Uncorked Ventures Blog

March 18, 2012 | Mark Aselstine

White House Wine

I have to admit, I’ve always had a fascination with the wines being served at the White House. Maybe it was the pride that winemakers felt when their wines were selected or maybe it was just a fascination with seeing how my tax dollars were spent, but over there years there have been a few interesting choices to be sure. Among my personal favorites was George Bush serving Schafer Hillside Select (retailing at the time for about $500 a bottle) at a G20 summit when the main topic of discussion was possible upcoming bailouts of some of the member economies.

Ok, so what brings wine at the White House back into the news? For the past few months President Obama and the current White House have stopped sharing which wines have been served. All in all it looks largely like a public relations move since they don’t want to show tax dollars being used to purchase $100 wine when it economy isn’t in great shape, in an election year.

That’s understandable, but it does leave me without an interesting conversation piece or two when I talk with wineries. Plus, I think everyone that is paying attention to this stuff already knows that the White House probably isn’t serving $2 wines at state dinners.

Mar 18, 2012 at 12:51 PM