GLOP-ULARITY

And "BATMAN" Wines

As previously mentioned, the ongoing collapse of the high-end California wine industry is creating some once-in-my-lifetime buying opportunities... so much so that I had to restrain myself from adding to my present lifetime supply. Here are just three of my latest acquisitions, all from CAMX, the latest company founded and operated by wine broker extraordinaire Cameron Hughes:

Lot 39-- 2024 Alexander Valley Malbec........ < $14/bottle ($275)

Lot 34-- 2024 Napa Valley Petite Sirah.......... <$13/bottle ($300)

Lot 46-- 2024 Napa Valley Merlot.................. <$17/bottle ($250)

(The prices per bottle are the original CAMX futures prices. The prices in parentheses are the regular prices under their original labels.)

For all three of these releases, Hughes stressed to us followers of his that the sources for these require an even higher degree of secrecy than his usual offerings, and he discouraged speculation about them in online forums. That being said, here's what we know--

Lot 34 comes from one of perhaps four Oakville (Napa) wineries that sell their Cabernet Sauvignons for well over $300/bottle. This Petite Sirah was most likely a secret blending partner that the winery used to add fruit and muscle to the Cabernet.

Lot 39 comes from a high-altitude Alexander Valley winery. (There aren't many of those.) I narrowed it down to a tiny-production cult winery that sits on a mountaintop well above the fog and is little known beyond serious wine geekdom.

Lot 46 comes from a high-altitude vineyard the Pritchard Hill sub-appellation of Napa Valley.

All three of these wines are ridiculously delicious, and all three demonstrate a rare quality that I've come to appreciate and yet had no name until now-- GLOP-ULARITY. By that I mean these wines are absolutely packed with dense layers of powerful flavor, a degree of rich ripeness only attainable in grapes planted in a perfect climate, cultivated with meticulous vineyard stewardship, and then vinified with spare-no-expense cellarmastery. The results have historically justified their three-figure price tags, because until recently these were mailing-list-only wineries with lengthy waiting lists.

This cannot last... I don't expect such bargains to be available much longer. Meanwhile, what on earth is a BATMAN wine?

Folks my age (67 and counting) surely remember the BATMAN television series that aired from 1966 to 1968. Something unusual happened as we watched-- we youngsters thought we were enjoying a comic book come to life, and yet our parents were laughing at jokes we couldn't comprehend. That's because this show was purposely designed to appeal on two distinct levels-- action-packed crime-fighting for youthful viewers, and subtle, sophisticated humor for adults.

So... a BATMAN WINE is one crafted with two tiers of enjoyment-- easy to love, fruit-forward glop-ularity with broad appeal; and underlying structure and minerality for the sophisticated connoisseur. Two of the three wines listed above-- the Petite Sirah and the Malbec-- qualify as BATMAN wines. The Merlot, however, needs about two years in the cellar before the tannin sufficiently softens to fully reveal the underlying dark, rich fruitiness.