Let’s suppose you have a sudden craving for a bottle of 1990 Chateau Haut-Brion. . . . OK, let’s be realistic. You’re looking for a 25th wedding anniversary present for your father-in-law, who’s monster interested in fine French wine, especially great vintages of the Big Five. Now Dad-in-law is loaded, so he could very easily buy a ’90 Haut-Brion for himself, but precisely because he is loaded, you want to have the old bird well-disposed toward you when will-writing time comes round, if only to score part of his cellar when it’s broken up.
Only problem is, Haut-Brion is way the smallest of the Big Five Bordeaux vineyards, and its best wines sell out as soon as they’re released or even before, so you can’t just walk into a package store and ask for a bottle, however well stuffed your wallet at the moment. But thanks to some accommodating folks down New Zealand way, you can easily track down said bottle. Not only track one down, but track down several bottles at different stores from here to Kankakee, check out how committed each is to fine wine, and compare prices and shipping costs.
Let’s use that ’90 Haut-Brion as an example. Go to www.wine-searcher.com. As it happens, Wine Searcher uses 1990 Haut-Brion in its site tutorial. All you have to do is choose “USA” as the country you want to search, and “WA” as the state. Oops. No hits. Try “OR.” Still no luck. OK, how about “CA”? Ah, lots of hits. Here’s a place in Berkeley that sells it for only $275 a bottle! That’s a lot better than the one in Santa Rosa that wants $370. . . .
Uh-oh. Seems that in your innocence you thought there was just one Haut-Brion, but now you learn that there are two—Haut-Brion straight, and La Mission Haut-Brion, which turns out to be the chateau’s “second label.” Now you face a dilemma. Do you take a chance of giving the old man La Mission, and saving $100 to $150, or do you bite the bullet and go for the gold? And geez, other California wine merchants list their Haut-Brion at prices up to $495 a bottle, while at least one wants $419.50 for La Mission, for pete’s sake. There must be some reason they think they can get it. Better storage? Better reputation? Aaargh.
Aaargh all you want. You already know a lot more than you did a few minutes ago, and it hasn’t cost you a cent. (The wine shops that list their stock with Wine Searcher pay the freight.) And the site’s services only start there. There are links to all the listed shops as well as their (admittedly biased) descriptions of the bottle in question. For real wine buffs, the site is like salted cashews once you find out how easy it is to use. You realize you’ve drunk your last bottle of Tamarack Cellars’ dynamite ’03 Firehouse Red. Is any still on the market? It is at Bellevue’s Mad Wines for a reasonable $17 a bottle. Now you’re flying. Have fun!
