I just read the announcement from Phelps that they are pricing the 2014 Insignia futures price at $175. Parker’s initial score for this wine is 94-97. The 2013 Insignia futures price was set at $160 and at the time Parker’s initial score was 96-98. Basically a 10% price hike following the lauded 2012/2013 vintages kind of surprises me, especially with a lower score. I am not ITB, so don’t really understand the larger economic model/market dynamics here but from a basic perspective I guess the Insignia must be selling well lately. I (like so many others) loaded up on 2012 and 2013 Napa wine so I am wondering if the 2014 will sell as well.
Reminds me of their big price increase on the 2003 after the 2002 got WS WOTY. That guaranteed that 2002 would be my last purchase.
I still have 750s and mags of 2001 and 2002. The 750s cost me around $90 per back then.
Short answer (in the minds of many luxury consumers): More $$$ = Better Wine. They wouldn’t be charging more if it wasn’t better, right?
Phelps is really starting to overprice themselves when compared to secondary market.
No it doesn’t have the swag of the latest new kid on the block, but Insignia is a consistently fine wine and has been so for a very long time. We had a thread here not so long ago about buying wines from the wineries, even when it is available at retail for less. A lot of people think that it’s a worthwhile endeavor. I don’t think that it would be priced at that level if they were not moving it.
I still buy it because I like it. Probably because I am more old world in my preferences, I find it a better value than Shafer HSS which climbed to $250 a bottle for the 2010 vintage.
So the 2013 Insignia futures sold for $160, that hardly sounds like a deal. For the 2013 Montelena futures I paid $90.
It’s not easy to sell 500 cases direct of $175 at 96 points, much less 10,000 cases.
Retail on the 2012 is hovering around $190, so Phelps is just bringing some profit in-house. Yay capitalism.
Outside of Bordeaux, whose model is to price based on the quality of the vintage, everyone else globally pretty much takes modest (usually) price increases when and where they feel their target market can bear it, regardless of the quality. Although, to Bud’s point, we do occassionally see spikes after a wine scores through the roof or gets some award like WOTY. That’s just capitalism at play. As much as we don’t like accepting the global model of tick tack price increases, we could be dealing with $250 futures pricing when Insignia scores 98-100. Then again, when it scores 93-95, maybe we pay $140? No perfect world here. The good news is that there are always deals out there to mitigate increases. They just take time to hit the market.