Coche Corton at 200 euros

Coche at 200 euros a bottle

There seems to be a few people who resist the urge to sell their wines at all costs. There are others (like me) who don’t have any real attachment to their wines and are happy to sell at the right price. I have had similar situations occur, not quite as extreme as underpriced Coche, but still I think an interesting hypothetical question


If you are in a wine shop in rural France, and you see 10 cases of Coche Corton Charlemagne going at its opening price say 200 euros, and another 20 for delivery to the US, what would you do?

fun exercise, one of the pleasures of this hobby is finding buried treasures.

Guess I’m gonna have a ton of coche corton in my cellar!

My new house wine.

I would buy and drink it all, over time of course.
I’d rather own something like that at a great price, and not worry that some of it is worth ten times, or even 30 times what I paid for it.

I buy stocks and mutual funds for investments, not wine.

I’d buy as much as I could and drink as much as I could. If, in the future, I needed the money for something (like a down payment on an apartment), maybe I’d sell it. But other than very specific exceptions, I don’t buy wine to invest.

I used to pay less than that. I’d get an annual mixed case that included the CC. I think I paid more than 200€ for the 1996–$300/bottle for the 3 b I got. Drank them.

I don’t think I’d be able to swing 10 cases at 2400 euro per, but I’d buy as much as I could finance with intent of drinking. With that much supply, I do anticipate that selling would be a concept I’d consider periodically if I needed funding for other things. I never buy wine assuming I can profit or resell it, as it is a considerable hassle to resell in our regulatory climate.

fred

They are clearly fake!

I know that this is a bit off topic, but where do you think most auction houses get their wine from? Isn’t it mostly from consumers or large collectors who are selling old and rare wine? I am talking mostly about the high end auctions like the ones at Heritage and the like.

IMHO there is a price threshold for any wine. Hypothetically if I own 1 bottle of wine that sells at a market price of 500K of course I will sell it. There is a point of ludicry where something is just worth NOT drinking. One can simply imagine how much you can do with the proceeds like donating it to charity or a good cause.

Yes.

From my experience with French wine stores, this would not happen. Many French stores do not jack up the prices to market the way US stores do, but they limit the number of bottles of wines in high demand that they let people purchase. And, if you want a decent allocation, you would need to buy other wines at the store.

I disagree with this; I don’t think it makes economic sense not to buy all ten cases. Max out the credit cards if necessary, consign with an auction house eight cases as soon as they come in, you could probably get an advance from the auction house to pay off the credit card and you get two free cases of Coche plus $40-50k to spend on wine over the next few years.

I’m not interested in a job buying and selling wine. I’d buy a case or two for personal consumption and leave the rest.

I’d buy a few bottles and leave the rest. Well, maybe 6 or a case of 12.

I am in the wine business but the business strategy is to build long-term relationships with producers and customers, not to do opportunistic buys. I don’t want to put any time into the rather tedious job of arranging shipping. Most of my friends are appalled at the idea of spending much over $20 on a bottle of wine, so selling the rest to them at cost is not an option.

Dan Kravitz

Fun to dream about. Coche CC is selling for ~$4K per bottle at auction, so at 200 euros ($233), you could net $45,000 in profit for each case sold. That’s a lot of money. If they would allow me to take the whole allocation, I would gladly stash a case away for me to drink and then sell the balance for a tidy profit. Until recently Coche only farmed .33 ha of Corton, so on a practical level Coche probably only produces 100-150 cases of CC. I doubt very much that you would find a stash that large at one retailer, but I guess we can dream!

A combination, I would decide how much I wanted for myself, and buy just a few more so that selling them would cover the entire purchase price. I was never a baller, but with a farm, mortgage, and daughter, I can’t really buy within my old price range anymore, and an opportunity like this would let me restock the cellar a bit without spending cash.

I have actually made a few half-case or mixed-lot auction purchases with this same strategy in mind, though I never fully recoup all my costs once I sell a few. Makes me feel better though!

Mark,

I probably should’ve read your post before I answered.

If it was a case or less I’d probably keep and share/drink. Ten plus cases I could not afford, so naturally I’d still buy it all, but I would have to sell at least enough to pay for the purchase.

Of course, I wouldn’t have it shipped to the US. And I’d only get a couple if the horrible 2003s or 2006s !