Cleaning out some garbage, opened a suitcase and found a treasure trove of wine advertisements - either hand outs at Zachy’s or advertisements in the NY Times. The most expensive wine in the April 1978 six page list is 1970 Ch. Latour Blanche for $8.50. Sauzet’s 1972 Puligny Montrachet (4 different vineyards and my go to wine for a high end dinner at the time) were $3.99 a bottle. Fevre’s 1975 GC Chablis from Les Preuses and Grenouilles (too rich for my blood) were $7.99 a bottle.
Here’s a scan of the first page of a German wine sale. I can’t find a date, but I remember buying the 1976 German vintage in 1978, so I suspect this is from 1977. Click to enlarge so you can read the prices.
$3.99 from 1978 is not even $16 in 2019. Pretty sure Sauzet PM is handily beating the cost of inflation. Then again pretty much anything related to wine would be doing the same. I have a friend who always tells me he used to buy 1971 and 72 La
Tache for around $20/bottle.
I remember buying 1980 DRC Grands Echezeaux for $35 in around 1982 or so. Too expensive for me, I bought it as a present for my father. Great wine (he opened it with me).
In 1983, of course, my whole generation largely was buying 1982 Bordeaux futures. Some prices I remember were (case prices):
Canon $114
Cos D’Estournal $130
Gruaud Larose $126
Leoville Barton (remember it was somewhere between $110-120)
Leoville las Cases - $150
Ducru Beaucaillou - $150
Gloria $70
I think things like Chasse Spleen, etc., were in the $50-60 range.
My dad received $30 as a Christmas gift one year from his mother; he promptly went out and bought 1 bottle each of Romanee Conti, La Tache and Grands Echezeaux for that $30. Thankfully, he would let us kids taste wines at the dinner table - I was about 7-10 years old when I tried those 3 bottles…
Zachys didn’t seem that overpriced compared to other stores back in the early 80s when I first got into wine. But it was pre-internet and there was no way to compare to other than a few retailers who sent out flyers and a few local shops. And back then 10% higher was only a few dollars.