Insider Trading?

We all know the PLCB doesn't do a very good job of selling the high end. One only has to look at the Screaming Eagle fiasco to see that. However, a by-product of their ineptitude is that sometimes... something really high end gets reduced to below regular market value so they can get it off the books. Such is the case (or maybe half case) with Chateau Ausone 2003 (PLCB inventory #18803). The PLCB price is $2999.99 as shown in the Board Agenda for July 20th on page 29. It also shows that the price is being reduced -- by $1700! -- to $1299.99, following Board approval. What a deal!

Have you seen this bottle? We're guessing not.

The only problem is that if you look up the wine by name or code number...it doesn't exist in the PLCB inventory. Not in the product catalog online or on the FWAGS website. Don't take our word for it: try searching yourself: the code, the name, the appellation...nothing. (BTW, the other big sales on the page, even the Chateau Margaux 2000, a $1000 savings? They're all in the system. Just not the one really BIG savings.)

So where did they go, and how many were there? More importantly, who gets these bottles we ordinary citizens can't even see? Did the PLCB just "misplace" a few $3000 bottles, lose them in inventory? Or did somebody get the nod, and will be waiting at the right loading dock on August 1 to get one of the few real deals available in the State Store System? (Maybe they're saving them for their friends at the DNC.) This isn't the first time this has happened, and with a department brought up on graft it won't be the last. Will we ever know the truth? Probably not.

Privatize.