2014 LEVY & McCLELLAN
One 750 ml bottle in wooden box $450.00
Three 750 ml bottles in wooden boxes $1,350.00
One 1.5 L bottle in wooden box $1,000.00
2013 AMPERSAND
Three 750 ml bottle $555.00
Six 750 ml bottles $1,110.00
I actually signed up for their list at the very beginning but never ordered when I saw the price. And the VERY ornate and pretty offer letter. Looked like at least $25 of the cost went into that fancy letter.
They stopped sending me offers after a while. But now this one showed up today.
Looks like the price hasn’t gone down any… and they are looking for buyers?
Should I know this winery? Never heard of them. Pretty rich pricing. The home page on the website makes me want to gag:
Welcome to the LEVY & McCLELLAN website and thank you for your kind interest.
As humble servants of Mother Nature and caring stewards of the land, we are inspired by a shared passion and the unique character of our distinguished hillside vineyard. We are dedicated to making wines of uncompromised quality that offer the purest expression of their origin.
No info about the wines whatsoever. I guess you’re supposed to know.
I guess the upside is that they haven’t raised their prices in over ten years (ever?). If I recall correctly, their first vintage was the 2004, and they priced it at $450 a bottle.
The first vintage (2004) was approximately $350 per as I recorded it in CellarTracker at $377 including tax and shipping.
Worst wine purchase I have ever made. Literally any other wine at that price point would have been a better decision. Still pissed at myself for that one.
I bought that as well. agreed that it might have been my worst wine purchase ever. Not a bad wine, but a horrible QPR. Trying to learn from my mistakes.
They’re the husband/wife team that’s connected to Bill Harlan. I think they could have created a brand if they started at half their asking price…I know I would have bought initially if they started around $200. However, with enough reviews that are meh or aren’t glowing…and the uber-high price tag it’s not a model that works for me. I do wonder if they would be having this challenge with buyers if they had started at a more affordable price.
Even though these folks made some widely liked wines at other places, it’s really mindboggling to me that anyone would shell out $350 a bottle for a wine with no track record.
I can’t imagine that happening any place in Europe. It seems to be a function of the celebrity winemaker culture in California. There have been winemakers who made expensive wines in Europe who’ve gone out on their own (e.g., Mariano Garcia left Vega Sicilia in Ribera del Duero to form Mauro), but they couldn’t pull off anything like this.
The L&M model – and the price – seem to imply that it’s all about winemaking and not about the source of the fruit and the work in the vineyard; that they can reproduce the Harlan formula at will.
I also received the offer in spite of never having purchased.
I have been able to to drink these wines several times at ‘culty’ tastings. They are never WOTN.