Make your own Pauillac!

We actually made 4 barrels of wine as part of the Gary Vaynerchuck group ca lled Vayniacs and it was a Vayniac 2007 Napa Cabernet. It turned out to be damn good and I still have 4 bottles of the case I bought. Why shouldn't Fr ance get in on the deal. It doesn't have to be one person investing. Can be a small group. It's a fun way to get a moderately good wine. Will it be a grand crus Bordeaux, no, but again, we had fun blending and it wasn't that expensive.

It all comes down to the quality of the grapes that one would have access to. I know a number of people who make use of custom crush facilities in CA, and many of them make damn good wine. However, all of them have access to grapes from very good vineyards and where they have some say in the level of ripeness, etc. of the grapes that they get.

I suspect, without knowing for sure, that this facility in Bdx would probably only get access to grapes that the chateaux choose to sell off, either because them come from young vines or because they don't meet the selection criteria of the chateaux. In such a case, one would probably have little say in what they got to work with. It would be fun, however, to be able to produce a non-spoofy Pauillac for one's own consumption.

Mark Lipton

But with Caze overseeing it, I doubt one would get junk. Graham

True, certainly, but what one would get would be Cru Bourgeois quality, I'd hazard, albeit good Cru Bourgeois.

Mark Lipton

Hmmm - and doing the numbers - 24 cases of own label wine @ $NZ75 / bottle (by the time freight, duties, VAT(GST) is added Certainly, maybe a good Cru Bourgeois .......... but !!!!!!!!!!!! As an old Sales Trainer once told me - Don't forget to add in "The Risk Factor"