Why is Gaja's wine so expensive??

[stevebody]

Okay, small example but a relevant one:

Taurino Notarpanaro. The pride and joy of the late Dr. Cosimo, who berrelled it until he LIKED it, bottled it and laid it until he thought it was ready, and then - ONLY then - released it. In the summer of '00, I was selling the current vintage: the 1993. It costs about $13 and is worth a lot more. Certainly, aged wine is more enjoyable then something green and rebellious. But I, personally, don't require a profound wine every time I open a bottle. I opened a 1995 La Grange tonight and it's wonderful. But so was the Umberto Cesari Tauleto I had last night. So was the Broquel Malbec two nights ago. The Novy Bordeaux blend I had over the weekend. And the Il Borro I had last week. On that list, the La Grange probably would have come in, IMHO, fourth or fifth. The point is, they were ALL good. And only one required my investment of eight years and schlepping from one house to the next.

I age a good amount of wine but a lot of that has to do with a trusim I had laid on me by no less a personage than Serge Hochar: "There's a whole lot of wine out there," he told me, "Have many romances but few marriages."