The wine cellar at Brush Creek Ranch in Wyoming is its own kind of fantasy. Ranked among the largest private collections in the world, the Forbes’ five-star resort offers wines that range from $40 a bottle on up to more than $35,000 for something that’s a liquid legend.
But even there, where rare and remarkable wines are almost routine, heads are turning when it comes to the two magnums of 1870 Chateau Lafite from Glamis Castle in Scotland that Sotheby’s is auctioning off on Friday.
“These sorts of wines are almost impossible to find these days,” Brush Creek’s wine director and sommelier Sydney Werry told Cowboy State Daily. “This wine is in the category of never-to-be-seen-again. That’s why there’s such an excitement around this auction and around these wines right now.”
That has everyone who is anyone in the wine world watching the auction to see how much those wines go for.
Sotheby’s has estimated the bottles of wines will go for between $30,000 to $50,000 each. Werry thinks they could go for more, given their rarity.
Legendary Wine Came From Legendary Castle
Glamis Castle’s cellar isn’t just any old European wine cellar.
It’s been described by wine experts as “Aladdin’s Cave,” a name that hints at the wealth of liquid treasure that was once found within its subterranean catacombs.
The castle, meanwhile, is considered one of Scotland’s most haunted.
It’s hosted the likes of Mary, Queen of Scots, and claims to be the inspiration for Shakespeare’s tragedy “Macbeth.”
The ancestral home of the Earls of Strathmore and Kinghorne since the 14th century, it’s also the childhood home of Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother, mother of Queen Elizabeth II, as well as the birthplace of Queen Elizabeth II’s sister, Princess Margaret.
It was the 13th Earl of Strathmore who bought the 1870 Chateau Lafite.
He laid 48 bottles of them down in the cellar in 1878, but decided they were too astringent to drink.
They were forgotten, left to slumber through world wars, industrialization, a global space race, and the development of all sorts of technology, ranging from telephones and light bulbs to room-sized computers.
Finally in 1971, by accident, the bottles were rediscovered right before a Christie’s auction titled “The Finest and Rarest Wines From Private Cellars.”
The auction had brought Michael Broadbent, the late founder of Christie’s wine department, to Glamis Castle where he found a dusty bin of 42 magnum bottles of wine, all with original wax seals embossed with “Coningham.”
Broadbent was able to trace the bottles back to the 13th Earl’s logbook entry, showing he’d placed the 48 bottles of the Lafite in the cellar.
It was a full 50 years before the wine became just mellow enough to be tolerable.
Broadbent, sagely, decided he should taste the wine first to ensure it was drinkable.
That was accomplished at a dinner party of wine connoisseurs, including himself, where they determined the color was “impressively deep” and its nose “sound.” There was “not a trace of oxidation or acidity, and its balance and flavor perfection,” they concluded.
Broadbent went on to taste the wine several more times over his career and said it’s one of the greatest clarets ever made.
The Taste Of Power And Poetry
Werry has tasted several Chateau Lafite vintages at Brush Creek Ranch, which has a collection with 15 different years of Lafite, ranging from 1981 to 2018.
“The first thing I notice with them is always the power that comes with it,” she said. “If it’s 5 years old, 10 years old, or 35 years old, there’s still just some energy and power behind them.”
That power is reflected in the tasting notes as well.
“When we’re tasting these wines it’s not just like, ‘Oh that smells like a blackberry.’ It’s like, 'This smells like a blackberry in the forest on a rainy day,’” Werry said. "And then, as you continue to smell and drink, you’re usually coming up with more and more things, which is really cool. It continues to evolve the entire time.”
Black fruit, though, is just one of the overtones coming out in every sip of a Lafite.
“There’s this really beautiful kind of pea flavor that comes through,” she said. “It’s not overwhelming. It’s balanced and purposeful in the wine.
"I always get a really beautiful floral note, like lavender or violet, something along those lines. And there’s certainly some spice, because the wine is aged in oak, so there will certainly be some spice, like a soft baking spice.”
People often also pick up a hint of pencil shavings or wood, as well as cigar, leather, and tobacco, Werry added.
“But it’s super well-balanced,” she said. “There’s a lot of depth and complexity, so there’s a lot to talk about when we’re tasting these wines.”
Wine Auctions Come With Hooting, Hollering
Werry has been to auctions like the one Sotheby’s is holding on Friday and said this will not be the genteel affair most people expect.
“It is a hooting and hollering, crazy ordeal,” she said with a chuckle. “You might think, ‘Oh, wine auction — maybe it’s similar to an art auction. People are sitting nicely and just observing, raising their paddles.'”
But that’s not at all what happens in a wine auction.
“People are tasting from the lots to make sure the wines are in good condition,” Werry said. “And because people are spending a lot of money, people are pouring wine at their tables. And that’s for obviously a multitude of reasons.
"One, people want to taste and verify those wines have been kept in good condition. People want to show off what they have in their own personal cellars. And then, the one we might not want to say out loud but I’m happy to, is that people get a little more loose with their paddles.”
That’s part of what has Werry speculating these bottles of wine will go for more than $50,000 apiece. Not only are they legendary, one-of-a-kind even for Chateau Lafite, but people will be feeling good after tasting all these heady wines.
“This is probably going to be the last sale of these wines,” she said. “I would imagine the person who purchases them is either going to drink it or keep it in their cellar to pass down in their family.”
Frenzy Isn’t Just About Wine’s Age — It’s Pre-Phylloxera
There’s a reason vintages like an 1870 Lafite are so rare and hard to come by. Most of the time, it’s because people buy wine to drink, not store.
“It’s like anything, right? Like if you eat it or drink it, then it’s gone,” she said. “It’s a very small percentage of people who … have the patience to not drink a Chateau Lafite for 150 years.”
The average consumer has a bottle of wine for a mere 20 minutes before they have opened and consumed it.
But there’s another reason the Lafites have inspired something of a frenzy in the wine world.
“People are going so like goo-goo gaga for this because it’s a pre-phylloxera vintage, and one of the best pre-phylloxera vintages of all time,” Werry said.
Phylloxera is the scientific name of an aphid-like bug that attacks vine roots, destroying them. The near microscopic villain was accidentally introduced to Europe in the early 1860s and went on to devastate vineyards across France and other major European wine-producing countries like Spain, Italy and Germany.
“What the farmers and winemakers found out is that American rootstock is immune to phylloxera,” Werry said. So, what they started doing was grafting American rootstock onto these French grapes and vines.”
Wine experts have said the graft substantially changed the flavor and mouthfeel of European wines, creating a legendary status for wines produced before 1875.
“It may sound silly to say that 1870 was a good year for wine,” Werry said. “But wine is history and wine is tradition. … So, it’s important to consider and think about and talk about the history of wine from a long time ago and understand how it’s evolved.”
Chateau Lafite, meanwhile, has been classified as a “first-growth” wine in 1855, along with four others, which has added more fame and notoriety to the status of the wine.
“The government essentially said, ‘You are the best of the best,'” Werry said. “And so, 1870s wasn’t much longer after that classification, so the hype around it is major.”
Brush Creek’s Wine Cellar Strategy
Werry said Brush Creek’s wine cellar is unlikely to be among buyers at this particular auction.
While the Saratoga-area wine cellar is constantly looking for good wines to add to the collection, it's already in a “really good spot” in terms of selection.
“We use some pretty select distributors who have access to older wines,” she said. “Like, I just purchased some 1958 Rioja last year and I got an 1890 Madeira last year.”
But she does watch all the wine cellar auctions so that she’s aware of what’s floating around out there in the wine world.
“Sometimes we discuss it a little bit,” she said. “But unless there’s something that’s like, ‘Oh my gosh, we have to have that or the cellar won’t be the same,’ we’ll probably just continue to purchase direct from our distributors and direct from wineries.”
The important thing for Brush Creek is to have a variety of wines to suit many tastes, Werry said. Putting too much cash into a single bottle of wine would mean less variety down the line.
“I know we’ve only been talking about these crazy-expensive wines right now, but it’s really, really important to me to have wine for everybody,” she said. “So, we have wines starting at by the bottle, $40 all the way up to $35,000, and everything in between.”
But it’s still fun to watch the wine world go crazy now and then, Werry added.
“When we start getting into these older vintages of wine, it’s not just wine anymore,” she said. “Like I said before, it’s history and tradition. It’s prestige and poetry and romance and storytelling, and all of these wonderful, beautiful things.
“So if you’re a wine dork like me or somebody else, this is really cool and really exciting,” she continued. “To be in the same room with wines like that is amazing, so this is just really freaking cool to see.”
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
