Stag's Leap Wine Cellars selling off its wine library

WINE TALK
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Care for a Melchior of Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars Cabernet Sauvignon 1985 for Cask 23 for a starting bid of $8,000?
Or a Balthazar of '91 Cask 23 for the bargain price of $3,000?

Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, maker of the Cabernet Sauvignon that forever changed the wine world, will once again make history in March. For the first time in its storied 52-year history, the winery will offer at auction nearly 4,000 bottles from its heralded Legacy Collection, providing oenophiles, collectors and the curious unprecedented access to the wine that forced France to raise its glass to Napa Valley. Virtually every red wine ever made at this grand estate is on offer with the most perfect provenance possible, having never left the winery.

2

Not going to lie - I had to look up the size of a Melchior. I’ll take 2. Standard corkage apply?

3

The pandemic shined a pretty harsh light on my pile of large format bottles. It was already too hard to find occasions for those, and now I wonder when the hell I’m ever going to open these things.

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4

Yeah,
I bought a 6 Liter bottle of Liparita cab on Winebid a couple years ago. When I found out it was going to cost $100 to ship - and I had no idea when I would even open it - I just had them resell it.

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5

Any further details on when this will be (or if there will be online bidding)? I am not on the list but am curious to learn more.

6

Not to be confused with Stags’ Leap or Stags Leap or Stegs Leep or…

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Ha ha. If the OP hadn’t mentioned Cask 23, I would have had to look it up.

I worked for Andersen Consulting (Accenture) in the late 90’s, and the Partners and Associate Partners loved steak houses and Cask 23. Drank gallons of it back then.

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https://wine.ha.com/c/auction-home.zx?saleNo=5527&ic=Items-OpenAuctions-Open-BrowseAuctionInfo-071713

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Link below:
https://wine.ha.com/c/search-results.zx?N=2003+793+794+792+2088+4294940462&type=bodylink-1-wine-special-5527-PR-tem022322

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10

It’s waived if you buy another Melchior off the list.

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11

Or at least a bottle of Don Melchor.

Or maybe a Franck Balthazar Cornas, or Gaspard Brochet Champagne.

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12

I don’t buy direct from Stag’s Leap but if you were a loyal long time buyer from them (or any other winery that does this), wouldn’t you be kind of ticked that they hauled off and sent all this stuff to auction instead of giving you and other loyal customers a crack at some of this stuff first?

I will say that unlike lots of other wineries, I recall that occasionally they have offered “library” vintages from time to time but iirc at way inflated prices vs the secondary market.

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Has any other winery done different? The library releases are always terrible value.

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I haven’t opened a magnum since 2019. Thankfully there is nothing larger in my cellar.

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All of the above are easy passes.

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One of the Stag’s was closing out a bunch of Cabs and Chards in Minneapolis a month ago.

17

No way! Old Stags’ Leap petite sirah from the 70’s is awesome!

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I was born in 71. But would love to try it!

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Right, but instead of offering them to loyal customers at reasonable prices, they decide to send them off to auction where they will . . . inevitably sell for less than the ridiculous library prices they try to charge loyal customers. That’s what would annoy me if I was a loyal long time buyer. What not just offer to sell them to loyalists at reasonable prices . . .

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Stags Leap is owned by Antinori and Ste Michele Estates if I’m not mistaken. We’ve seen a significant amount of wine that is affiliated with CSM pushed out to the market at pretty incredible prices. It seems that the relatively new CEO is moving a lot of inventory. I’ve seen Col Solare, Spring Valley, CSM Ethos (the reserve line generally only available at the winery) and more available in many cases at grocery stores for as much as 50% below MSRP.