Auctioneer
By David Keck
When VT Wine Shepherd picked up a large part of the Broadbent Selections portfolio last Fall, it was largely because of the epic South African and Australian producers that were being imported by this company, not to mention Gunther Steinmetz from Germany and Bindi Sergardi from Italy. Recently Broadbent Selections approached us with an unexpected wine that we are now super excited to be selling in VT: Auctioneer Cabernet Sauvignon.
The ‘Auctioneer’ wine is an homage to the great Michael Broadbent, MW who sadly passed last year at the age of 92. Mr. Broadbent was one of the most revered figures in the wine business, having tasted more rare and old wines than anyone else in the world. In 2002, Florence Fabricant quoted Michael Broadbent in the New York Times as saying:
''You'd recognize Churchill or Eisenhower or de Gaulle, the minute you see them,'' he said. ''I recognize certain wines at the first taste and often before I taste them, when they're poured into the glass and when I nose them. I doubt if I'd ever mistake a Mouton '45 or a Mas de Domaine Gassac '82.''
In 1966, Broadbent jump started the wine trade side of the famous Christie’s Auction, re-centering the heart of the wine business in London (it had really moved to Hong Kong at this point). In 1981 he joined Robert Mondavi in starting the now-famous Napa Valley Wine Auction (raising almost $12 million in 2019 for children’s health and education in Napa County). He was a prolific writer for numerous publications (most famously writing a regular column for Decanter that ran for 35 years!) as well as authoring several books on wine tasting and vintage wine. Broadbent famously kept wine notes in his little red notebooks, publishing these in The Great Vintage Wine Book in 1991.
This Napa Cabernet Sauvignon is a fitting tribute to a man who loved ‘claret’ and tasted more Cabernet-based Bordeaux than most people could imagine. It is balanced and bright, with the elegance for which Napa Cabernet was famous many years ago (pre-Parker-scores and monster-Cab era with 16% alcohol and 200% new oak). There is some new oak on the wine, but it doesn’t dominate, the alcohol is carried well (not difficult at 13.5%) and the acidity is on point.
Enjoy this beautiful example of Napa Cabernet as an appreciation for one of the wine world’s greatest appreciators of wine.