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pinotphile
4 posts
Apr 12, 2007
1 year, 4 months ago
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1Re: What do you typically pay for a bottle of wine (not at a restaurant)?
I buy lots of single digit bottles too - but you often have to be in doubles to get noticeable flavor & quality with just about any varietal or country...As consumers $10 is an important price barrier (so is 4 etc.)and I believe there is sufficent margin to deliver tasty value - at or well below $10. Blending I think may be the key to success at this level - a stellar example from TJ, no longer available: Mission Park Central Coast red cuvee '0? -rhones + cab. Went to TJ almost immediately after a guest brought one to dinner - long gone & deeply missed by a staffer who had snagged a case!!! A gem at almost any price - one of my criteria is how happy I would be if I'd made that wine: that is ROI or QPR or 90+!
Value/cost @ $10 > $5 / "Scoville" units of flavor. (Scoville measures heat units in peppers - there needs be a counterpart for pinot +.)
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John
50 posts
Apr 12, 2007
1 year, 4 months ago
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2Re: What do you typically pay for a bottle of wine (not at a restaurant)?
Agreed.
I think it's mostly about what level of a wine drinker you are. Most novices can really come up with nice bottles for < $10, and even jaded wine afficienados can still pick up some nice juice in that range (when you're lucky).
Well .. u sold me on the Mission Park. And you weren't a kiddin' that it's all out ... i even searched thru every retailer we crawl (3000+) and couldn't get a single hit. Must've been nice :)
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Captain Caveman
29 posts
Apr 20, 2007
1 year, 4 months ago
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3Re: What do you typically pay for a bottle of wine (not at a restaurant)?
I've been on both sides of this both as a buyer and seller at wholesale and retail levels, and generally my philosophy is that the broader the criteria, the harder it is to make an assumption about any wine you haven't tasted.
Price is about as broad of a criteria there is. Having tasted wines at all price levels and all levels of quality I can say definitively that there is rarely a direct connection between price and quality. I have had very expensive, highly rated wines that fell short, and also inexpensive, unknown wines that knocked me off of my chair.
The fact is that you can find good wines for 10 bucks or less, but you'll probably end up sifting through at least twice as many stinkers as you would at the 20 dollar level. In other words, if you buy a case of 12 different 10 dollar wines and you only really like one of them guess what? Yup that "10 dollar wine" actually just cost you 120 bucks!
However there are alot more quality wines priced between 20-50 per bottle, so that is the level I have found to have the greatest relative value of price to quality. The key to finding great wines is getting ahead of "the press" particularly with smaller production wines in order to avoid what i call the "popularity tax". I'll address this in a separate posting soon.
If you are spending in this range, I'd highly encourage you to develop a reationship with a wine proffesional. Someone who actually tastes lots of wines and can ask you inteligent questions about your palate. Not only do you get the benefit of consulting with someone who has actualy tasted the wine, but a qualified wine professional will be able to help you select the wine which is most likely to deliver the experience your looking for. Generally these wines will cost a little more than buying them at your local store (if you can even buy them at the store), but it will greatly improve your rate of success, and drastically cut down on your rate of erroronious purchases.
Even with the luxury of often being able to buy wines wholesale, I still purchase at retail from others in the industry whose palates I respect. In many cases it's not about who actually get's the best wines, it's about who even get's to hear about them before the frenzy starts.
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