the appropriate deadlines. For email, fax, regular mail, that's 5:00pm, Nov 15, 2006.
To quote the Vintages site:
"Please note that all orders received by the above specified date will be entered by random selection rather than by the date of receival."
I'm going through the list to see what values or must-buys there are.
Good luck!
Vintages has released the details on the Spring/Summer 2006 Classics Collection. While I'm not thrilled about the limited supply of some of the better wines and resulting bad news when I don't win the lottery, I've been pretty successful in past Classic lotteries.
This offer includes a good collection of Chateauneuf du Pape, Bordeaux, Burgundy, Italy, New Zealand, South Africa, Germany/Austria, California, and a number of others.
Here are some that have caught my eye...
2003 Beaucastel Chateauneuf du Pape
Now in large format 1500ml ($169) and 3000ml ($419) magnums
2003 Clos des Papes Chateauneuf du Pape
I'd love to try this so that I can understand the controversy. $69 is very reasonable too.
2003 Chateau Haut-Marbuzet
We had a wonderful visit at Haut-Marbuzet a couple of years ago and it's good to see the positive reviews on the 2003. $79 is a little hard to handle however.
2003 Chateau Calon Segur
Lots of Parker points and one of the few highly rated Bordeaux wines priced under $200. $119
2001 Castellare Di Castellina Chianti Classico Riserva, Il Poggiale
I've really enjoyed this in the past and the 2001 got the magic three glasses from Gambero Rosso. $43
2000 Giacomo Ascheri Barolo Sorano
I'm a little nervous about the 2000 vintage for Barolo but this is could be interesting at the price point. $54
2004 Two Hands Lily's Garden Shiraz
Two Hands produces some amazing juice from down under. $75 is a little steep.
2004 Boekenhoutskloof The Chocolate Block
One the most impressive wineries in South Africa (imho). I've never had the Chocolate Block, but Platter likes it. $45
2002 De Toren Fusion V
We need to keep building our vertical of Fusion V. $39
2003 Ridge Vineyards Monte Bello
Monte Bello is a benchmark for California and the 2003 sounds like a great one. $139 is expensive but reasonably fair for this market.
2001 Shafer Hillside Select Cabernet Sauvignon
Very expensive but this is as close to cult Napa fruit as we get a chance to see in Ontario. The 2001 is very very impressive. I had the pleasure of tasting a barrel sample at a wonderful open house at Shafer a couple of years ago and it blew me away. $249
There are tons of other wines being offered, but these are the ones that jumped out at me on the first pass that I took through the list.
Vintages and the LCBO are offering a number of vintages of Château Latour including the highly regarded vintages of 1982, 1990, 1996, 2000 and 2003. Details can be found here. Normally, I would be quite excited about picking up a vertical collection from one of the most consistently top Bordeaux producers in the world.
Unforunately, the prices are outrageous.
outrageous |outˈrājəs| adjective 1 shockingly bad or excessive • wildly exaggerated or improbable
Using the Latour 2003 as an example, the LCBO price is $925 CDN. When you adjust for the exchange rate and remove the PST/GST (20% I believe), that leaves an effective price of aprox $640 USD. When you search on Wine Searcher or WineZp (wine-searcher.com, winezap.com), a good price appears to be $450 to $499 USD. Premier Cru for example offers it for $495.
I could almost afford to fly to California for the amount I would save on the two bottles I would be allowed to bring back with me.
The issue clearly is that Toronto is an affluent, wine enthusiastic market and that the hold of the monopoly is such that the LCBO can and will base their pricing model on excessive markups not seen in most civilized parts of the wine world.
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