Winery tour at Lynch-Bages

Steve really wanted to tour this winery and had booked a tour online in advance. Our tour guide Hélènne was great. She told us all about how the wine was made. Blah, blah, blah, yeast, blah, blah, settling, blah blah cabernet, merlot and cabernet franc. Finally we got to the barrel room and the interesting part--the math.



This is the 2009, aging in French oak barrels. They only use French oak and they only use each barrel twice. Some wineries use each barrel 3 times, but not Lynch-Bages. After 2 uses they sell their barrels to those other silly wineries. The 2009 sold out in 2 hours for $140 a bottle! It is now up to $161 a barrel, but Lynch-Bages doesn't own it any more, they sold it all (at $140.) But here it will sit for 9 months. Each barrel holds 300 bottles, so each one is worth $48,300! I told you there would be math. And it won't even be ready to drink for 2 years!

In the tasting room we did get to taste the 09. Yep, definitely not ready to drink yet, but it'll probably be spectacular some day. Most surprising of all is that the tour doesn't end in the gift shop. They have no wine to left to sell. Not that I would ever spend that much on a bottle of wine anyway, but it was a fun tour.