Rare wine gifts have the power to impress experienced and beginner wine enthusiasts alike. Most wine collectors appreciate the history and unique qualities of a rare bottle. Whether you’re looking for a rare wine as a gift for someone who’s impossible to shop for or you want to show the wine enthusiast in your life just how much you appreciate them, this guide will help you find the most gift-worthy bottles.
When the Vinfolio team visited Pomerol during en primeur week this past spring, we stopped at Château Lafleur to taste some of their incredible wines. During our tasting of the 2018 vintage, we had an enlightening discussion with a representative from the estate about what makes Pomerol special. Here, terroir is king. Château Lafleur and other Pomerol wine producers know just how unique the soil and climate are in this region, so they take a hands-off approach. The quality of the area’s terroir and the grapes it produces really do speak for themselves and this is a large part of what makes Pomerol so distinctive. In most other regions of Bordeaux, the winemaker’s signature style is very apparent in the wine; in Pomerol, most producers prefer not to interfere with the terroir’s natural characteristics at all.
My spouse and I love thoughtful, experience-based gifts. Rather than giving each other jewelry or watches for our anniversary, we always plan a special dinner and buy each other a fantastic bottle of wine. Giving wine as an anniversary gift is a perfect option for many couples because it’s something they can enjoy together. It’s also very personal; every couple is different, so every couple’s choice of wine will be unique to their relationship.
While it’s still too early to judge the 2018 Burgundy vintage with any certainty, winemakers across the region are thrilled with how these wines developing so far. Louis Fabrice Latour, president of Maison Louis Latour, told The Drinks Business, “We are very pleased to have two big crops in a row of very good quality.” Some Burgundians, like négociant Philippe Pacalet, have even compared the 2018 vintage to 1947–one of the top Burgundy vintages in history.
Whether you’re a seasoned Bordeaux collector or you want to start a collection from scratch, the 2018 vintage makes an excellent addition to a cellar. These wines are rich, concentrated, finessed, and elegant. While it’s still a very young vintage that has a long way to go, it’s already showing great promise. In this guide, we’ll offer you tips on which 2018 wines we think are worth collecting and provide you with some useful market projections that you can use to make investment decisions.
Master of Wine Jancis Robinson says, “Not much about wine makes me sad, but the average wine consumer’s attitude to sweet wines does. Good sweet wine is probably the most difficult and expensive wine in the world to make, yet so many people turn up their noses at the idea of sweetness in wine.” This is especially true for sweet red wines. While Sauternes is often praised by wine critics and collectors alike, sweet red wines aren’t given nearly as much attention. This guide will help you find the most incredible sweet red wines on the market today.
Bordeaux 2018 is shaping up to be one of the best vintages in recent history. The Vinfolio team had the opportunity to try some of these fantastic wines during en primeur week and we’re tremendously excited to share our Bordeaux 2018 tasting notes with you. Over the course of three days, Vinfolio CEO Don St. Pierre, Chief Wine Officer Adam Lapierre, and Chief Marketing Officer Cristina Hall sampled dozens of delicious wines that we think will make great investments for collectors and wine enthusiasts of all kinds. Read on to find out which wines we enjoyed most.
Domaine de la Romanée-Conti Montrachet is consistently high in quality, but when you find an especially extraordinary vintage, the experience can be transformative. Moreover, these wines are as valuable as they are delicious. Like all Domaine de la Romanée-Conti labels, the Montrachet label increases in value as the wine ages, making it a great choice for collectors who want to resell their wine on the secondary market. There are many fantastic DRC Montrachet vintages to choose from; we’ll recommend the very best vintages–both recent and older–from this iconic label.
Vintage quality is an important factor to consider whenever you buy fine wine, but when you buy Barolo, it’s absolutely essential. That’s because the quality of Barolo significantly impacts its aging potential, and a fine aged Barolo is truly a special experience. A well-made wine from a top-quality vintage will taste astoundingly complex at age 20 or 30. Even some of the best wines from the 1950s and 1960s are still drinking well today. However, for Barolo to be this long-lived, it must be high in quality and perfectly balanced.
Sauternes and Tokaj wines are some of the most sought-after in the world. Both regions are famous for producing sweet, concentrated white wines that can age for decades–some can even age for centuries under the right conditions. These wines share similarities–botrytized grapes are used in both regions, for example–yet comparing Sauternes vs. Tokaji reveals that these are two very different wines. For one thing, they don’t have the same flavor profile. Fine Sauternes is known for tasting rich and honeyed, while Tokaji Aszú is often much fruitier and more acidic.
In 2016, wine critic Jane Anson had the opportunity to try 44 different Sassicaia vintages in a single day. By the end of the tasting, she was “approaching sensory overload,” but she never got tired of the wine. Anson said the Sassicaia vintages displayed an excellent balance that kept them from being overpowering. She said, “[It’s] almost impossible to imagine another European Cabernet-based wine, tasted through this many vintages, managing to pull off this gentle physicality.” In particular, Anson enjoyed the 2014, 2010, 2006, 2001, 1996, and 1985 vintages, as they were especially refined, complex, and aromatic.
Last year, one of my goals was to expand my Australian wine collection. I already had a few bottles from Penfolds and Mollydooker, but I wanted to find more collectible Australian wine to add to my cellar. The problem was that I wasn’t sure exactly where to start. This country is known for producing some of the most delicious, distinctive wines in the world, but, like many collectors, I wasn’t as familiar with Australian producers as I was with French or Italian ones. To get more familiar with Australian wine regions, I spent some time sampling wine from well-known producers, including Clarendon Hills, Glaetzer, and Greenock Creek. The wines I tasted were so impressive that I ended up buying much more wine than I had initially planned. Today, my Australian wine collection is plentiful and diverse, and I had a lot of fun getting it to that point.
