Sonoma's Most Expensive Wines - Wine-Searcher

Anyone who grew up in the shadow of a more successful sibling will have a soft spot for Sonoma.

If it was sited in pretty much any other wine geography on earth, it would be revered for the quality and diversity of its output but, because it sits next to all-conquering Napa, it must always seem to suffer by comparison.

Napa gets the big bucks, the big scores and the vast majority of the attention, which tends to eclipse its western neighbor somewhat, often unfairly. When it comes to quality, there is a perception that Napa's top wines tend to score more highly with critics, even though that's not really the case. Napa's 10 highest-scoring wines (across all vintages) have aggregate critic scores ranging between 95 and 97, while Sonoma's sit at 95 or 96. 

However, it's price where the big differences are; higher prices mean more attention in this shallow, money-obsessed world, unfortunately, and Napa Valley certainly does swing more weight in that particular contest.

Well, it does at the top end, anyway. Drilling down away from the high-value, high-profile wineries suggests that things aren't all in Napa's favor. Certainly, the average price of a Napa Cabernet has been in rude health in recent times, currently standing at an average of $93 a bottle, up by 32.9 percent from 2015. Sonoma Cabernet, by contrast, sits at a much more modest average of $20 per bottle, a rise of 14.7 percent over five years.

Chardonnay is a similar story, with Napa wines almost twice the average price of their Sonoma counterparts, at $35 and $18 a bottle, respectively.

Pinot is a different story, as you'd imagine. Sonoma is full of Pinot plantings by comparison with Napa – the average price of a Sonoma Coast Pinot is $55 a bottle, while Carneros Pinot from over the hill sits at $35 a bottle on average.

However, the real surprise is when it comes to Bordeaux blends – Sonoma blends command an average of $235 a bottle, a rise of 120 percent over five years; the Napa equivalent stands at $193 and has enjoyed a relatively modest five-year increase of 37.8 percent. That's more of a reflection of the rarity of Sonoma Bordeaux blends, however, than any major threat to Napa's top tier.

But this series is not about the average wines, or the majority of wines – it's all about the price tag. So let's take a closer look at the Sonoma wines with the highest global average prices on our database.

The Most Expensive Sonoma Wines on Wine-Searcher:

	Wine Name	Score	Ave Price
	Marcassin Estate Chardonnay, Sonoma Coast	95	$385
	Vérité La Joie, Sonoma County	95	$381
	Peter Michael Point Rouge Chardonnay, Sonoma County	96	$381
	Vérité La Muse, Sonoma County	95	$380
	Vérité Le Désir, Sonoma County	95	$374
	Marcassin Blue Slide Ridge Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast	90	$319
	Marcassin Marcassin Vineyard Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast	91	$315
	Immortal Estate Impassable Mountain Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon, Sonoma County	93	$290
	Marcassin Three Sisters Chardonnay, Sonoma Coast	91	$262
	Marcassin Three Sisters Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast	90	$262

At first glance, the list looks like the march of the Marcassins, and it pretty much is, with the Helen Turley-owned estate accounting for half the list. Peter Seillan's Vérité Bordeaux blends make up much of the rest, and the prices look healthy, if not spectacular.

However, the prices are slightly stuck, if you look a little deeper. In the past year, all 10 wines have seen their average price fall – small falls, it's true, but falls nonetheless. The Marcassin Three Sisters Chardonnay, for example, fell by just 0.78 percent, while the Immortal Cabernet dropped by a sobering 20 percent (from $364 last June to today's $290); overall the wines have each fallen by an average of 6 percent.

That's not unusual for the past year, though. What with Covid, trade wars, tariffs and the rest, it's been a tough year for everyone. And while comparisons are proverbially odious, it's interesting to note that Napa's 10 most expensive wines managed a small (1.24 percent) increase over the same period.

Zooming out to take in the long view offers a healthier view. In the past five years, Sonoma's most expensive wines have grown their average bottle prices by an average of 35.8 percent. However, most of that growth is down to the explosion in the Immortal Cabernet's average price – from $75 a bottle in 2015 to $290 today, a jump of 285 percent. Remove that wine and the average rise is just 8.25 percent for the others.

Meanwhile, Napa's top 10 have grown their average prices by 65.35 percent in the same period. That figure is driven by a 314 percent increase in average price for Realm's Absurd red blend, but even without that the rest of the wines managed to jump in price by an average of 37.7 percent each.

That level of price inequality casts a hell of a shadow.

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Sonoma's Most Expensive Wines - Wine-Searcher
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