There’s definitely some snobbery or bias here against South American wines. But the point about a currently limited Malbec cuvee from a larger producer being subject to ‘production scale creep’ is probably accurate. If the cuvee isn’t explicitly linked to a specific vineyard, then success is likely to beget volume.
Personally, I think feral, funky cool climate West Coast Syrah is undervalued in many cases. From the same vineyard and/or producer, often Syrah is more interesting, complex and complete than Pinot Noir, yet the Pinot will run 20%-40% higher in price. I don’t sense there’s a dynamic to really drive a huge price increase, as these sorts of wines are a hybrid of Old and New World and don’t neatly fit into any boxes. Old World fans will still prefer Cote Rotie and Hermitage, New World fans will still seek Syrah that drinks like Cab or that otherwise follows the house style of a cult producer. Syrah in Pinot country seems destined to be a niche passion project domain.
There are a few other possibilities where the dynamics are more ripe for a price escalation . . . . but I’ll be a bit coy on who I think that might be
I agree and that is a great point. They have an Altamira malbec, allowing them more production at this level. It is currently going for around the same price, but imo is not comparable to the Gualtallary. Gualtallary is a small sub region of Tupungato, which is a sub region of Valle de Uco, a sub region of Mendoza, so although it is not a specific vineyard, it is tough to boost the production of this specific wine.
I started out with full bodied domestic wines, but have veered far into the old world since. Have you ever had Eleanor? I think the older releases were pure Syrah, but haven’t had it in some years and I think there is some cab now.
I think the important point to remember here is that none of us know for certain which wine or even region may go up over the next 5 years. We are all speculating, and will only find out 5 years from now what happens over those 5 years.
If anyone by some chance does have some definitive answer of the future, please let me know. Maybe we can go halves on a vineyard.
Thank you for those who contributed their speculation on what regions or wines will gain appreciation.
Can you explain why? I see no reason to think that there’s any meaningful risk of depreciation in wine prices nor have I seen anyone make an argument for that on this thread.
I think my comment on Hermitage not being undervalued also reflects the winemaking on the hill. I like Sorrel quite a bit, but the pricing on the last few vintages has gotten quite ferocious. Beyond that, it’s mostly Guigal and Chapoutier (feh), Chave* (overpriced) and Jaboulet, on which I’m very much not sold. I know it’s under new management, but for years they just made bad wines and I’m not prepared to call those wines well priced. I did buy a bit of the 2016, because I tasted them and found them promising, but long ways to go (plus 2016 is a spectacular vintage imho).
*I’ll drink all the pre-99 Chave people will pour me, but post 99 it’s not my style of wine.
Yeah, sorrel’s moved his pricing up in the last couepl of years - I was a bit shocked his son had put the price up against the famed 2017 vintage, to be honest.
Jaboulet I picked up, as I said, a vertical 15-18, but I dont intend to keep indulging. Even the 15 which some critics say is the best since the 91 vintage is only up marginally in price since EP.
I think 15, 16 for some producers was kind of undervalued (vs where we stand now) I suppose. More than anything I’m looking at what <£100/bottle in hermitage (e.g. Sorrel 17) can get you vs Bordeaux, I suppose.
I agree with this about W Coast syrah from pinot country. At the risk of increasing prices, I would look at Halcon. Those wines are really excellent. Will they increase in price a lot – I really have no idea. But are they great values right now – absolutely.
your very next post after this, talking about why you thought Hermitage were overpriced, gives some of the reasons one might think wine prices were inflated. This is hardly the only area where decent-but-not-special wines are now selling for $150-200 when they were much lower just a few years ago. It is hard to say whether this means that there are more people out there who just don’t care about price and don’t view $150 as a lot of money, but certainly value wise things “feel” inflated.
In terms of objective reasons, we have a 25% tariff holding back supply, and European and Asian prices for the same wines are now quite a bit (often 35%+) lower than U.S. prices. If the tariff goes away and grey market operators find a way to arbitrage that price gap, then prices could drop pretty quickly.
No, I think most of those producers don’t make good wine, which is why those wines are overpriced. Jaboulet would have been overpriced 10 years ago. There’s absolutely no reason to think the pricing on Hermitage will decline given the quantity of production.
25% tariff “holding back supply”? It’s holding back demand. Lots of supply.
Comparisons to European prices for current vintages are moot given that we’re mostly talking about European wine, as there’s no import there.
Asian prices are sometimes lower, but typically there’s not that much arbitrage. Also, what accounts for that is the three tier system, which isn’t going away.
More significantly, however, 2 and 3 and somewhat obviated by the fact that wine is a global market; you’re making an argument that wine prices in the US will drop relative to global wine prices…which is very unlikely given the global nature of the market.
If you’re making the argument that the 2018 vintage in Burgundy might decrease in value a bit because in the US it was bought at tariff prices, but boy is that a narrow argument! (And not likely to be true anyway.)
interesting thread. i’m skeptical of any south american wines going up in price. i don’t even believe those $100 high point bottles are really ‘valid’ prices. i’d like to see some of those well vetted in secondary auctions before believing them. i just see too many stacks of them in costco.
for those with space, and who drink / enjoy them, i’d try to save racks for cote rotie, cornas, hermitage, and barolo+barbaresco. not anything new info there, but even the negociant/blends are going to be more expensive in the future it seems. these regions feel like all the allowable acreage has been pretty much been planted.
Right — but, it’s not speculation to say that Sri Lanka isn’t likely to be a good place to look for the next JL Chave Hermitage. When 20 people with a lot of experience say roughly the same thing, more often than not, they’re right. There’s usually wisdom in the crowd. While you’re right in saying no one knows — some bets are better than others.
I totally agree. Especially a crowd like we have on here. Lots of very knowledgeable people, which I try to leverage as much as I can, as I have a ton to learn.
On the flip side, if everyone thinks something is going to go up, the current price generally already reflects that increase, while if they do not speculate an increase, the current price does not reflect such speculation and therefore is more likely to be undervalued. This becomes even more true if the feedback mechanism is quick, which it is not the case with wine, but the concept is still pretty valid. The fact that so many say it will not go up, and I believe often without having tried the wine, actually makes me think more and more that it will go up, but again I am only speculating. I am sure there will be some dispute about this and I am a bit confused about how this could spark so much debate, but maybe that is why there have been so people offering their speculation.
I think debates like this can be had all day, but it really wasn’t the purpose of this post. The idea was to see others put there opinions out in the open and hopefully help others find wines that are under appreciated, not for investing, but for drinking.
Seems like a thread that comes around with some frequency, but it seems like if you treat the prerequisites as : a) is delicious and likable b) is relatively “cheap” c) has widespread credibility across a broad swath of drinkers, the big blinking light is Beaujolais.
I simply don’t know enough about global wine economics to know how likely that is, but that’d be my best guess.
back to the OP question, my guess is German Riesling and grower Champagne. The former because they offer such great QPR now (have had some very impressive $20 bottles, which I can’t say about many other regions), Germany is a clear (near-term) beneficiary of global warming, and the consultants are now pushing it. The latter because the quality seems to get better each year with this generation of growers putting out better and better wines, the value relative to other top wines of other regions is still quite reasonable, and the prices have started to rise in recent years, so this is starting to get recognized.
As Markus points out, the language you used doesn’t give much indication that you are looking for wines to drink rather than invest. I mean, if the wine is for drinking, why care about its future price? Buy the best wine available at your current price point.
And there are already 8000 threads out there on exactly this topic, just use the handy search button and enter “QPR”. So if what you are looking for isn’t found in one of those threads – start a new thread, and explain how what you are looking for is different from what you can find in the existing threads.
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