The Rise of Private Wine Labels

For Michael Green, choosing the Tokaji for a private bottling for his Bacchus group of restaurants in California was the first time he'd been to Hungary.

For Marcus Wareing, choosing his customised bottling of Gosset Champagne was not only the first time he'd been to a Champagne cellar but the first time he'd been to a winery. "I've always been focused on the kitchen," he says; "this was a lightbulb moment."

What is it that is adding to these restaurateurs' air miles, and giving them such new experiences? Something that is intended to give their guests a feeling of even greater exclusivity, of ever more identity and provenance: private bottlings of wines. "It's a tableside story for guests," says Andrew Green of Bacchus Restaurants in California. "It feels real, authentic, personal."

Green is an old hand at this. He's now on his 12th vintage of a Mosel Riesling, and had 10 vintages of a bottling of Pinot Noir from Willakenzie Estate in Oregon, until it was taken over by Kendall Jackson. He's had seven or eight barrels of Bourbon from Pappy van Winkle, and seasonal gins from two different distillers, the seasonality coming from the spring, summer, fall and winter botanicals. So, when he selects a particular barrel of Royal Tokaji 2016 it's because he's fallen in love with it.

"It's been an absolute adventure," he said, talking from Tokaji on a quiet Tuesday afternoon after spending the day immersed in the cellars. He's sold RT's Red Label 5 Puttonyos by the glass in Spruce and The Village Pub since they opened, and he reckons the barrel he's just selected will cover a year's sales in five or six of his restaurants. "It's unique to us, and the staff will be excited." He'll sell it by the two-ounce glass, and reckons to price it at $16-18. It'll be shipped next year, and cynics should note that, when RT comes to do its blends in the spring, it will first of all bottle those barrels it has sold for private labels, and then make its own blends from the rest.

How many bottles can Royal Tokaji sell privately without impinging on the quality of its own blends? Every barrel is different, so each barrel that is removed means less variation in blending material. "We've capped sales at 10 barrels," says managing director Charlie Mount. "We have about 400 in all, and we have to safeguard our main wine, which is the 5 Puttonyos."

Restaurants can have the empty barrel, if they like, or just the ends; it's up to them. Some, like Bern's Steakhouse in Florida will send the barrel to Woodford Reserve to be filled with Bourbon, so it will then have its own bottling of Woodford Reserve Royal Tokaji Finish. (Perhaps it could then go to a Scotch malt distillery for a Woodford Reserve Royal Tokaji Glen Mac-Something-Or-Other Finish. Recycling is fashionable, after all.)

For Tokaji you can choose a particular barrel; for Champagne you can choose your dosage, or, if you plan far enough ahead, your blend. Gosset is doing the former with Marcus Wareing in London, and in the future Wareing might do a particular blend, but it would mean waiting a good few years while the wine ages on its lees. If you choose a particular dosage the wine has already done its lees-ageing, and you get it a lot faster.

The dosage Wareing and his sommelier Michael Deschamps settled on is 6.5 grams per liter for both bottles and magnums, which is a bit lower than usual; the standard Gosset Grand Reserve for this blend, which is based on 2014, is 8 g/l for magnums. It's a precise, concentrated wine, with the trademark freshness of Gosset, and it should age (though clearly it won't get the chance) to notes of confit fruit, toast and citrus.

"I look at Champagne from a chef's point of view," says Wareing, "so I'll see it differently to my sommelier. I didn't think Champagne could go all through a meal," but now he's changed his mind. "Next year we'll incorporate it into our menus, and we'll be pouring it with certain types of food." It goes a treat with scallops with a savoury dressing, for example. He's taking 2500 bottles and about 300 magnums, and it will be available in all Marcus Wareing restaurants, at a premium over the standard Gosset Grand Reserve, which he will continue to list. "Maybe luxury in the future is about tailor-made wine," muses Gosset chef de cave Odilon de Varine, "rather than about gold leaf on the bottle."

Gold leaf on the bottle would not suit Roger Jones. His restaurant in Wiltshire, England, has an award-winning wine list that has never been too indebted to convention. If you want top wines from New Zealand, Australia, South Africa or Australia, or fancy some aged Riesling from Germany or Clare Valley, this is where you go.

So naturally, he has his own bottling of Newton Johnson Pinot Noir. It's the same as the regular Walker Bay bottling but with two years' extra age; and it goes down well. "We don't have any more to sell [to take away], so it's only in the restaurant now," he says. "It shows that we are proud to work with these guys and put our names together."

Would it work for the rest of us? A barrel does contain rather a lot of wine. You could talk to Royal Tokaji: when I asked them they mentioned a figure of $30,000. Or you could get together with like-palated friends to buy an individual barrel at the Hospices de Beaune auction, later in November. Happy shopping.