Some stores had difficulty selling the 98 RC at sub $1k. The 99s were not too difficult to find. The 01, 02, 03 and 04 were also not too difficult. The 05 was hot the the 06, 07 and 08 were readily available. Until recently, buying DRC RSV, Richebourg and GE was a losing proposition. It may be hard to believe but the demand in the 90s was nothing like the past few years.
I don’t doubt there’s more demand now, and they always forced the mixed cases on people. But the US market was nothing like what Herwig describes in Belgium.
92, 93 not that it was a bad vintage, 94,97 & 98, yes it was challenging.
Herwig said that the Belgian distributor sold 2 of 150 cases in the 90s. Not remotely like the US, even if some off vintages of the lesser crus sat on the shelves here.
Stacks of cases of 90 DRC sat in LA stores for months. I ended up trading one store owner lots of older Cali cabs
for mixed cases. He could sell those much quicker.
Same is true of 96 Raveneau.
When a friend and mentor visited in the 1960s, it was considered polite to purchase a mixed case on departure.
Ive never understood why you guys dont just goto the tasting room and buy from the winery shop
LOL
I’m on a Wilson Daniels direct allocation list and get offered a bunch of stuff that I don’t want (like Oliver Bernstein). I’ve always wondered whether, if I started buying everything offered in every mailing, they would bump me up and start offering me DRC. I doubt it, which is why I don’t do that.
I don’t care for Wilson Daniels. Two simple reasons. I use to buy Leflaive Chevalier in mags, last year purchased 2010. They cut off the source I purchased from, and really cut their allocation. I use to buy DRC, Aubert and WD stated they did not want to sell to a grocery chain…
DRC is a wholesaler’s nightmare. Everyone wants it and there is not enough to go around.
whenever I go to the WD portfolio tasting I think to myself “man they carry a lot of random ass no name producers” ![[snort.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/b/bdc3944606213c4dca6c1169cf0a166c8bc4f8c9.gif "snort.gif"){kind=small}
See. how can we have a moderator who thinks DRC is a random ass no name producer !!!
That is driving retailers crazy too. From what I can see, the old allegiances have been honored to a large degree- but I have been told by many in recent years that they would have to buy in quite a lot of difficult to sell items to increase DRC allocations, and even then no guarantees.
I suppose most of you are aware that starting in 2015 retailers have to sign a pledge that they will not list the wines for sale on the internet. I had assumed it was a WD thing in some measure, but given the lack of listings world-wide it would appear to be an edict coming direct from the Domaine. Winebid recently listed a bottle of 2015 Romanee-Conti, but the serial number was obscured in the photography.
It seems a dangerous game to me- to go to extraordinary efforts to thwart the secondary market while also jacking up the prices to incredible levels (the 2015s went up quite a bit from the 2014s, Echezeaux was offered to me for 4 figures for the first time ever), and then of course add in the wholesaler pressure to take other less sellable stock. There must be some pain over Leflaive as well these days with those prices at the very top and now pre-mox a massive problem there.
Then of course there is the headache of sharing around tiny allocations among a very demanding base of customers who spend a lot of money.
Sure there is a lot of profit per bottle, but when you only have 12-24 bottles to share, on an annual income statement for a good wine store that is very little reward in exchange for a handful of bottles that are a true pain in the ass to deal with.
It will be interesting to see where this goes, but I am betting that when the bubble bursts- or, at current prices, if we have a vintage or two in a row that is less that very good- not even the DRC name will stop these wines from going the way of Leroy in terms of essentially disappearing from most retail markets for all practical purposes.
For real, we sold dozens of DRC assortment cases for $750 in the 80’s…
Wilson Daniels’ and the local distributor was stuck with an off vintage offered a deal. Very few buyers cared about chaptalization, when they looked at the price of our other DRC vintage offerings(oh my, even the great ones were so silly cheap back then, our benchmark catalog is astounding to peruse).
while I understand what Tom says, not sure I agree. As DRC expands (Corton and now Corton Charlemagne), prices jump and the wines sell with no problem. World wealth soars at the top end and many who buy these wines know little about price history and don’t care. There’s still not much of it made compared to Bordeaux chateaux and I don’t see trouble ahead for the domaine.
The days of vintage dumping à la 1988, though for a somewhat different reason then, are over.
I’ve been skulking about Red Burg reviews, comments, secondary sales, etc for several years now, so please forgive and be kind to my neophyte-ness…
I’ve only managed try one or two highly rated (95+) Red Burgs, in the last few years, mostly just because of my unwillingness to pay more than $250 per bottle, having been burned quite a few times on high priced bottles (at least to me) , due to my inexperience.
While I would absolutely love to try a DRC, I can’t help but notice there 5-10 other producers usually available, from many of the same vineyards, for example Echézeaux, at any time, with very high ratings in the same range as many DRC’s as well.
So my question is, if someone tasted all these blind, would they be able to pick out a noticeable quality difference? (between DRC vs. others from the same vineyard & vintage)
Inclusion of stems gives DRC wines a very unique profile when young. The truth of the matter is that some people can’t tell whites from reds when served blindfolded and most folks will have difficulty telling GCs from village wines.
Mostly agree with this statement. An experienced palate can probably distinguish pretty well, especially when wines are drunk next to each other.
Eric, very interesting question. Adding to it…At ideal maturity - say 15-25 years in - who someone with only a moderately experienced palate be able to tell the difference?
I think the answer to this question would satisfy my “style vs substance” query. In essence, I’m asking is there something noticeably better about DRC vs it’s neighbors, that justifies (or is contributory to) its stratospheric high price.
Said another way, if I try a well regarded neighbor of DRC (at a fraction of the price), would I be tasting a similar product?