Please share how you got SHS for $49
Maybe the 1 is missing ?
Must’ve been from one of Rudy’s cousin’s…
I referred a few of my friends and a couple people on here to Wine Access. $50 per referral; $299 original sales price; free shipping. Very happy with this deal. I’ve yet to try this wine, but it sounds like something I’ll really love.
I’ve dropped off of every mailing list where I can get the wine on the secondary market for the same or less than I paid for it via the winery. I’ve had a few (Kapcsandy Grand Vin and Roberta’s Reserve comes to mind) that even after the RP/JD/AG hundo scores for certain vintages, they are still available cheaper at auction than via the winery mailing list. Maddening.
I guess this was what I was getting at. Thanks!
Correct, once I decide to gift him the bottles, it is up to him to do with what he chooses, we can drink it together (hoping) or he can try and sell it. But the bottom line is that it is a gift and once given as a gift it is out of the gifter(s) hands.
I think a bit of confusion in this thread. Yes, I do not want any wine for investment purposes. That doesn’t mean I want to overpay for wine! I agree one person’s $225 wine might be worth $1000 to someone else based on their tastes and net worth, despite it being readily available for $225.
Basically I want fantastic QPR to consume and it’s hard for me to see a $225 wine that is readily available to everyone no matter how great it tastes is a great QPR based on it being overpriced vs supply/demand. I have much of less issue with a $50 wine like DICO which of course you can also argue is not priced right given it’s readily available for $50. But the QPR is fantastic cause it’s $50 not $225.
Does that make any sense?
No, it sounds like you don’t have any earthly idea what you yourself actually enjoy sipping on.
If I were you, and if I had a bunch of extra stockbroker shekels to burn, then I’d be tasting & tasting & tasting some more, until I figured out what floated my boat and what didn’t. [Which means you’ve got to set aside a bunch of time & elbow grease & sweat equity for tastings, and that’s HARD WORK.]
Beyond working on my tasting chops, I’d also try to remember to have the humility necessary to confess that my tastes are capable of changing over time, and that I might have been wrong in the past concerning my evaluation of a particular wine [or even entire categories of wine].
There are also two excellent data samples which have been posted on this thread:
It used to be back in the day, when most winemakers in Napa did not understand “the formula” (really ripe grapes+lots of French oak to hide any blemishes+small production, good PR perceived shortage building on FOMO) that there were just a few wineries that would blow doors off most of the competition. Ah yes, I remember the 90’s. Now the degree of separation between many of these wineries has gotten reaaaaaaly small in the uber ripe lush styles. Many cab based blends are almost impossible to pick out in blind tastings as unique.
I’m seeing this everywhere now, from all cultivars of vinifera being grown in all nations which export to the USA: Perfectly perfect wines, all with exactly the same mouthfeel, the same acidity, the same sugar levels, the same everything. It’s probably part & parcel of the larger psycho-sociological phenomenon of Modernity wiping out all remaining vestiges of irascibly non-conforming personality types [which likely is causing a mass convergence of both the personalities of the producers & the personalities of the consumers].
what is most surprising, a re-evaluation of producers who stayed the course and just produced nice, ageable, well balanced wines at a decent price (Corison, Frog’s Leap, Flora Springs and I guess you could list Togni and Dunn in the “don’t drink until 10 years old” category)
If Cathy Corison is now considered to be “Old School”, then all hope is lost.
Her wines are pushing the envelope right out to the very edge of swallowable, and are almost toying with being outright spoofulated.
[I’m not saying her wines are bad, but they are at the far cusp of outstanding - if she goes any further, then she’s falling off the deep end.]
PS: “Tasting” wines doesn’t mean you have to swallow gallons of them. If you care about your gray matter, then work on small pours and micro-swallows, so that you minimize the damage done by the hangovers the next day.
PPS: If you want to support small businessmen & small businesswomen working exclusively with Cabernet, then contact this board member and this board member to see whether they can sell you something.
PPPS: If you still have big stacks of redundant shekels to burn, then invest in aged bottles and learn what cellars well versus what doesn’t.
Look for magnums of 1960s/1970s Chappellets by Philip Togni, or magnums of the 1978 Mondavi Reserve, or, more recently, the 1991 or 1994 Tognis in 750ml.
[And if you have an yuge mountain of redundant stockbroker shekels to incinerate, then look for the 1968 or 1969 or 1974 Heitz Martha’s Vineyard, and hope that the bottle is not counterfeit…]
OP- i think wine may in some cases differ from the stock market in what you are asking, but most of the time you are probably right. there is not a huge incentive from a purely economic perspective for being on a list if I can walk into Total Wine (or, preferably, a locally run shop) tomorrow and buy the same wine, or even an older vintage of that wine, for the same price. there are some lists that ive said no to for this exact reason
that being said, the comparison to stocks breaks down in some cases with wine for two reasons: 1) that older vintage that you are buying at this year’s release price is not the same wine. sometimes that older vintage is priced the same as the new one cuz it was a bad (or at least a not-as-good) year. 2) sometimes people are on lists for reasons that are not purely economics. for example: I am on Bedrock’s list. I can buy Bedrock where I live for just about the same price as I buy from the winery. I stay on the list though because I would rather that Morgan and Chris get the entire price of the bottle instead of a bunch of middlemen taking cuts from their profits (in the case of wine, a distributor and a retail shop). There are actually several lists I am on for this reason. I only dabble in stock trading so Im pretty certain there is no stock market equivalent to this?
This thread reminds me to find a higher-paying job.
The above all has great points but is jaded to older vintages and/or a leaner style than the opposite spectrum of ‘fruit bomb’. No side in the argument is right- we all have different style preferences. You will find most/many people on this board with a leaner/older preference however many people appreciate all sides but when presenting usually take a softer approach as they get extreme personalities jumping all over them.
As many have said, try upon release and many times throughout development. Older is not necessarily better and usually takes time to acquire appreciation for mushrooms and heavy earth… and many appellations handle age differently which is very important to understand.
In general I prefer Napa wines upon release and depending on winemaker style and site (mountain vs floor) through 15 years of age. So while I enjoy 2-15 years of age there are moving sweet spots depending on structure, in-balance, site location, wine making style, clone, Your own palate (humans are built differently and our individual ability to experience taste differs widely), etc.
For me Colgin needs ~10 years of age, Abreu ~7-10, myriad dr Crane (2-3 years), Carter LPV (2-6years) while the 2016 Memento Mori Dr Crane was (is) an absolute knockout and that only had 2 years of age in 2018 (and have been appreciating it ever since enjoying different nuances). The above is not exact but is a good illustration for my palate as I love the fruit so the age needs to be young enough to hold on throughout its development yet also enjoyed as it settles in and other dimensions emerge. Early last year my favorite wine was 2003 Abreu Thorevilos (16 years of age) but when I had two more bottles this year the tertiary flavors moved a little more to the front and for my palate became less satisfying- all in the eyes of the beholder and can change very quickly).
Please don’t discount the strong personalities on this board- in either style or preference as there is no wrong answer. Keep an open mind and taste.
Strong personalities on this Board? Who you talkin’ about?
Good call Jay, good call. My bad.
All very good points and I totally get it. Re Bedrock, I was only referring to $200+ cabs. I also would and do support tons of wineries directly where I could buy the wine from a 3rd party for the same price.
Yah, wow, some really angry people! Not exactly sure why. I was not asking anything about “what should I buy” or “can you point me in the right direction”. I also never brought up different styles of cab. Was simply about supply/demand/pricing at the $200+ price point for cabs and how people approach these wines from a QPR perspective.
Matthew- The point we are all trying to make is that QPR is relative and not a simple commodity- not a linear black and white equation rather one that changes in value based on the beholder. Just like options or future- its of course a leverage play but also a QPR play, right? If you feel there is value (subjective) it’s based on perceived value that you see vs others. If others saw the same value the options would be too expensive.
Example great Napa QPR for me, would be within the first 5-10 years of the wines life. Others on this board would say the opposite as they would appreciate 20-30 year old aged wine which I would not (in general for Napa) pay $1. So the MV Heitz 1974 (example) is a world-class wine and if purchased on release was ~$20 that some years ago probably cost ~$500 or more. A new release is about $200-$250. While others would pay astronomical sums on the secondary market for 1974 (or 67 or other years) I would not pay anything (although I would not pass up the chance to try it- it would just be wasted on me).
Yes we are all nuts and maybe one day you will be (or must be already if you are a trader) too about stupid grape juice.
makes sense. I don’t drink very much Napa cab cuz even the ones most people call restrained are too ripe for my tastes, but I couldn’t imagine paying that much for a wine that didn’t have a pretty huge connection to the winemaker and soil, because part of what I enjoy about wine is how it can transport me to a place and time. so I guess going back to your original question, the relationship is a big part of why I buy in the first place, so also a part of why I would buy a wine enough to be on a list. as I review the lists I’m on, im realizing that they’re all wineries where ive had direct interactions with the people who are both in the vines and in the wineries, doing the work to make the final product. I don’t think there are a lot of opportunities for that in the cult cabernet game, except for MacDonald. But that is definitely one of the ones that would fit your “buy from list” criteria (the release price to the list is a pretty significant discount over the secondary market price).
FWIW: I actually think the producers that have more connection to the vines tend to also be the ones who price the wines to their lists below secondary value. I can’t prove that with any kind of statistics and I may be way off, but the examples I can think it’s true.
Ryan, I get that everyone has different tastes. Of course I get that! But that’s adjusted for why a wine at a specific high end price point sells out immediately or not on release. My thread was solely about that, nothing more. I don’t drink white wine so a $200 bottle for $10 is irrelevant to me. But enough of the world does and it would sell out in seconds! The same goes for all the other examples in this thread about taste. It doesn’t apply to my question.
In in the end, if you’re rich enough to not care about price, you will buy whatever you like. I get it. I also know that there is value to be had at $225 and $25 and just because a wine is readily available at those price points doesn’t make it not a good QPR to the purchaser.
Then I think our work here is done. Welcome to nut-land. Maybe we will grab a drink one day. Good luck!
Cheers