no… we already said above that it’s the retailers making the money. Wholesale in the US is sub $50usd for the 15.
Sorry about that - distracted . . .
A really interesting situation indeed - this is where a company like PC back in the day would have killed it, correct? Nope, not trying to remove scabs here - just speculating . . .
Cheers.
St.Joseph is a rather wide spread terroir … increasing in surface almost 10 times since its creation … and imho not (nearly) as good as Hermitage, Cornas, Cote-Rotie … although there are a few spots that are clearly better than others …
That doesn´t mean that a good producer (like Gonon) cannot make fine wines in good vintages, but usually they don´t have the depth and complexity (and ageability) of the “better” Appellations. The difference is more clear after extended cellaring time … a SJ is typically a bit “simple” and straight foreward … lacking in finesse and that “extra-something” the better Appellations own …
I know the 2015 Gonon … really outstanding, but rather “fruity” and one-dimensional (better: less dimensional than an Hermitage etc.)
35 € is equivalent to a mean Nuits-SG Village … or a very good (but not great) Chateauneuf-dP … how much are these in the US? 50? 60? 70? … half the price of Gonon …
btw: you can get Hermitage Emilie Remizieres for 60-70,- …
It´s always the same: a wine produced in small quantities (although 25.000 bts is not small), fine quality, and the price goes up …
people buy, the price goes further up at retail … people still buy …
and a forum like this has its responsibility …
Alan, you don´t know my car, you would be very surprised … 
(app. 4 cases Gonon ´15 … 5 years ago)
To be fair, this isn’t really a US vs Europe/UK issue and this pricing isn’t at all representative of what many in the US are paying - which is roughly the same amount as Gerhard. Rare Wine Co had been offering the 2015 for a while at $135 and there don’t appear to be a ton of takers. This is just a few retailers trying to maximize the price. Nothing wrong with that.
Quite large, actually.
JLL says 8000 bottles, have they increased production lately?
Even if it’s 25,000 bottles that is only 2000 cases. That is not large.
I looked on WS and it’s not GBP27!
I bought into this ^ and paid $38.99 per bottle for my case of 2015 Gonon
That’s the UK importer’s allocation price for which I bought my case.
I have 23 bottles across 4 vintages (‘10-‘13). If I sold them now based on current auction prices I could make a profit of $1600. I wonder what it ends up being in another few years?
So it’s rare everywhere?
You could buy Gonon all over France pretty easily through the 2014 vintage.
The demand from the US was seen by the French/UK brokers and then they began taking positions on a wine that before was pretty much irrelevant to them previously.
Will look into Monier Perreol but I did pick up some Xavier Gerard SJ Le Blanchard recently.
I paid about US$55 per bottle for the case of ‘15 Gonon but that price included taxes and imported duties in Singapore.
They own app. 2 ha white and 5.5 ha red …
I think the 8000 bts. are the production of white SJ only.
Which is actually fairly good-sized for a Northern Rhone artisinal producer. There are many darlings here making only hundreds of cases.
Merkelbach makes 1700 cases annually. Willi Scahefer makes about 3000. A producer making something in the range of 3000 cases all in is still very small, just not microscopic.
I just checked, and Livingstone-Learmonth specifically says 8,000 bottles of each, white and red, which would make 16,000 bottles total, or a mere 1,333 cases/year.
That’s what I look for when buying a St. Joes; from those three areas. The AOC would greatly benefit from having a cru designation like Beaujolais.
When the market figures out that there is a point of elasticity for wines like this, you’ll be holding the hot potato.
Sooner rather than later if that is really what you want to do with these wines.