Anonymous wrote:I think Mikes tounge may have been in his cheek
Planted so firmly I reckon it almost choked him.
MM
Choking? No, just trying to provide a little humor along with some insight into how the US wine market treats the rising stars of the Australian wine scene. Kalleske is probably the best, and certainly the most recent, example in my experience of the consumer being taken to the cleaners by retailers. If you do a search using
Wine Searcher you never find very many retailers listed as dealing in Kalleske wines. What you do find is significant price differences. The most reasonable is
Cork and Bottle - sold out of the not yet released 2003 shiraz at $45USD/btl.
Old Town Wine Co will give you a discount of 1 cent from $100USD for the same wine (presale). And I've already indicated what Cripes, I mean, Grapes The Wine Co wants for Kalleske wines.
Even with the current exchange rates these prices make the $80AUD starting prices on Wickman's Fine Wine Auctions seem reasonable. Additionally you also have to weigh these outrageous USD prices against the simple fact that there is just so much excellent Aussie wine available. Then there is the overwhelming amount of local stuff, and all that French, Italian, German, etc., etc. The supply never really ends over here. The fortunate thing for the retailers who do sell at these high prices is that, especially on the East Coast, the market is a bottomless pit for low production, high scoring wines. They can charge almost anything and someone will pay it.
Whether the folks who buy these wines have a history of buying Aussie wines, whether they will drink the wine, and whether they will then actually talk about it is another matter. Check out Ric Einstein's note about Hill of Grace on his Drops 'n Dregs page at
Torb Wine. Ric found very few TN's on HoG, most were from the US, and most from first time drinkers. Its probably reasonable to argue that we may never get a real idea of how some of these new low production wines, like Kalleske, age simply because they have gone into the cellars of people who are collecting these wines based on points and not for what they represent. Hopefully the winery, or some of you folks, are laying a good number aside so that they can be assessed in 10, 20, 30, 40 years!
Mike
If you do, just make sure you mind-meld with the forum before the lights go out so we can get those last few TNs. 
