The Democratic governor first named a bottle of mass-market Robert Mondavi Coastal Chardonnay (about $10 per bottle).
“That’s my political answer, and I want to go on record with that being my political answer,” Newsom told a chuckling audience.
Then he got real.
“This is where your political consultants — I think there might be one or two may be here — are not going to like my answer.”
That is a 1947 bottle of Cheval Blanc, a deep red blend with an estimated average value of up to $21,282 per bottle.
Decanter Magazine calls it a “wine legend” for its “lush texture and voluptuous flavours.”
Newsom stressed that his early business career, opening wine stores in San Francisco, gave him the privilege to buy and taste exceptional wines.
The governor, a potential future presidential contender, has often been branded a coastal elitist by Republican critics. That caricature was amplified by Newsom’s 2020 visit to The French Laundry, an ultra-ritzy restaurant in Napa. The dinner defied his administration’s COVID-19 protocols at the time.
Perhaps with the French Laundry brouhaha in mind, Newsom stressed that he bought his Cheval Blanc almost 20 years ago — for “a tenth of the price.”