Shhh!!!
I would also add Oregon Chardonnay to this â and perhaps other Oregon whites (I have had some pretty nice Pinot Blanc from Oregon recently).
Lol white Burg is the expensive one here. I donât think itâs fruitful to compare wines outside Burgundy to this anomaly of wine pricing, because any wine is dirt-cheap compared to a Burgundy of similar quality.
I gotta agree here with Ottoâs general sentiment. How much do you think an importer or a retailer can boost a price of a $40-ish bottle of wine that isnât Burgundy and get away with it (unless itâs a WS top ten, but thatâs a rarity)? It ainât gonna be $100. Argentina isnât that hot in US markets.
Thereâs both a sea of âundervaluedâ $40 wines (tho thatâs also a contradiction to 99% of wine buyers) and an ocean of undervalued $20 wines.
I think the key is consistency. Undervalued for 1 vintage wonât drive price much if at all, but if a producer is consistent several years in a row, price tends to rise. There is a lag because it takes time for the quality to be recognized and the recognition is really what drives consumers to buy. Year after year, if a wine sells out earlier and earlier, price is going to go up no matter the region. Often we even see price continue to rise as the quality fades for several years because of that same lag.
I donât think that particular Malbec is about to be $120, but its hard to imagine that it doesnât hit $50 or so within a few years if the quality is sustained.
In my opinion, Chablis 1er and GC. Relatively undervalued compared to Cote de Beaune. Climate change seems to be reducing vintage variation caused by underripeness. Big key will be if yields can be stabilized against the threats of frost and hail.
Most of the time, higher production wine wonât really increase in price. There are some exceptions like 2016 Leoville Barton after it was WS #1 with 20k case production, but they are few and far between.
Iâm afraid youâve got it backwards. The large production of cheap wines makes it very difficult to move other wines under the same name upmarket. Thatâs why so many wineries create new brands for their upmarket wines. Same process happens across all consumer goods.
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I cant necessarily guarantee anything will go up, but to me in terms of quality, ageability, and price, some of the less than absolute top (e.g. Chave, etc) Rhones seem amazingly good value for money. If you consider what 6 bottles of, say, Clos des Papes, Beaucastel, or even Janasse cost, and some of the Hermitage producers like Guigal, Sorrel, etc, in comparison to what you could get in Bordeaux, that feels like to me it should have a 50% upside.
Of course thereâs nothing âpertinentâ about that, e.g. any changing circumstances in the last few years - and Bordeaux from an ageability perspective will live longer anyway.
Perhaps. I can see the psychological factor, but Iâm not sure it is as much of a factor as it was perceived to be in the past.
Take bourbon for example. 4R yellow label hasnt slowed the insane climb 4R Limited Edition SmB, EH Taylor Small Batch or Rye havent slowed the now over $2000 limited release from EHT each year. Those limited releases were $200 just a few years ago. Eagle rare 17 year doesnât suffer from the standard ER and so on.
I think the fact that the bottle comes from a producer which has great distribution, allows it to appear in more stores around the world, and in front of more faces. If that coincides with quality, people repeat buy. Again this is all speculation on this bottle and I could be totally wrong. If I am, it sure wonât impact the enjoyment I will have drinking them.
Not really true when you think of pricing for eg keller, several US chardonnays, gaya & rey etc etc and thatâs just restricting to white wines. Cotatâs wines are absolutely on a par if not âbetterâ (whatever that means - ageability, track record, aromatic complexity, palate depth etc etc etc) than those and cost peanuts in comparison.
But both Gaja and Keller are huge anomalies in their respective regions as well. It has relatively little to do with quality and all about to do with self-feeding hype loop. Youâre just trying to elevate Cotat into this Veblen good level which doesnât mean that the product would be undervalued at the moment, but instead suddenly becomes overvalued because of the scarcity and prestige.
When it comes to US Chardonnays, I donât know wth is going on there. From an outsiderâs perspective, the pricing of US wines doesnât really make any sense.
Hofgut Falkenstein
I find it very hard to see anything produced in Hermitage these days as undervalued. I do agree there are a good number of producers in Cornas and cote rotie making very good wines at still reasonable prices, but, of course, those prices have also risen quite rapidly in the last 5 years.
There are good US Chardonnays, but theyâre priced to the US market for the most part, so if you can buy white burgundy at European prices it does make less sense. Whereas if you buy white burgundy at US retail prices, it becomes an alternative.
Iâm no bourbon expert, but 4R and EH Taylor are already premium brands, with their base bourbons selling for $50 or so. Altos â whose base malbec can be had for less than $10 â is more akin to Jim Beam or Wild Turkey. Hard to take brands like that seriously upmarket. You need to create a new brand.
+1
I agree! Just look what some freaking idiot paid for those older bottles at the Winzer charity auction.
They are currently undervalued, very small production, in my opinion no one else makes a wine in their style and they have a rabid global following. And if you care about that stuff have high scores. Most importantly they are excellent wines!
Full disclosure: I am very long Falkenstein!
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There are only so many dollars chasing higher end wines. The risk always is pricing yourself out of your target market.
Youâre talking about those 1988 bottles? What was the final hammer price? I stopped after $150 for each two-bottle lot.