Paul Franson

Could a bottle of wine be worth $2700, like the Napa Valley Screaming Eagle on four different Boston wine lists?

Apparently they are to some people. Sommeliers at fancy restaurants report customers demand unattainable cult wines to satisfy their tastes ― or impress their friends.

Retailers and wineries say customers will pay almost anything to get the dozen cult wines from favored wineries.

The hottest is  Screaming Eagle, an intense Napa Cabernet Sauvignon formerly made made by Heidi Peterson Barrett, a winemaker whose turns grape juice into gold.   The retail price for a bottle of Screaming Eagle from the winery is $500 ― but you can't buy one unless you're already on the list. The winery only produces about 6000 bottles, 500 cases and when it ends up in stores or on restaurant lists, the price is many times that.   Even rarer: the 125 cases of Grace Family Vineyards, also once made by Barrett.

Equally sought are wines made by Mia Klein, Helen Turley, Philippe Melka, Mark Aubert and Bob Levy including Bryant Family, Dalla Valle Maya, Harlan Estates, Bond, Araujo and Colgin. One wine from a moderate-sized producer, Shafer Vineyards Hillside Select, has achieved cult status, but it’s made in small quantity. Most of these cult wines are Napa Cabernets, though a few others are approaching that stature.

The cult wine phenomenon isn’t new. In the ‘60s, customers fought to buy Stony Hill Chardonnay and in the ‘70’s, Heitz Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet achieved cult status.

In the ‘80’s, Baron Philippe de Rothschild and Robert Mondavi priced their Opus One at $50, and it was in intense demand. Now, at $150, Opus remains expensive but its 30,000-case production has ended cult status.

Scarcity, in fact, is vital to cult wines, but it’s not enough. Many wines are made in small quantities yet few are so sought.

It takes small supply combined with huge demand to create a cult. “It’s rarity combined with the excitement of pursuit,” says Karen MacNeil, head of the wine program at the Culinary Institute of America in Napa Valley.   That demand is achieved through celebrity winemakers, clever promotion and the blessing of writers and critics who anoint favorites.   And the wines themselves are wonderful. They come from rare vineyards combining ideal vines planted in the perfect climate, soil and exposure, tended with the care given prize orchids. The grapes are picked at the perfect moment, and lovingly nurtured by winemakers with impeccable intuition and taste

Karen MacNeil

I 

Heidi Barrett modestly says her wines result from high-quality grapes and the right choices in turning them into wine, when to pick, when to press. Discerning observers say the real key is here exceptional palate and ability to envision the wine's future when it's still being made.

What results is indeed special. “The wines are powerfully fragrant and flowered,” notes John Thoreen, a noted wine expert. “They’re enormously complex wines with great assertiveness on the palate.”

Even so, wine expert Wilfred Wong notes that today’s cult wines are unproven. They don’t have the centuries of history enjoyed by famed Bordeaux estates. “No one knows how they will age.”

Not surprisingly, cynics ask, “Are they wines worth it?” Are cult wines really better than other wines?

They are to some people. “Like beauty, worth is in the eye of the beholder,” notes MacNeil.

Nevertheless, she worries that publicity given these wines may suggest that good wines are very expensive, discouraging people from enjoying wine. Yet large and small producers alike make fine wines that sell for much less.        

Whether cult wines are actually better than cheaper wines is irreverent to their wealthy fans, however. They fight to buy them at any price.

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