Bartolo Mascarello price jump

[Ofer_Refaeli]

Yes, but why prices have jumped between the end of ‘17 and the start of ‘18 ?

[Nick_Gangas]

Wholesale here did not jump at all. Just the usual scumbag retailers.

Why is it that you think that retailers shouldn’t charge market price?

IME, the high prices are driven mostly by bottles sourced from the grey/secondary market. I don’t imagine that bottles from the national importer through normal channels really make it into the open market, they would be offered to customers who have a history and buy broadly. At least that’s how I would do it.

In addition, retailers have to buy a lot of other wine that they make much less or even no margin on in order to even get an allocation of the cherries.

hey, they can do as they please. I can judge as I like.

[Robert_Pavlovich]

Yes, but why prices have jumped between the end of ‘17 and the start of ‘18 ?

The 13’ vintage was out and drinking great, meanwhile the stock market was on fire. Unlike Bordeaux and other high volume regions (or producers), it doesn’t take too many motivated buyers to drive prices higher.

[Tom_Taylor]

Wholesale here did not jump at all. Just the usual scumbag retailers.

Why is it that you think that retailers shouldn’t charge market price?

IME, the high prices are driven mostly by bottles sourced from the grey/secondary market. I don’t imagine that bottles from the national importer through normal channels really make it into the open market, they would be offered to customers who have a history and buy broadly. At least that’s how I would do it.

In addition, retailers have to buy a lot of other wine that they make much less or even no margin on in order to even get an allocation of the cherries.

There are 11 listings now on WS for the 2015 vintage which is just hitting the US market. All except one are priced at $249 to $299, with the other being $230. You think these are all grey market wines?

[Nathan_V]

Wholesale here did not jump at all. Just the usual scumbag retailers.

Why is it that you think that retailers shouldn’t charge market price?

IME, the high prices are driven mostly by bottles sourced from the grey/secondary market. I don’t imagine that bottles from the national importer through normal channels really make it into the open market, they would be offered to customers who have a history and buy broadly. At least that’s how I would do it.

In addition, retailers have to buy a lot of other wine that they make much less or even no margin on in order to even get an allocation of the cherries.

There are 11 listings now on WS for the 2015 vintage which is just hitting the US market. All except one are priced at $249 to $299, with the other being $230. You think these are all grey market wines?

No, probably not, but that isn’t what I said. What I know to be true is that retailers who have been in business long enough to get allocations of wines like this through the official channels have a longtime list of good customers for these types of wines and that the W-S prices don’t reflect the price to these people. If there are bottles that aren’t allocated to long time customers, then there is no reason to list them below FMV. Others may decide to just go to FMV from the start, but that would risk alienating those customers. When you have to go back into the grey market to replenish that is often at a different and higher price.

I don’t think that this is a controversial position. It may be so on this board because people say they want a more open, transparent market with less friction and stickiness. Well, only when that drives prices down. When those same things drive prices up, then it’s unethical. This displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the economics of wine retail. Reminds me of privatized gains and socialized losses mentality.

[DougS]

Why is it that you think that retailers shouldn’t charge market price?

IME, the high prices are driven mostly by bottles sourced from the grey/secondary market. I don’t imagine that bottles from the national importer through normal channels really make it into the open market, they would be offered to customers who have a history and buy broadly. At least that’s how I would do it.

In addition, retailers have to buy a lot of other wine that they make much less or even no margin on in order to even get an allocation of the cherries.

There are 11 listings now on WS for the 2015 vintage which is just hitting the US market. All except one are priced at $249 to $299, with the other being $230. You think these are all grey market wines?

No, probably not, but that isn’t what I said. What I know to be true is that retailers who have been in business long enough to get allocations of wines like this through the official channels have a longtime list of good customers for these types of wines and that the W-S prices don’t reflect the price to these people. If there are bottles that aren’t allocated to long time customers, then there is no reason to list them below FMV. Others may decide to just go to FMV from the start, but that would risk alienating those customers. When you have to go back into the grey market to replenish that is often at a different and higher price.

I don’t think that this is a controversial position. It may be so on this board because people say they want a more open, transparent market with less friction and stickiness. Well, only when that drives prices down. When those same things drive prices up, then it’s unethical. This displays a fundamental misunderstanding of the economics of wine retail. Reminds me of privatized gains and socialized losses mentality.

Apparently it is controversial here, but I don’t know why. If a retailer puts their allocation of this wine online at a standard markup, it will be sold before they open the next morning (within a couple of minutes of showing up on Winesearcher), and they’ll be wasting a good portion of that day fielding phone calls asking for the wine. It would be a major inconvenience to make one or two people happy, people who will likely never buy anything else there. I have no idea why wanting to avoid this situation makes someone a scumbag. (I have never taken a higher than normal markup on Bartolo or any other allocated wine, but I have no problem with retailers who do.)

i totally agree with the bolded sentence.