As did we. With shipping, the Chardonnay would be close to $90 per bottle. Not that good.
Exactly. That is an easy pass at those prices.
Be interesting to see if they do. I would say Stony Hill is more for the serious wine drinker and at those new prices I would guess a decant percent of customers will pass and for the novice wine drinker the name is not established like Silver Oak, Caymus, Opus, etc.
The few Chards I had were good but not outstanding. At $90 think of what you can get from Burgundy especially Chablis.
I remember reading a quote from Jack Welch that he did NOT drink wines that cost less than $100, so perhaps this price adjustment is meant to pivot toward patrons like him.
It’s actually kind of an interesting rule assuming one is wealthy and likes fine wine, but doesn’t have the time to determine what’s good/great. He must have been relying on the fact that efficient markets tend to have quality information impounded in the price.
In line with this, I’ve had folks tell me that if I charged 2X as much, they’d purchase 2X as much . . .
Cheers.
Pricing psychology is so interesting. The machinations behind it sums up the human mind and assignation of value.
It can be a bit of a Veblen hobby.
So preface to say I don’t buy or drink much of SH.
But is a Napa cab at $150 bad? I hear how good these wines are. And relative to other Napa cabs?
Just curious.
I mean at the pricing meeting isn’t the conversation more like “hey we are massssiely underpriced. So let’s increase to a level where we are still underpriced but not so much so”?
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Just look at the difference in views here between a Screaming Eagle / DRC etc. post vs. a ‘supermarket’ wine comment…
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Sadly ended my membership with Stony Hill after the latest sale. The writing was on the wall when they immediately began stripping away member perks. Glad I was able to stock up in the 2010’s, but unfortunately those times are over.
A couple weeks ago I had my second consecutive spurious bottle of the 2010 Chardonnay. Posting that tidbit here for the benefit of those who are backfilling — I’d avoid that one.
What you need is some “Reserve” neck labels for the folks who want a wine that’s just as good as your “regular” for twice the price, so they can buy twice as much.
same as Bonneau du Martray in Burgundy—prices tripled after new owners acquired.
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Dropped off the list last week.
First he bought Heitz, then Burgess and now Stony Hill, all reasonably priced wines and iconic Napa brands.Sharp purchases by an Arkansas billionaire making a Napa statement by scooping up old school, family owned wineries.
Step right up folks, don’t be shy and yes we include Chard, or Cab flavored KY with each purchase. Consumer be damned, this is pure Napa and inevitable as long as there are suckers supporting greedy Napa pricing.
Not sure about Heitz wine prices increasing, but tastings went from complimentary just a couple of years ago to $45/$75 and now $95, which is semi understandable. It does demonstrate “what the market will bear” with that two step rapid increase tho. They changed the winery name to Heitz Cellar–lost the s, so he does not lose his s ?
You can’t blame a business for charging what the market will bear, unless we’re talking about items of necessity (i.e.: epi-pens).
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PSA: Lopa Wine has the '14 Chard for $47 on its website.
Agreed.
Now, it isn’t always true that the market will bear the high price tag that the winery jumps to. Think of the Yao Ming Napa cab that debuted for $280 and now is available at Costco for $60 and seemingly not moving quickly at that price.
But these days, in places like Napa and Burgundy, the market seems to bear it most of the time. It’ll be interesting to look and see what these new releases are selling for at retail after the new price filters out.
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Great thing about being a consumer, we can drop off any of these lists where this happens and move onto something that is priced closer to where we want to spend our dollars. There is no shortage of good wine options.
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