La Tache = Best Deal on the List

I was at a local italian restaurant last night, griping about wine markups, when I saw a bottle of 2012 DRC La Tache. I made a throw away comment and then set the winelist down.

Then I started thinking that $2900 for that bottle was the best deal on the entire winelist by far. I know you tend to get slimmer markups as you move up the price ladder, but isn’t this right about where you would buy it at the cheapest retail location. (a quick check shows Belmont has it for $2850)

What was the release price on this?

And no, I didn’t pull the trigger. I just didn’t think it would pair with my saltimbocca. [snort.gif]

Dio deka in town has 09 la tache for $2650- cheapest in U.S.

Release in Quebec for La Tâche 2009 was $815 CAD.

That was a lottery though. Otherwise I would be all over it!

I used to see this more regularly. DRC on wine lists for more recent vintages can be well under auction pricing. While rarely a good enough deal to ‘bite the bullet’, I have jumped in at times. In 2009, I found 2005 RSV on the list at the Setai in Miami for $600 per bottle. Had a few of those. And an older one, around say 2006 or so I had 1999 La Tache at the Breakers hotel, Sea Island, GA for around $650.

I have a good head for numbers and am way more likely to spring for a trophy that is at or below the retail market than drink plonk at triple retail.

market price is misleading though because usually the markup is about the same across the board, just the perceived value of the wine is different. of course it seems better to pay $2000 for a wine with a wine searcher low of $3000 but it is not really a deal.

DRC/Wilson Daniels tracks the bottles sold to restaurants etc. first tier pricing is still very affordable. Numerous restaurants just take their allocation and sell it out the back door. The 2005 La Tache I purchased was a little over $700 bottle when released (1st tier) I stopped buying DRC after 2006.

Funny comment as I was just at a restaurant where they had 7-8 vintages of La Tache for all under 1800 Euros and I think some as low as 1400 Euros - and my mind did the math for just a minute as they were incredible deals…of course still way out of my price range. This restaurant was DRC heaven (except if you can get them at release prices - check out these two pics with the RC pricing with 12 vintages under 6200 (no pricing on the 9 vintages of RC in mag though) and 10 vintages of RSV for under 1000…same with all of the other bottlings. Great restaurant pricing and a great deal but still unobtainable for most… I am amazed that these haven’t been drunk by groups of high fliers like the great well priced high end wines at Berns have been…
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Sorry - the resolution downgraded - will try to fix the pics.

Should have mentioned the name of the restaurant - Rekondo in San Sebatian. Amazing selection of DRC … Wish I had the dough…

Rekondo- one of my favorite restaurants! And don’t even get me started on the Unico pricing and selection!!! Drank 3 bottles by myself while I was there as the price was so good.

The Unico selection was mind blowing (must have been 30 or even 40 to choose from) and well priced - even potentially affordable - I thought hard about a bottle or two of Unico (as I recall many were around 250-300 Euros, including a great NV blend for around 240 that I had my eye on) but I eventually went with two bottles of 1970 Rioja which were very interesting and much easier on the budget.

As Chris points out in the OP, often the markups drop as the prices go way up…but would you spring for a trophy wine if all of the wines were priced at or below retail? That was the difficulty that I had - everything was so well priced that I could have ordered bottles in any price range and had them be “deal”. As a result, I was really torn about stretching for the biggie so to speak.