When Zachys, the Scarsdale wine emporium, holds one of its major Friday auctions at the restaurant Daniel in Manhattan, the bidders are mostly there, it seems, for the high-end Burgundies. Between 9:00 A.M. and lunchtime, the lots of assorted Bâtard-Montrachets go down like ninepins being bowled over by a bunch of rowdy teenagers. Numbered paddles rise and fall as the prices are yapped out, and thousands of virtual dollars ebb and flow around the dazzling parade of cases, magnums, and jeroboams that collectors and sommeliers flock to snap up.
Then, by midafternoon, there are the American wines, the Pride Mountain Reserves and the old Joseph Phelpses, the Harlan Estates and the Inglenook Cask F-9s from the fifties, most with cryptic catalog notes: "Very top shoulder, wine-stained label, bottom neck or better, into neck." The bidding becomes noticeably slacker, and many of the collectors and sommeliers pack up their laptops and walk out to lunch. But one Californian lot at Zachys's late spring auction held their attention for a few moments — number 1157A, a single bottle of 1947 Martin Ray Cabernet Sauvignon.
One of the perks, dear reader, of being your humble alcohol correspondent is that occasionally I am given a budget to attend a Zachys auction and buy things like Lot 1157A. The crying of this particular lot, however, was a bit of a tussle. There were other eyes lusting after the '47 Ray, and the bidding soon heated up. For a moment I felt like Cary Grant in North by Northwest when he attends an auction with some unsavory types who want to kill him and tries to get himself arrested by being silly: A painting is offered at $1,200, and he calls out, "Thirteen dollars! That's more than it's worth." But this 60-year-old Martin Ray, auctioneer Fritz Hatton solemnly told us, was a truly special wine, one of the greatest American wines ever made, and it was definitely worth more than the pre-auction estimate of $300 to $500, or the $650 at which bidding began. How much more? That was to be determined by testosterone.
There is a petty sense of power that comes from bidding in a price war. All eyes are turned on you. You are in a duel with a guy on the other end of a telephone, and no one knows where — or who — he is. We went to $700, then $800, then to $900 and $950, and were instantly upped every time. It's at the $1,000 mark that people begin to fidget with nervous interest. There aren't many wines, not even French ones, that can fetch a grand in open auction. The Zachys officials smelled blood. Who would be the last bidder standing? I offered $1,100.
Sold. To the drunk-looking gentleman with his head in his hands. I went out to claim the spoils of war and was told that I could pick up my purchase a week later. And that the buyer's premium and other charges had elevated the final sale price: $1,419.59 for a bottle of Californian Cabernet that once sold for six bucks. Morally, I should have flayed myself alive. But Martin Ray, as it happens, is one of the few Californian producers who interest me. For one thing, his ancient Cabs — those prior to 1953 — are housed in Champagne bottles complete with Champagne corks. In anticipation of popping this particular cork, I reserved a table at Daniel a week later and asked if I could bring the fabled bottle with me. At first, the man on the phone was a little alarmed. "A Martin Ray 1947? What can you eat with that?" And would I be uncorking the monster in the middle of that beautifully august dining room?
