Screaming Eagle found in Costco

One surprised customer has found a bottle of the cult Napa brand Screaming Eagle in their local branch of Costco in America.

A social media post of the bottle was placed on a subreddit of the r/Costco_alcohol, with the user citing the incredible find in a store at Newark, California.

User Nealkb wrote “Had to make sure I was seeing correctly” next to the bottle shot, which showed the Screaming Eagle placed alongside a three bottle set of Chateau Pichon Baron Pauillac  (2015-2017-2018 vintages) and a six bottle set of Chateau Lagrange.

Commenting on the photo, one user said the US$3,699.99 price tage was “actually a great price” and another described it as a “screaming deal”.

But another user said it was an “obnoxious price”, although it is unknown what is the vintage of the bottle in question.

Heritage

Screaming Eagle, which was first produced in the early 90s, is considered one of the world’s most expensive wines.

The infamous 1992 vintage of the Cabernet Sauvignon, which was released in 1995, is considered one of the rarest and most valued, with bottles selling at auction for US$200,000 and only 175 cases produced. Legendary wine critic Robert Parker gave the wine 99 points and today its bottles average a price around the US$3,000 mark.

In 2006, founder Jean Philips announced in a letter to The Wine Spectator that she had received “an offer she couldn’t refuse” and was selling the brand. The new owners, Charles Banks and Stan Kroenke, installed new winemaking equipment and replanted the nearly 50-acre vineyard. Banks left the partnership in 2009 leaving Kroenke as the sole owner.

Parker said of the producer in Wine Advocate: “The most profound Screaming Eagle since the 2002 and 1997, the 2007 Cabernet Sauvignon offers up a prodigiously pure, complex nose of cassis, spring flowers, liquorice and black currants, the latter component being so intense and lingering that it makes this cuvee stand apart from other Napa Valley wines.”