For a merchant selling bottles that are breathtakingly expensive or merely a little extravagant, the right surroundings count. One store created a space dedicated to indulgence.
Wine Store: Amagansett Trophy Room
There is a new protected habitat in town, and it’s not for piping plovers or ospreys. This one is more for bon vivants than birds—unless it is a Screaming Eagle (one of the world’s rarest cult wines) you are looking for. This habitat is more for savants who would happily skip tennis, golf, sailing or the beach on a sunny afternoon and stay indoors to savor a vintage Chateau Margaux. This frankly sybaritic space is a tribute to some of the world’s most rare and desirable wines. Appropriately, the space itself is handsome and refined as well as functional and civilized.
I am referring the Trophy Room, a new addition to Amagansett Wines. Carved out of former storage space, this store within a store is stocked with precious wines, sought after because of their extraordinary quality. Many are available only in restricted numbers of cases. On occasion there might be only several bottles available. Scarcity is reflected in prices. Some can be breathtakingly expensive, some merely a little extravagant. But regardless of price, for wine lovers there is a something majestic in seeing them collected in one room. And I am sure this room will soon be attracting cognoscenti from all over.
The Trophy Room is partly about smart marketing. It is a wine repository where Michael Cinque and his staff at Amagansett Wines can take important buyers to discuss or to sip. Surrounded by such celebrated labels, even devotees are reminded that rare wine is more than merchandise. For collectors, it is a prize. And acquiring such bottles can be a significant achievement. But there is even more to it than direct marketing. When you are spending hundreds of dollars on a bottle, you want to be secure in your choice of a wine merchant and this type of room strengthens that trust.
Screaming Eagle, a winery that produces a total of only about 500 cases a year, is arguably the holy grail of California wines. Other close contenders might be Bryant Family wines and the brand new, highly limited Hundred Acres label—both of which are sold in Amagansett. In their cellars, Amagansett stocks almost all the important Bordeaux vintages from all the major chateaux. And in their Trophy Room, they feature such treasures as the highly sought after 2000 vintages of Chateau Lafite Rothschild and Chateau Margaux. From the Rhone valley, Chateau Rayas, Chave and Chapoutier are represented.
The prize names from Australia are there: Henschke's Hill Of Grace and Penfolds Grange, Torbreck, and Clarendon Hills, among them. Gaja, Tua Rita, and La Spinetta represent the superstars from Italy along with many Brunellos from the now much sought-after '97 vintage.
The list goes on, and the selection is dazzling. As far as I know, only a handful of stores in the New York area can compete in this recherché territory. So if you are going to indulge, you are in the perfect bailiwick. But even if you are just picking up a house wine for dinner, stroll into the Trophy Room. It’s an eye-opener and the friendly staff is proud to show it off.
