Criminal (EDIT: or silly, if you like) pricing on 2016 Produttori Crus

EDIT: For those new to this post — my use of the word criminal is hyperbolic. While I didn’t imagine that would require clarification, I don’t want anyone to be left with the impression that I think someone should be imprisoned for seeing whether the market will accept a 100% increase in the price if Produttori Crus over the span of a couple of years. And, to further clarify, my omission of the offending retailer was not, in fact, an act of conscious silliness.


I just got an offer for Produttori Crus at $100 a bottle with delivery in May. I’m not going to name the retailer, and I doubt that they are the ones that are (entirely) doing the gouging here. But this seems a little bit ridiculous. I was buying the same wines just a couple of years ago for under $50 a bottle.

Vinous expected pricing at $78 and they always factor in an overly generous markup. I rarely pay the price they note for a wine.

Anyone have any inside information as to what’s going on here? I thoroughly expected having no difficulty finding these for under $70 when they were released later next year.

+1 on this. Crazy pricing

Criminal?

Criminal - definition:

INFORMAL
(of an action or situation) deplorable and shocking.
“he may never fulfill his potential, and that would be a criminal waste”

So yes, criminal.

I’m pretty sure I got the same email, and my brows went up too. But criminal? I dunno. All wine purchasing is a value proposition. I like Produttori, but it’s always been a bit of a value play. If it stops being a value play, I’ll buy other stuff. Lots of great Nebbiolo at those prices, including some great 16s.

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Barbaresco Boys !!!

OP should have gone with “deplorable”

Has anyone received offers at lower prices?

It seems silly to complain without naming the retailer, to me.

I got the same offer - from Morrell. Will be curious to see if this holds up. I passed.

That’s interesting because Morrell is often quite competitive on Barolo and Barbaresco.

Wholesale is $49/btl for these and theyre still available so yes…I’d say thats a healthy markup.

But it includes free shipping! And, it’s the best vintage in, like, FOREVER. Buy…buy…BUY!

I’ve always preferred “predatory”.

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I must admit, that would have been apt and maybe even a better choice of words.

Reference to the $49 wholesale above is likely for the 2015.

As a former American President responded to a question about how he justified a $500,000 speech engagement in Russia after leaving office.
“It’s the American way”

Fair play to them if PdB is to retail at $100.

Ends up being in a very competitive sector, and likely to result in stock hanging around on shopfloors for a lot longer in less acclaimed vintages.

I’ve also found this, but again, I’m not sure I’m a buyer at $100 generally.

I guess there are a couple of ways to look at this:

(1) For each of the 9 cru, they have somewhere in the range of 1,400 cases to sell or probably ~12k - ~13k cases total. That compares, for example, to <600 cases of F. Alessandria Monvigliero and many other similar small Barolo Cru. So, there’s no shortage of the wine…
(2) On the other hand, Pichon Lalande (as an example) makes 15k cases of their first wine a year and I wouldn’t pay 50% more for it than Rabaja unless it were some investment (and I wouldn’t invest $150 a bottle in newly released Pichon Lalande)

So yeah — qualitatively it might be ‘worth’ $100 a bottle — but, that’s a pretty bold increase at the retail level, and 2017 and 2018 won’t be 2016…

But, if anyone benefits from crazy price increases — better it be farmers in Barbaresco than scarf-makers in Paris.

Glad I have scads of the Riservas from prior vintages.

Plenty of 15 still out there at good prices that’s more than good.