Charlie Palmer’s Most Prized Bottle Is a Birth-Year Bordeaux with a Backstory
The renowned chef’s most prized bottle is a Bordeaux that shares his name—and his birth year. [...] Read More... The post Charlie Palmer’s Most Prized Bottle Is a Birth-Year Bordeaux with a Backstory appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.
Chef Charlie Palmer has been a giant in the culinary world since 1988, when he opened Aureole in a historic Upper East Side townhouse. While the restaurant closed in 2020, Palmer’s commitment to creating dishes featuring regional American ingredients earned him plenty of accolades during the restaurant’s 30-year tenure, including the James Beard Foundation naming him “Best Chef in America” in 1997.
Since then, Palmer has opened several other restaurants across the country, including Dry Creek Kitchen at Hotel Healdsburg in Sonoma County and Charlie Palmer Steak locations in Washington, D.C., Reno, New York City and Napa. Now, he’s preparing to debut his own gastronomy-focused hotel brand, Appellation, with cofounder Christopher Hunsberger.
In addition to highlighting local food and wine, Appellation will be “very much about the craftspeople that do everything in that very specific and unique locale,” says Palmer. “It’s way beyond ‘farm to table’; we’re working at something that’s very much the next generation of that.”
The first location debuts this May, taking over the beloved Wine & Roses Resort & Spa in Lodi, California.
Palmer is a known wine connoisseur, and he owns more than 5,000 bottles spread between his Healdsburg home and his restaurants. But there is one wine that stands out, gifted to him by his good friend Jean-Jacques Rachou, the late chef behind NYC’s pioneering fine-dining restaurant La Côte Basque. This is Charlie Palmer’s Most Prized Bottle.
Owner: Charlie Palmer, chef, restaurateur and hotelier
Bottle: 1959 Château Palmer
How’d I Get It? “In the early days of Aureole, in the townhouse, I’d have a lot of great clients who were big wine collectors—we still do. We attract that kind of wine appreciator, partially because we’ve always been very friendly about bringing your own wine and drinking it in the restaurant and not killing you with a big fee. If it’s very special, there’s no corkage, especially if you’re sharing! But, because of the name, [several] people were bringing me Château Palmer. My birth year is 1959, and that’s obviously still one of the most fabled vintages in Bordeaux.
Some will say, [it’s] probably not the most drinkable at this point. But I’m not a collector that just sits on wine, you know? I’m not looking at, like, What’s the resale value of this? I’m always looking for a special occasion. A good friend of mine would buy me 1959 Château Palmer anytime he saw one. Some of it came from his collections, but some of it he was out there looking for. And he would just nonchalantly, around my birthday, show up at the restaurant having dinner, and say, ‘Oh, by the way, I brought you a little something special.’
He was an amazing person, someone I thought really looked at wine in the right way, very educated, well-traveled, and he went to Bordeaux and Burgundy at least once a year. But he was also very happy to share. In fact, his whole entire wine collection went to Citymeals on Wheels when he passed away a couple years ago, it was auctioned off and all the proceeds went to Citymeals. He was a very quiet, very private guy, but a super nice guy.
So, I still have one of the bottles of 1959 Château Palmer that he gave me. I drank all the others but I have that one, and a 1982 Château Palmer from him. I keep it in my cellar in California, in the ‘don’t touch’ section. I’m very free flowing with our wine with my four sons around the house. But when they were younger and in high school, and drinking illegally, there was a clear division: ‘Do not touch this side of the cellar.’”
Purchase Price: Gifted
Current Estimated Value: $2,043, according to Wine-Searcher
When Do You Plan to Drink It? “It’s got to be a special moment. I don’t know what that could be, because I’ve had so many special moments. When my two grandsons were born we celebrated with Champagne. It’s probably not in its best shape anymore. I probably should have drank it at least five, ten years ago. I don’t know—it’ll be spur of the moment. I’m sure something will happen, and we’ll say, ‘Let’s just drink that wine. Yeah, let’s go for it.’
I have tons of special wine, so probably today, I have more interesting bottles than that. But sentimentally, it’s different. The one thing I think I’m always thinking about is having it with other people that appreciate great wine. Because I’m a true believer in this, and people say it all the time—I love sharing great wine with friends—but I love sharing great wine with other people who really have an appreciation for it. I’m a big believer in that. I want to share something with someone that will also think, ‘Oh, this is really special.’”
More Wine Collecting Coverage
- Interested in starting your own collection? Don’t make these rookie wine collecting mistakes.
- Expert sommeliers and collectors weigh in on the potential paycheck of investing in wine.
- Some wines get better with age. Will yours? We explain the meaning behind “ageworthy.”
- Climate disasters are completely re-calibrating wine collecting. Here’s how.
From the Shop
A Moment of Zen
Wine Enthusiast’s Art Series Decanters bring sophisticated style to wine decanting and can double as a centerpiece.
The post Charlie Palmer’s Most Prized Bottle Is a Birth-Year Bordeaux with a Backstory appeared first on Wine Enthusiast.
