Asimov’s latest column: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/dining/drinks/wine-prices.html
How Income Inequality Has Erased Your Chance to Drink the Great Wines: Benchmark bottles were always a splurge. But an increasing concentration of wealth has put them out of reach for all but the richest connoisseurs.
I feel this, hard. Unfortunately, millennials like me have to either bankrupt ourselves to not only get the coveted bottles but just a wide-reaching classical wine education that previous generations had access to.
That said, it’s definitely the best time to be alive for finding great $20-50 bottles.
Ditto.
Joke’s on the rich folk. They’ll never taste wines from Santorini, Friuli, the Loire or the Dão.
Agreed!
Besides, his headline and his facts contradict each other.
There is no new land in Bordeaux. So the land and vineyard output hasn’t expanded.
But the customer base has.
In the past there weren’t Russian oligarchs, Chinese princelings, or athletes worth hundreds of millions, or even billions. And the celebrities of Hollywood and elsewhere weren’t their own billion-dollar businesses, with social media followers and product lines of clothing, soaps, toiletries, etc.
These days there are a LOT more rich people around competing for the same chateaux.
And he points out all of that.
But that’s not concentration of wealth, it’s expansion of wealth.
The reason prices for Burgundy and Bordeaux have risen faster than they have on some other products is simply because more people are competing for the same amount of goods.
In any event, without tasting any of the so-called “benchmarks”, you can get a pretty good wine education by tasting some of the other great wines made all over the world.
I’m not a millennial (early 40s) and I’ve been fortunate financially. The amount of wine that is still beyond my means is kind of staggering. There is just a lot of wealth out there and unfortunately when it chases the trophies from smaller regions things escalate quickly.
Please don’t take this as a criticism of those who can afford these wines. Not at all. And I know some of this comes down to priorities. But, just wow, there’s a lot of wealth in this world.
Expansion of wealth definitely matters, but as you alluded to there’s also an expansion of knowledge. Those with money that weren’t previously buying wine are now, it’s easier to access, wine isn’t as mysterious anymore. Lots of different venues to purchase and lots of different people to connect you to the wines you want.
It sure is! Expand that up to $100-$120 and you’ve got a huge number of truly great wines.
Yes, and by trying “lesser” wines from the most famous regions.
at the same time, it is worth calling out that quality has probably, on average, massively increased as well. When you sell 50-100m of wine in a vintage, you can afford to massively upgrade your infrastructure and get itt performing a bit more consistently.
There is the counter point, then; more consistent vintages means more higher quality wine supply, which should at least partially counter-balance demand. Whats probably true is that for the very best vintages and chateaus, the people who can afford that sort of thing wont care about spending the extra 50% to go from 2014 to 2015 in Bordeaux, for example.
Great points by both of you.
This is absolute utter nonsense.
In 1983, I could buy futures for 1982 LLC, Ducru, Cos d’Estournal, etc. for $10-15 a bottle and DRC 1980 Grands Echezeaux for $35. [If I remember correctly, prices for 1982 futures for first growths were about $35 a bottle.]
In the mid to late 1980s, I bought 1984 Ridge Montebello for $20 a bottle and 1985 Chateau Montelena Cabernet for around the same.
As late as 1991, I bought 1990 Bordeaux futures of Leoville Barton for $20 a bottle and of LLC for about $30 a bottle.
Probably through 2010 or so I could buy premier cru Burgundies from top villages for $50 or less. For example, in 2006, these were the prices I paid for Jacky Truchot 2003s:
03 Chambolle-Musigny 1er Cru " $ 30.00
03 Morey-St-Denis 1er Cru les Blanchards $ 31.25
03 Morey-St-Denis 1er Cru Clos Sorbes $ 31.25
03 Morey-St-Denis 1er Cru " $ 31.25
03 Clos de la Roche Grand Cru $ 51.04
03 Charmes-Chambertin Grand Cru $ 51.04
What are the great wines for $20-50 that I can buy today that are better than these?
If it were truly being driven by an expansion of knowledge, along with the increase in wealth, then we would see prices being pushed up outside of the most famous regions. For a majority of new rich, these famous regions and famous wines are just trophies to be collected just like a Patek watch or Hermes bag. And that, to me, is the most disappointing part of this trend.
That said, it’s definitely the best time to be alive for finding great $20-50 bottles.
I am now at this spending price point. I have had many $100 plus wines and while I enjoy them I would rather spend my money on golf and other things I enjoy.
To be fair, multiply your prices by about 2-3 to adjust for inflation.
Inflation exists, you know!
Plus, I’m talking about non-Bordeaux/Burgundy edition. Those wines are long gone. What I really mean is that you can find incredibly made, world-class, extremely diverse wines in the world NOT from these regions for $20-50 - and often less.
Fine. Double every price I listed and my point is still valid.
Our honorable Mark Golodetz already wrote this article with more brevity:
Yes. And those wines could be had for $5-10 in days gone by. For example, I paid $8 a bottle for 1983 JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Spatlese. Wines like Tempier, Chateau Pradeaux, Huet, etc., etc., etc., have been great for a very long time. Name your very top Barolo producers - Conterno, Rinaldi, etc., etc. Those wines were all much less than $50. There were excellent Loire wines that were dirt cheap. Guigal Cote Rotie and Hermitage and Chave Hermitage were way under $50.
You obviously were not buying wine in the 1980s and 1990s.
And, wines were even cheaper in the 70s when 1970 first growths were under $20. Multiply that by even 10 times and they were be a steal compared with prices today.
In every price range, with or without multipliers for inflation, the wines you can get today for a certain price are nowhere near what you could get for that price in the 1980s and 1990s. Certainly, as a result of the much, much higher prices, a lot more wineries make competent wines than did before the 1990s, but wine inflation for top wines has far outstripped inflation in most items. Most younger people today are paying nose-bleed prices for wines that were affordable when my generation was younger. There is no sugar coating what has happened to wine prices.
Disagree - being rich doesn’t mean your intentions are different from other wine collectors. You like what you like and you focus on it. Just because people are wealthy means they all have to buy widely from every wine region. Whether you’re middle class, upper middle class, upper class you’re going to buy the best you can afford typically.
We got plenty of people on this board that only certain regions of wine - let it be new world or old world.
Yep. And, as Mark said there, the increase in prices has really accelerated over the last ten years or so.