Bay Magazine, June 2008
Liquid Assets
by John Bancroft

     You are about to meet two collectors of fine wines. Their motive is not profit, although that might well come their way. What drives them is the thrill of the chase, the camaraderie of winemakers and other collectors, the pleasure of sharing their treasures with friends.
     Our first collector walls his wines away behind a solid door with a digital lock. Our second invites dinner guests to enjoy the view of his collection behind generous windows. The first has a scheme for racking but leaves no paper trail. He likes to browse his cellar and be surprised by little gems he's picked up on his travels and forgotten. The second is a meticulous cataloger. His cellar book, bound in black leather, assigns every bottle a bin.
     The first holds his cellar temperature at a constant 55 degrees, the second at 56. Both cellars are protected by sensors and alarms and each can cradle 2,000 bottles. Both are physicians married to women who cheerfully aid and abet their oenophilia.

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     Dr. Edward Zbella, an infertility specialist, shares a home in Belleair with Dr. Lisa Nemec, a radiologist, their two youngest children and a pair of rambunctious miniature schnauzers.
     His vaultlike cellar, which he designed before the house was built in 1996, is downstairs at garage level, which makes for easy stocking. From upstairs it is reached by a spiral stair of blond wood that connects to the kitchen and an adjacent wine bar. Today is 7/2/08. It is now 10:38 AM"I've carried a lot of wine up these stairs," he said as we descended, carefully, glasses in hand, "but not much down."
     He has uncorked a 2002 Joseph Phelps Insignia, a Bordeaux-style blend dominated by the cabernet sauvignon grape, from one of his favorite winegrowing regions, California's Napa Valley.
     Let me note how generous a gesture this is. Wine Spectator named the 2002 Insignia its Wine of the Year when it was released in 2005 and gave it a coveted 96 points. Only 15,000 cases were produced. If you can find it today, it will set you back anywhere from $150 to $340 the bottle.
     Winemaker Craig Williams says of this wine that its "exceptionally elegant mouthfeel coats the palate with layer after layer of tannin, followed by a lengthy, textured finish containing sweet oak notes and a hint of blackberry."
     "Amen," I say. Dr. Zbella notes how beautifully the bouquet blossoms as the wine breathes in the glass and rises by slow degrees from cellar temperature.
     He loves the Phelps Insignia and regularly adds vintages as they are released. He could have cellared the 2002 another five years or longer, but this wine is for drinking as the spirit moves him, as are most of the wines he buys. The two major exceptions to that rule are the cult wines produced by Grace Family Vineyards of California (he's very strong in limited production wines) and the prized first growth clarets produced by the great ChŒteau Mouton Rothschild of Bordeaux. These he has laid down indefinitely.
     The latter he collects not just for the heady wine inside the bottle, but also for the label outside. Since 1945, Mouton Rothschild each year has commissioned artists from Picasso and Chagall to Warhol and Haring to create images to adorn that year's label.
     From a cascade of open racks occupying pride of place in the center of his cellar Dr. Zbella pulls the series from 1997 to 2000 for inspection as we talk. Works by Niki De Saint-Phalle, Rufino Tamayo and Raymond Savignac lead up to a rendering of the Augsburg Ram in gold enamel commissioned for the year of the millennium. The labels laugh and glow as we turn the precious bottles in our hands.
     The Insignia in our glasses, meanwhile, has opened fully, revealing all of its astonishing power and finesse. I hate to leave, but I have another appointment.

* * *

     Dr. Fernando Salazar is a prominent cardiologist and a wine collector of eclectic taste. He and Barbara Salazar, who left a career in nursing to follow her bliss as a painter and sculptor, live in Seminole beside a small body of fresh water in which otters play. The focal points of their home are her outsized painting of calla lilies over the fireplace and his windowed cellar, a massively insulated retrofit of a home office space.
     Like Dr. Zbella, Dr. Salazar travels widely and often in pursuit of discoveries. Unlike his colleague, who concentrates primarily in one growing region and one style, he casts a wider net. Not only do his red wines span continents and embrace many styles, he also has made room for a sideline in sake, the rice beverage closer to beer than to wine that is marketed under names like Wandering Poet and Hawk In The Heavens. He picked up the taste when he and Barbara visited Japan.
     His favorite sakes, from a class called Junmai Daiginjo, referring to their fermentation from the most highly polished rice, are meant to be drunk cold. Within his cellar there is a small glass-front refrigerator in which he keeps selected sakes and white wines for sampling at a moment's notice, as apparently happens often. I was barely through his front door when he asked if I'd have a glass with him.
     On the wall opposite the sake chiller is a cigar humidor in a cedar drawer, another feature that sets his cellar apart. "I just collect them," the cardiologist in him is quick to note, "I don't smoke them. Mostly, people give them to me."
     Wine, of course, is a different matter, especially red wine, which is good for us (in moderation).
     "Wine," the collector declares in a voice of quiet authority, "is not for investing. It's for drinking."
     That goes even for a prize as highly rated as his 1998 ChŒteau Haut-Brion, considered one of the top Haut-Brions ever produced.
     Wine maven Robert Parker scores this "prodigious" Premier Grand Cru Bordeaux a 96 and estimates it will be suitable for drinking now through 2035. "It tastes like liquid nobility," he wrote. Wine Spectator scores the wine a point higher and estimates it will drink best after 2009. The magazine declared the wine a classic.
     And Dr. Salazar's opinion?
     "It's a beautiful wine. I think it will be ready in five years or so, but we may drink it sooner."
     "Amen," I say again.

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