Episode #674 – From Sellers to Buyers to Buyers With Cellars; Benchmark and the Rare Wine

We’ve been talking about Benchmark Wine Group for a few years now and, now that Covid is largely behind us, we couldn’t wait to get up to Napa, California to check the company out in person with its founder David Parker. Benchmark is the world’s most acclaimed buyer and seller of rare and elite wines. We were given a tour of their Napa Valley facility and it would be an understatement to say it absolutely boggles the mind. Meticulously cataloged and organized, the most legendary wines in existence are stacked floor to ceiling in what might well be the largest wine cellar of its kind in the world. The Benchmark collection of wines is really a collection of many collections. In fact, Benchmark purchases wine collections from around the world, in part, and in their entirety. With a few simple keystrokes, you can find wines by varietal, region, price and more.

Tune in and learn everything you need to know about buying, selling and collecting the world’s most coveted wine. It’s an hour of fine wine immersion with David Parker as our guide. Oh, and if you’re worried that this might be a little too rich for your blood, we can assure you that there isn’t a more down-to-earth person in the wine business than David Parker, a genuinely humble guy who turned his love of wine into an enterprise that is simply out of this world. By the way, despite having access to the finest wines ever crafted, David has no trouble confessing that he often enjoys drinking the very same wines that the rest of us do. What a relief to learn that price isn’t everything!

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