Wine News: Calif. winemakers bottle exclusivity
On a warm autumn afternoon, a steel-framed concrete warehouse north of San Francisco is inundated with grapes. Forklifts bearing fruit from the nearby Russian River Valley deliver their loads to a slow-moving conveyor belt.
Flanking both sides, winemaking interns pick out stems and sunburned grapes as they groove to hip-hop music thumping from loudspeakers.
It’s the crush at Kosta Browne Winery, a Sonoma County maker of pinot noir that’s become one of the hottest wineries among investment bankers, venture capitalists and enthusiasts. Michael Browne, Kosta Browne’s co-founder and winemaker, grabs a cluster from a tub and eats some of the grapes. They burst with berry flavor, and the seeds are nutty, not bitter.
“They’re popping; they’re ripe,” shouts Browne, 42, a ruddy-faced man with Elvis-style sideburns. “They’re beautiful.”
William Price, a co-founder of buyout firm TPG Capital in Fort Worth, would be happy to hear that. Price, whose Vincraft Group owns a majority stake in Kosta Browne, is betting on the next generation of California cult-wine makers.
These ultra-premium wineries shun retailers and make it hard to buy their wines, building a following through word of mouth. Cult pioneers – Colgin Cellars, Harlan Estate and Screaming Eagle – have reshaped the economics of the high-end market by fetching Bordeaux-caliber prices at auction.
The new crop of wineries is reaching for cult status in an industry in which it can take decades to turn a profit. For years, Browne and his partner, Dan Kosta, scraped together money every harvest to buy grapes and lease space and equipment at nearby wineries to make pinot.
They toiled at night as waiters and bartenders so they could devote their days to the exploitation of the grape. Bedeviled by rogue yeasts and other oenological disasters, the two men at times thought they might lose their sanity and their business, Browne says.
“The wine business is like a step up from a dot-com,” he says. “It’s very shaky, and it takes so much longer to make money than other businesses.”
Even so, for all of the angst about the economy in the real world, the good times are rolling in the rarefied domain of high-end wine. Buoyed by rising demand from flush Asian and Latin collectors, the Liv-ex Fine Wine 100 Index, which tracks the price movement of the world’s most-sought-after wines, soared 39 percent in 12 months that ended Nov. 30.
Astronomical prices
The world’s top auction houses sold an all-time high of $252 million in wines in 2010 through mid-December, with California reds drawing record prices.
Six bottles of Harlan Estate’s 1997 vintage from the Napa Valley sold for $7,170 – 30 percent higher than the top estimate of their value – at an October auction.
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Restaurant@Yats-International.com
(045) 599-5600
0922-870-5178
0917-520-4401
Ask for Pedro and Rechel
Getting to this fine dining restaurant of Angeles City Clark Freeport Zone Pampanga Philippines
How to get to this fine-dining restaurant in Clark Philippines? Once you get to Clark Freeport, go straight until you hit Mimosa. After you enter Mimosa, stay on the left on Mimosa Drive, go past the Holiday Inn and Yats Restaurant (green top, independent 1-storey structure) is on your left. Just past the Yats Restaurant is the London Pub.
Yats Restaurant & Wine Bar
Mimosa Drive past Holiday Inn, Mimosa Leisure Estate,
Clark Freeport Zone, Pampanga, Philippines 2023
Manila Sales Office
3003C East Tower, Phil Stock Exchange Center,
Exchange Rd Ortigas Metro Manila, Philippines 1605
(632) 637-5019 0917-520-4393 Rea or Chay
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