It’s been years since I had an Egon Muller, and likely will be many more before I have another.
What drives these prices, which I received today in an offer?
2017 Vols Ayler Kupp Riesling Kabinett Stirn
$12.99/btl
2018 Vols Wiltinger Kupp Riesling Kabinett
$15.99/btl
2018 Kunstler Hocheimer Reichstal Riesling Kabinett
$13.99/btl
2018 Donnhoff Kreuznacher Krotenphuf Riesling Kabinett
$19.99/btl
John,
It is crazy.
Burgundy is that way today.
Is it 5x better than German alternatives? No.
Is it worth $100 in light of its quality compared with $100 White Burgs and other $100 wines? Yes.
The top, most expensive producers never make sense in comparison to their regional peers. It’s always exponential. At least Egon is still kinda sorta affordable in the broader context. They are exceptional, ageable wines if you can stomach the price.
John - It clearly has been years. The 2020 Egon Muller Kabinett was released at over $200 in the U.S. And the auction is much more than that.
https://www.wine-searcher.com/find/egon+muller+kabinett/2020/usa
I really like Egon Müller. I don’t get the additional pleasure over Prüm Kabinett to justify the pricing.
Yeah it’s cheaper than Montrachet, but Riesling and White Burgundy are not interchangeable commodities.
Status symbol.
Was Egon Muller always so much more expensive than other German Rieslings? Like many others, I think they make great wine, but so far, I haven’t had one that I felt is worth the enormous premium compared to the many other great German producers.
I was buying 2002 Egon Muller Schartzhoff Kab for $18 from Premier Cru.
i know that was a fluke. It was a Ponzi scheme. Still. How can you go from $18 to the present status.
BTW, that 2002 Kab was absolutely incredible. The wine is the real deal.
I’m a buyer. Value is relative. I also buy Prum at 1/4 the price.
But Muller’s wines are incredible, so precise. At the top they blow Prum out of the water. 4x? Up to you to decide.
What sustains the prices? Domestic German demand? That explains at lot of GG and Spatburgunder pricing. But I can’t imagine it’s the American market that drives Egon Muller. That’s what I was getting at with my original post.
Really good marketing coupled with a desire to maintain the highest price point.
A
I know this might sound weird but I actually find myself buying more of the auction because it is so damn good there are not many, if any, substitutes. At $200+ I have significantly reduced my purchasing of the basic Kabinett.
This. There’s others, but I won’t mention them.
Well our recent offer sold very quickly and I know there is huge U.S. demand for Egon Müller.
John - no offense intended but your knowledge of the U.S. market for German wine is outdated.
It’s not hard to buy top quality German wine in the USA. It’s hard to buy hyped German wine in the USA because of hyped demand that comes with inflated prices.
Maybe. But the “status symbol” wines you are talking about are also damn good. So it’s way more complex than dick measuring.
On the substance (and I don’t buy Egon because it’s beyond my comfort zone now based on my cash flow), Egon routinely achieves remarkable sugar-acid-extract balance for wines that are so elegant. You get a feeling of energy and dynamism despite perfect integration and balance. I’ve never found Prüm to achieve quite the same although I love Prum and have been cellaring them for 25 vintages now. I’ve only gotten that same sense consistently (for me) — and in different styles than Egon — in Schaefer, old school von Schubert (but maybe back again), and maybe Keller’s now-impossible-to-source Pradikat wines.
Whatever you think of the prices, what’s in the bottle is undeniable.
And there are tons of incredibly delicious German w8nes that don’t require phallic length contests.
I’m over the how big is your bottle contests. I just drink wine. You enjoy your status.
There is a mythology and status element to the wines, and Egon flies all over the world and opens TBA, BA and goldkaps at dinners for “collectors”. That’s a lot of work and effort and it pays off. At the same time, once he opens a bottle, the wines speak for themselves. At their best they are magical. There’s a lot that goes into pricing - and cost is always do funny things at the tippy top - but I’ve yet to encounter a serious German wine lover who doesn’t think Egon’s wines are either peerless or close to it.
This all rings true to me, Jayson and jibes with my experience. At the same time, while I dont think Prum hits the highs of Egon, I find Wehlener Sonnenuhr running through Prum wines in an amazing and transparent way that I haven’t quite been able to see with scharzhofberger
and Egon. But maybe that’s me.
A