The Top Ten Tackiest Wines of All Time

My post last week about the $81 hamburger, the $1,000 pizza, and similarly inspired exercises in tackiness got me to thinking what one would drink with such a meal. Surely whatever wine one uncorks should be at least as tacky as the meal itself. I therefore present my list of the Top Ten Tackiest Wines of All Time, any one of which ought to make a suitable accompaniment.

10. Marilyn Merlot. — The velvet Elvis of wine packaged as Marilyn Merlot has actually become something of a collectible, more for Marilyn Monroe enthusiasts than for wine enthusiasts. Each vintage sports a different picture of the pinup queen on the label. A second wine from young vines is cleverly named Norma Jeane. The winery asks $3,800 for the inaugural 1985; complete verticals have sold for many times that.

9. Château Mouton-Rothschild. — Mouton clawed its way to the ranks of the Bordeaux first growths with Baron Philippe de Rothschild’s brilliant and much-imitated gimmick of decorating the label with paintings by famous artists. Some are aesthetic triumphs, such as the labels by Jean Cocteau, Georges Braque, Rufino Tamayo, even Keith Haring. Then there are the self-indulgent ones with portraits of the Rothschilds themselves—as in 1975, 1987, 2001, and 2003. (“You’re so vain / You probably think this wine is about you….”) Even those are not as tacky as the etched 2000, however.

8. Opus One. — Baron Philippe’s ego met its match in Robert Mondavi, and Opus One is their joint project—with portraits and the autographs of both men on the label. Mondavi’s memoir Harvests of Joy recounts that the name Opus One was chosen “to convey the impression that this was the first work of a master composer. That was an essential touch. It was bold and proud, as if our wine was already declaring itself a Premier Grand Cru Classé.” The master composer they had in mind was, of course, themselves.

7. Harlan Estate’s Napa Valley Reserve. — Quintessential California “cult” wine Harlan Estate could merit its own place on this list, but owner Bill Harlan outdid himself with his “Napa Valley Reserve,” a fantasy camp of sorts for rich people whose wealth has failed to buy them the good taste to eschew wines like Harlan Estate. Members of the program pay a six-figure initiation fee and then must buy a barrel’s worth of wine each year. The fee is less for the wine than the chance to play make-believe, as members spend parts of their allotted vacations at the Reserve performing the minimal amount of manual labor necessary to sustain the fantasy that the resulting wine is somehow personally crafted by them. A 2005 New York Times profile of the project followed a few members getting their hands dirty before dryly noting, “When they finished their tasks, of course, the pros took over.”

6. Hundred Acre “Gold.” — What’s tackier than a Napa cabernet with all the usual “cult” marketing and mailing-list schtick? How about a white wine from one of those wineries with actual flakes of 24-karat gold suspended in the bottle, like Goldschläger schnapps? To make the tackiness here even richer, instead of a wine label, Hundred Acre Gold sports a faux-illuminated manuscript emblazoned on the bottle in golden cursive, which begins: “In the ancient world, rulers of Kingdoms long lost and some still part of current memory made wine and mined gold. Their armies fought to keep it and ranged over the earth to obtain it. Legends stretched across the millennia, steeped in mystery and religion. Tales of kings living for generations, ancient tribal leaders speaking of the holy grail, knights templar, women wise and young, all of their non-believing friends old and gone forever.” This text is best imagined read aloud in the spooky voice from Donovan’s “Atlantis,” or as the lyrics of a hypothetical Rush song.

5. Krug Champagne “Clos d’Ambonnay.” — Since Krug’s acquisition by the evil LVMH, the prices for its Champagnes have skyrocketed, especially the only terroir-specific bottling, Clos de Mesnil. Recognizing a cash cow when they see one, the evil overlords at LVMH inaugurated Krug’s second single-vineyard Champagne, Clos d’Ambonnay, with a suggested retail price of $3,000 per bottle and got reams of free publicity from the sheer chutzpah of it.

4. Cattier Champagne “Armand de Brignac,” self-nicknamed the “Ace of Spades.” — The most popular Champagne for conspicuous consumption among gangsta rappers, and those affecting the gangsta persona, used to be Louis Roederer’s Cristal. Then Roederer executive Frédéric Rouzaud put his foot in his mouth. Asked if Cristal’s following could harm its sophisticated image, Rouzaud answered, “That’s a good question, but what can we do? We can’t forbid people from buying it. I’m sure Dom Pérignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business.” Rapper and nightclub owner Jay-Z promptly banned Cristal from his establishments and organized a boycott, opening a vacuum in the market for bling Champagne. The tension was palpable as connoisseurs everywhere prayed that Jay-Z would not think of a rhyme for “Salon” or “Clos des Goisses.” These prayers were answered when a tacky gold bottle with an ace-of-spades logo appeared in a Jay-Z video. Jay-Z and brand owner Cattier Champagne hilariously denied this was a paid product placement.

3. Perrier-Jouët Champagne “La Belle Epoque” (€50,000 version). — Those too lazy to perform perfunctory manual labor at Harlan Estate’s Napa Valley Reserve now have an easier way to buy faux-personalized wine at exorbitant prices. €50,000 buys you a case of Perrier-Jouët 2000 Belle Epoque Champagne—the same stuff that retails for $100 or so—except this version comes in a special box and gives buyers the opportunity to “come to Epernay for a one-on-one meeting with our cellar master Herve Deschamps” and “personally add a ‘liqueur’ to personalize the bottles.” The “liqueur,” described as “a combination of sugar and wines from different years,” sounds like it is just the dosage added to most Champagnes in miniscule quantities, making a bottle of this wine quite possibly the highest price ever paid for 10 to 15 grams of beet sugar, assuming Perrier-Jouët found anyone tacky enough to pay it.

2. Sherry-Lehmann’s engraved bottles of Dom Pérignon and Krug. — At least you cannot be accused of buying Dom Perignon or Krug for the label if the bottles you buy have had the label removed and replaced with etchings such as a “sensuous, captivating woman in her simple black dress with wind-blown hair giv[ing] a receptive glance over her soft, bare shoulder” or a “cherub-like caricature of a newborn baby.”

1. Ghost Horse World. — Res ipsa loquitur.