Sommelier Tries a $1,500 Bottle of Red Wine

Bon Appétit

Sommelier André Hueston Mack returns for another edition of World of Wine, this time putting a $1,500 bottle of Harlan Estate red wine to the test. A lot of time and effort goes into creating such an expensive bottle but is it worth the premium price?  Director: Dan Siegel Director of Photography: Kevin Dynia Editor: Robby Massey Host: Andre Mack Director of Culinary Production: Kelly Janke Coordinating Producer: Tommy Werner Line Producer: Jen McGinity Associate Producer: Oadhan Lynch Production Manager: Janine Dispensa Production Coordinator: Elizabeth Hymes Director of Talent, Digital Video: Cynthia Simpson Camera Operator: Will Boone Assistant Camera: Lucas Young Sound Mixer: Rachel Young Production Assistant: Shania Collier, Alex Mitchell Staff Editorial Consultant: Ryan Harrington Researcher: Vivian Jao Post Production Supervisor: Andrea Farr Post Production Coordinator: Scout Alter Supervising Editor: Eduardo Araujo Assistant Editor: Billy Ward Graphics Supervisor: Ross Rackin VFX: Lea Kichler Filmed on Location at 1 World Trade Center

Transcript

00:00 - Does it taste expensive?

00:02 - Wow, you know, it's so funny.

00:03 That is a dumb question.

00:04 [laughs]

00:04 Dan, it is not a dumb question

00:06 because that's what most people would say.

00:07 Does it taste like an expensive wine?

00:09 As my mama used to say,

00:10 you eat shit long enough, it tastes good.

00:12 Sorry, cut that.

00:13 No, no, don't put that in the air.

00:14 I'm just kidding.

00:16 Hey, I'm Samoyed Andre Houston Mack,

00:17 and today I'm tasting a $1,500 bottle of wine.

00:21 There's lots of time and effort that go into this bottle

00:23 that brings it to this price, but is it worth it?

00:25 We're about to find out.

00:29 In a past life, many of these bottles were opened by me

00:32 or members of the staff.

00:34 It was a Samoyed at Per Se restaurant here in New York,

00:36 and before that at the French Laundry.

00:38 Generally speaking, whatever retail is,

00:40 you double it, and that's what it is in the restaurant.

00:42 So this bottle of wine could be $3,000 plus in a restaurant.

00:46 We paid $1,550 for this particular bottle at retail.

00:50 That's a lot of money, right?

00:51 Like, if you have a roommate,

00:53 that might be your portion of the rent.

00:54 I think for some people, you know,

00:56 it just doesn't make sense.

00:57 But just right off the bat,

00:59 there are definitely signs of quality.

01:01 First, I'm gonna take a look at the label

01:02 and point out some more details

01:04 that represent what we're drinking.

01:06 So this is Harlan Estate, 2017, Napa Valley.

01:12 This is their proprietary blend,

01:13 so this is their red wine blend made from Bordeaux Varietals.

01:16 You know, so looking at the bottle, just straight up,

01:18 there's no real signs that say

01:20 that it's a premium bottle of wine.

01:22 Most of the time, you wouldn't be able to encounter it

01:25 in a wine store that would have it

01:26 and be able to touch it, right?

01:27 Like, it's locked behind glass.

01:29 Like, those are the things that would probably tell you

01:31 that it's special.

01:32 I think when they're talking about, on succession,

01:33 how everybody's wearing no logos, right?

01:35 This is simply about the wine that's inside of it

01:37 and about it being an ultimate luxury good,

01:40 to say the least.

01:41 It has, like, this pinpoint drawing.

01:43 The illustration on the front

01:44 is actually the same illustrator

01:46 who does the illustrations on currency, on money.

01:49 So you'd have to think that

01:50 that would make this wine expensive, right?

01:52 It would definitely make it rare in that way.

01:53 Those seem to be all added things.

01:55 So when we talk about why it would be expensive

01:58 or why it would be special,

01:59 packaging is one of them.

02:01 One key thing that you have here,

02:03 the bottles are numbered.

02:04 That's starting to hint at you, like,

02:05 "Okay, hold on.

02:06 "This is not an everyday bottle from Napa Valley.

02:08 "This is like a security code.

02:09 "This is the authenticity of this particular bottle."

02:12 People really don't counterfeit $1 bills, right?

02:16 They counterfeit on the most expensive, the $100 bill.

02:18 And so when you start to look at something like this,

02:20 you start to say, "Well, this wine has some pedigree.

02:22 "It must be rare enough

02:24 "that it has these security codes on it."

02:26 Even on the back, it doesn't give you much.

02:28 It doesn't even give you the breakdown of the grapes.

02:29 It just says, "Napa Valley Red Wine."

02:31 It's a combination of different grapes.

02:33 If it said Cabernet,

02:34 it would have to be at least 75% Cabernet

02:36 or any type of grape that was listed on there.

02:38 You don't know anything about this bottle of wine.

02:39 You're just looking at it,

02:40 and you're trying to say,

02:41 "Why does it cost that much?"

02:42 But you have to peel back layers of the onion,

02:45 do some research to understand.

02:47 So it's a steak grown in bottle at Harlan Estates,

02:49 and it says Oakville, California.

02:51 You have to know a little bit about Harlan Estates

02:53 to understand why it is special.

02:55 Now, Harlan is an estate

02:56 that was founded back in 1984 by Bill Harlan.

02:59 It's about 240 acres, pretty large,

03:01 but only 40 acres of it is planted to vines.

03:04 40 is very small, so I mean,

03:06 how that impacts is that you're not making a lot of wine,

03:08 and that's how you get quality fruit.

03:10 They're trying to make the best wine

03:11 that they can make from the fruit that they have.

03:13 It all sits in the Oakville region of Napa Valley,

03:16 and wine is much like real estate.

03:17 It's about location, location, location.

03:19 The fact that this wine is not only just in California,

03:22 more specifically, it's in a place called Napa Valley,

03:24 more specifically, it's in a place called Oakville,

03:27 where all of this is estate grown.

03:28 You can have your own vineyards that are on the estate

03:30 that's considered estate grown,

03:32 that you basically grow the grapes,

03:34 harvest the grapes, and make the wine.

03:36 So if you're not growing the fruit,

03:37 then you're at the whims of someone else's,

03:40 you know, the way that they pick

03:41 or the way that they wanna farm.

03:43 Estate grown fruit basically translates to quality

03:46 in a lot of cases.

03:47 All of the fruit is controlled by the chateau,

03:50 by the winery.

03:51 One hand gets to touch it, and that's a sign of quality.

03:54 You know, Napa Valley was discovered

03:55 as being like this great wine region

03:56 for growing grapes here in America

03:59 due to microclimate soil.

04:00 When it's a coveted place, prices for land are expensive.

04:03 It could be a million dollars per acre,

04:05 and then, you know, it's somewhere between 35 to 45,000

04:09 an acre to farm.

04:10 Generally, you don't make wine to what they call

04:12 on the third or fourth leaf,

04:13 and then it might spend, you know,

04:15 18 months to 24 months in oak.

04:17 So you're looking at five or six years

04:19 before you even produce any type of bottle

04:21 for a consumer.

04:22 That definitely has an impact on the price of the bottle,

04:25 and we haven't even talked about the cost of oak barrels

04:27 and all the other special things

04:29 that different wineries do to produce great wine,

04:32 but it definitely has an impact on the price.

04:34 So the next thing I wanna talk about on the bottle

04:37 is the vintage, 2017.

04:39 So a vintage is when the wine was harvested.

04:41 According to California law,

04:43 it doesn't have to be 100%, but lots of times, it's 100%.

04:46 In 2017, these grapes were harvested and made into wine.

04:49 Generally speaking, you don't know when it was bottled.

04:52 What's more important is when it was harvested.

04:55 Older could be better to a certain extent,

04:57 but in wine, generally speaking,

04:59 great vintages command a certain price.

05:01 We have great fruit that comes in,

05:02 great growing conditions that allow for the wines

05:05 to not only taste great, but also have longevity.

05:08 Bad vintages have a lot to do with the weather patterns,

05:11 or, you know, maybe there's too much rain,

05:12 there was a frost, there was hail.

05:14 There were all these things that happened

05:16 that could affect the vintage,

05:17 and 2017 was a good vintage.

05:19 I wouldn't say that it was a great vintage,

05:20 but in great years, you can buy from everybody.

05:23 In bad vintages, you still can continue

05:26 to buy the blue chips because they consistently

05:29 have always made great wine no matter what was happening.

05:31 Something like Parlin Estate is considered a blue chip.

05:34 They had this, you know, iconic status

05:37 as being some of the best wines made in America.

05:39 They made some of the greatest wine in 2017.

05:41 You know, what's interesting,

05:42 as global warming is a real thing,

05:45 you know, growing conditions change.

05:47 With the fires, you know, becoming more prevalent

05:49 in California, even in Oregon,

05:51 it makes it really hard to have great vintages.

05:53 You know, Mother Nature is changing,

05:56 and it's really hard to kind of make great vintages

05:59 when there's a lot of stuff going on like that.

06:00 All right, I think I'm ready to open it up and taste it.

06:03 How about you guys?

06:04 [upbeat music]

06:06 You know, I think the price point

06:07 and the rarity of this wine could spook quite a few people,

06:10 but you know what, I would open this

06:11 the regular way I would open anything else.

06:13 I've had the same approach because I've worked

06:15 in restaurants, and maybe the advice I'm giving you

06:17 is because I worked in restaurants.

06:19 It's so funny 'cause I say that

06:20 and then watch I break the cork in this thing.

06:22 All right, you just gotta go in and into it

06:23 and just be brave with it.

06:25 Let's get in here.

06:27 You don't need a really expensive opener,

06:28 and I find something with a lever here tends to work best.

06:33 So let's see, we get it in there.

06:35 And you wanna go slow, pull up.

06:38 We got some there.

06:39 Get our lever here.

06:41 This is normally where it breaks.

06:45 I should probably stop talking to you guys.

06:47 That's good.

06:49 At this point, I just kind of pull and twist.

06:51 Yep.

06:53 It's pretty clean.

06:55 We're gonna double check the vintage.

06:57 Some of them don't have vintages on it,

06:58 but check the markings on the cork.

07:00 So it says Harlan Estate.

07:01 This is 2017.

07:02 2017 matches the vintage that's on the front,

07:05 and we might be good to go.

07:07 It passed the first nose check.

07:08 Normally, I'd open it and just kind of

07:10 stick my nose over it.

07:11 I would want a decanthus wine,

07:12 so I wanna want this wine to breathe.

07:14 So decanting it, aeration,

07:16 what we're really talking about is introducing oxygen

07:18 into the wine, and that kind of really helps

07:20 slowly kind of break it down, break down some of the tannins.

07:23 But also, I feel like it might have some sediment in it,

07:25 and that's when just like as the wine starts to age,

07:28 pigment and particles kind of fall

07:29 to the bottom of the wine.

07:30 It's not harmful.

07:31 It's just a better wine drinking experience

07:33 if you don't have like these little sea monkeys

07:35 floating around in your wine.

07:37 So we'll go ahead and grab a decanter.

07:38 And because this is not that old,

07:40 I feel like what's best decanter here

07:41 is something with a wide surface to area range.

07:44 So you look at like something like this

07:46 that almost has a disc, this is kind of perfect.

07:48 So normally what I would do is use something as my base.

07:53 This is not technically old school.

07:56 So I'm gonna turn on the light in my phone.

07:59 So I wanna take it.

08:00 And once you start decanting, you don't wanna stop,

08:02 'cause you wanna stop going back and forth,

08:04 and you're kind of like mixing up the sediment in the wine.

08:06 We wanna grab the decanter.

08:07 I wanna put my thumb on the side here.

08:09 I don't wanna rest glass to glass.

08:11 That's how it chips.

08:11 But basically what we wanna do is we wanna take

08:13 the bottle of wine resting on my thumb,

08:15 and I wanna start pouring.

08:16 And basically I'm illuminating just right after the neck.

08:20 And I can see when the sediment starts to come.

08:23 And when it starts to come, I wanna pour slower

08:25 and trap it in the shoulder of the neck.

08:27 And my hand is getting really tired,

08:32 'cause this is an awkward pose,

08:33 and I don't want to drop this.

08:35 All right.

08:37 Smells great.

08:40 Just kind of stir it a little bit here,

08:41 just to kind of introduce a little bit more air.

08:44 Smells great.

08:46 I don't smell any corkiness, any wet newspaper,

08:48 or cardboard, or anything like that.

08:50 But the true test would be to taste it.

08:52 How should you drink a wine like this?

08:53 You know, I think where it matters is glassware.

08:56 I think glassware is important.

08:57 You wanna have the thinnest possible lip to it if you can,

09:01 but if you don't, you still wanna have a wine glass,

09:02 and I think you work your way back

09:04 to the best option you have.

09:06 And I've seen, you know, riding on a bus,

09:08 like, in wine communities,

09:10 going to one vineyard and an accent,

09:11 drinking it from the bottle.

09:12 Like, the idea of just being able to enjoy it,

09:14 I think, is what it really comes down to.

09:16 If you wanna drink it out of a paper cup,

09:18 then you drink it out of a paper cup.

09:20 Lots of iron ore, red currant.

09:24 This is actually really beautiful.

09:30 On the nose, when you smell it, you know,

09:31 it doesn't smell, like, jammy, or, like, over-the-top fruit,

09:35 but it has this fruit element to it

09:36 that's just, like, intriguing and alluring.

09:39 But also, when you taste it on the palate,

09:40 it's not like that.

09:41 You still get the same elements,

09:43 but, like, it smells like it could be overwhelming

09:45 and thick and luscious.

09:46 It's not.

09:47 It's really, kind of, really refined.

09:49 You know, it's graphite, right?

09:50 It reminds me of, like, shaving my pencil,

09:52 like, in second grade.

09:53 You know, a lot of that comes

09:54 from the minerality of the soil.

09:56 Wow, this is, um, this also has, smells faintly,

09:59 you know, this, like, mint or eucalyptus.

10:01 There's a herbaceousness to it that's not overwhelming.

10:05 I don't think that you have to try a lot of quality wine

10:08 to know the difference.

10:10 I think you taste it and you can automatically

10:12 see the different levels of quality in it.

10:14 You know, I think the biggest difference

10:15 that jumps out to me is that, like,

10:17 it tastes like real wine,

10:18 and I know that might even seem elitist

10:20 and, like, feel like, um, well, what is real wine?

10:23 You know, a lot of wines at a certain price point,

10:25 definitely 15 and under.

10:26 There's so much other things added to it

10:28 that it doesn't taste like a real product.

10:30 It's, like, different things added for color and flavoring

10:32 and all those kind of things.

10:33 This tastes real.

10:34 You know, it really tastes like real branches.

10:36 It just has, like, this natural realness to it

10:39 where the other thing feels like it's man-made in a way.

10:42 When I talk about this wine being balanced,

10:44 you know, what we're really talking about is

10:46 there's not an element of it that sticks out

10:48 like a sore thumb.

10:49 It's not overalcoholic.

10:51 It's not too ripe and fruity.

10:52 There's not acid as alabaster.

10:54 It's not sharp in that way.

10:55 It's not overly oaked.

10:56 All of these things feel really complete

10:58 and feel like they're working together,

11:00 which to me produces, you know,

11:01 what we talk about being a balanced wine.

11:03 If we talk about, like, you know, terroir,

11:06 does it shine through in this wine?

11:07 I believe that it does, right?

11:08 It does have some of the hallmarks

11:10 when you think about Oakville,

11:11 when you're talking about iron ore.

11:13 You can taste that in the wine.

11:14 I think for a lot of people,

11:15 the hump to get over is the price.

11:17 They're like, "Well, nothing could taste that good."

11:18 There's lots of different factors

11:21 on why this wine costs so much,

11:23 but the idea is being able to taste them for yourself

11:26 and understanding that, you know,

11:27 so when I say it's worth it, I would say yes,

11:29 but I generally don't spend this kind of money on wine.

11:32 Actually, I don't spend this kind of money on wine, actually.

11:35 Does it taste like an expensive wine?

11:36 I want to be very careful the way that I answer that.

11:39 Like, it does.

11:40 It actually does, right?

11:42 I'm sure there's a lot of people out there,

11:43 blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, but like, but it does.

11:45 It tasted like somebody really cared about it.

11:47 And you know, it gets dangerous at this price point.

11:48 You can see why people

11:49 in those kinds of restaurants are nervous.

11:51 I think, to be honest with you,

11:52 only you get to decide what you like.

11:55 If you're looking for, you know,

11:58 a bottle of wine of this stature or this type,

12:01 considering that, like, if you have the means

12:03 and the desire to buy a wine like this, it can be purchased.

12:06 Go to your local wine shop.

12:07 The second place, and probably maybe the best place

12:08 to get to a wine shop is to look online.

12:10 There are some pitfalls in that thing.

12:12 You know, in the wine industry, we talk about provenance,

12:14 like where did this bottle come from?

12:16 Who bought it?

12:16 Where it was stored?

12:17 All those things matter.

12:18 If you had a rare bottle of wine

12:20 and it was stored on top of somebody's refrigerator

12:22 for eight years, that's probably not good.

12:24 You want to make sure that the wine came

12:25 from a reputable place and was treated well.

12:27 And I think that also kind of removes you somewhat

12:29 from the counterfeit market.

12:31 The wine industry is coming, you know,

12:33 a lot closer in understanding, you know,

12:34 having counterfeit proof measures that are put on

12:37 from chips in the cork to holograms.

12:40 I think it's more important to buy from reputable places.

12:43 You know, people who have a reputation for selling,

12:45 you know, rare wine.

12:46 That eliminates, you know, a lot of the risk.

12:48 There is a reason why this wine is considered

12:50 one of the best wines made in America

12:52 and included in one of the best wines in the world.

12:55 You know, my relationship with wine is all exploratory.

12:59 For me, it's not to find a favorite that I want to drink

13:01 for the rest of my life that that feels kind of boring.

13:05 Now, maybe drinking to find the wine that I want to drink

13:06 the last 48 hours of my life, like that might be different.

13:10 Taste as many wines as you can,

13:12 whether they're expensive or not.

13:13 I don't play in that realm of buying these kinds of wines.

13:17 It's just not my thing, but I do get to taste them a lot.

13:20 I feel like because I don't pay for them,

13:22 you can really discern whether or not it's worth it.

13:24 Right, you know what I mean?

13:25 It's like, you watch the bootleg copy, you're like,

13:26 "Shit, I wouldn't pay $14 for that movie anyway."

13:29 Right? You know what I mean?

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