Is it possible for Ol’ Blue Eyes to hock wine?

Time will tell as  The Sinatra Family Estates has announced its first wine offering, Come Fly With Me, a limited-production

Sinatra Family Estate Wine offers first vintage.

2007 Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon.

The winery partnered with the Frank Sinatra Estate and his three children (Tina, Nancy and Frank Jr.) to produce the wine.

The wine is being produced from a five-acre vineyard site in Napa Valley, and only 500 cases will be bottled and are selling at a steep price of $570 for six bottles. The website says the wine has notes of cherry with hints of leather and spice and says it has a 92 rating but no indication of where that rating came from.

Each vintage will be named after a Sinatra classic and the wine label features a logo of a record.

Whomever the previous owners are of Preakness Stakes winning filly Rachel Alexandra have to be kicking themselves!

Kendall-Jackson to offer limited Rachel Alexandra edition.

They sold the horse to Jess Jackson and Barbara Banke who own Kendall- Jackson winery a mere few days before the big race.  So what do winery owners do to celebrate?  Issue a commemorative blend of course honoring the three-year old horse and will be available in time for the 2009 holiday season.

Kendall-Jackson will produce no more than 300 cases and each bottle will feature Rachel’s visage.   And this is a good looking horse as she was recently featured in a Vogue magazine spread shot by acclaimed photographer Steven Klein.

Thieves make off with 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild

We’ve all heard of the classic “distract & grab” when it comes to fine jewels, but in a sign of the times that has now segued to wines.

At Hopkinton Wine & Spirits in Boston, a woman continually asked a series of questions to a clerk while two counterparts raided the cooler of a 1945 Chateau Mouton Rothschild valued at $20,000 and two other pricey vintages.

The dastardly deed was caught on surveillance cameras and most of the loss will be covered by insurance; however, the shopkeeper is planning additional safety measures.

France’s esteemed Chateau Cheval Blanc is auctioning off rare vintages right from the cellar through Sotheby’s next month. On June 17 at Sotheby’s London, collectors can get their hands on over 1,000 bottles from nearly a century of vintages including the 1921, 1928, 1947 and 1949 being sold by the chateau. Each comes in an original wooden case. Older vintages (1900 to 1976 )were recently re-labelled and re-capsuled at Cheval Blanc. Some of the older bottles have been recorked and sometimes topped up with a wine of the same vintage over the past few decades. Serena Sutcliffe MW, International Head of Wine at Sotheby’s, is quoted in the press release as sayiing: “We are honoured to be offering this unique collection of Cheval Blanc that has never before left the cellars at the Château. Cheval Blanc is a wine like no other. It has opulence, finesse and enormous originality.”

The various lots includes a number of verticals including one of over 30 bottles covering 60 years from 1905 that is estimated at £15,000 – 20,000. Château Cheval Blanc dates from 1832 when the first part of what is now the Cheval Blanc estate was acquired from the Figeac estate. The won medals in the London and Paris International Exhibitions in 1862 and 1867 that are still displayed on the labels today. Château Cheval Blanc is one of only two St Emilion Châteaux to be awarded the top Class A classification. No matter what the economy may be doing, I suspect wine collectors will be coming out of the woodwork for this one.

If you’ve got vintage wine to sell your best customers just might be a half a world away. Xinhua reveals in Beijing an auction of fine French wine did very well this week. The auction sold around 1,000 bottles of Bordeaux from famous chateaux ranging from Lafite to Margaux and Mouton. The wines were shipped directly from chateaux in France and are currently stored in Hong Kong. Around 94 percent of all bottles listed were sold with the bulk of the buyers planning to sample them themselves rather than sell or cellar them for investment purposes.

The wines were chosen by French wine expert Claude Maratier and all were given more than 90 points by Robert Parker. After the auction, Maratier told Xinhua that he was “very satisfied” with the result. Given that Bordeaux first growth Chateau Lafite is working on a vineyard in China, the Chinese may be soon producing greater quality wine but for now, their growing appetite for fine wine is Bordeaux’s blessing.

It’s been since 2005 (the 2003 vintage) since Portugal’s Douro Valley declared a vintage port but Wine Spectator reports that the 2007 growing season’s cool summer and sunny fall produced a superior product. The Port industry has made its biggest Vintage Port declaration. The Instituto dos Vinhos do Douro e Porto is in the process of approving 50 different wines. The 2007 Vintage Ports will be bottled in a few months and will be shipped to the trade this fall but futures are already being sold. Top names should sell for $65-$85 per bottle.

The declaring of a Port vintage may bring some attention back to the fortified wine which has been suffering declining numbers over the last few years. In February it was announced that Port exports had hit a five-year low. It’s not the best time economically to declare a vintage but in the Wine Spectator article Paul Symington of the Symington Port Group compared the situation to the 1931 declaration saying that it is “mad to declare in the midst of a recession like this, but mad not to bottle such a lovely wine.”

Famed French champagne house Veuve Clicquot is known for many innovative products designed to enhance the experience of enjoying their world-class wine. The latest addition is a nifty new version of their thermodynamic Ice Jacket.

The high-tech isotherm sleeve is tailored to the shape of the Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label bottle and designed to keep it at the perfect temperature. The high-tech fabric with leather detailing highlights the vibrant Clicquot Yellow color.

The Ice Jacket can maintain the champagne at an optimal tasting temperature for up to two hours, and it comes with a customizable leather-trimmed label as well as a leather tab at the bottle neck ensure a snug fit.

Tired of the same old home wine bar?   Well, sulk no longer because this unique piece of furniture is an environmentally friendly wine tasting bar by Claire Danthois (working in partnership with Newton Vineyard). 

Measuring a generous six-feet, it is constructed of 100% reclaimed materials from sources such as wooden barrels used to age wines and 300-year-0ld oak barrels that were commandered from a merchant in the U.K.

There is a method to the madness as the 112 segments of oak symbolize Newton estate’s 112 distinct vineyard blocks.  Additionally, the glass shelving and steel cables which hold everything together has been from a construction site.

Only five of these bars have been built so you will be in rarefied company should you secure one.