I’m on a mailing list for the opportunity to purchase everything the winery releases. Retailers generally get 2 or three bottlings if that. If I see something I like cheaper somewhere else I purchase and count my blessings. If I see it for more I pass. The winery knows what their wine is worth and I believe them. In this case the retailer is marking the wine up above suggested retail. Zinfandel has a sweet spot for me and when it approaches $50 I generally pass unless I have tasted the wine and feel it is worth the higher price. Most times it isn’t though. Maybe this time it is but a $10 markup on a $38 wine plus sales 9% tax just pushes my button. That’s not on the winery it’s on the retailer.
I am seeing it at another Bay Area retailer for $45, so that appears to be the market at retail. I am a buyer from the mailing list and really enjoy the DuPratt, as well as the other’s in Mike’s portfolio. The Montafi is my favorite.
Thanks,
Ed
Hey Brian,
You must have misread the price tag. Bottle Barn is selling our '14 DuPratt for $42.99, not $47. However, $47 is the full retail price. We offered it at a pre-release price of $39 to our mailing list for a 3-week period back in January/early February but since then have been selling it in our tasting room at $47. Hence, if you want it now, Bottle Barn is the cheapest place to get it.
Thanks for the note Dan. I have not opened one yet but will have to put one in the queue. I had an '09 Carlisle Cardiac Hill Syrah last night that was just rock’in.
You are right about the first part but wrong about the second part. The people who argue that the wine is not worth the price at the store are just plain WRONG for so many reasons. If you are a loyal customer and you want to buy every year and you buy enough to make shipping worthwhile, you get a discount. If not, you have a pay a premium for being able to pick and choose every wine based upon your whim. It’s that simple.
Just to reply to the HackLee dustup (more on other parts of this thread in the Fullness of Time):
I deal with this all the time in Maine. It’s called CSA, or Community Supported Agriculture. I can go to the farmer’s market and buy whatever I want from whoever I want. I pay a comparatively high price.
I can sign up with a farmer whose produce (or animals) I like for a full season’s worth of stuff. I get a better price. I get whatever produce is in season, or the animal I paid for. If I buy a half a goat and prefer the leg to the rib chops, I still wind up with both for one set price. If I want just goat leg, I show up on Saturday morning, pay a higher price per pound and get only the cut I want.
YGWYPF. Always true.
Dan Kravitz
Sorry if it seemed like a dustup. Not intended. Adam said wineries were screwed either way. I was just taking one side and against the evildoers who complain about store prices. I think every Siduri and Novy I ever bought was direct from him. I regret no longer getting those cheap and amateurish photocopied mailings.
Thanks Mike. I’ll have to check that again.
I have been traveling a lot lately and doing a ton of political advocacy & teaching, not a ton of surgery. I did a case a few weeks ago, really elegant recurrent inguinal hernia repair done laparoscopically. Had visitors from two other continents watching the case and it was not a chip shot, parts of the case were dicey and it could have gone sideways fast. Without technical details suffice to say it would have been embarrassing.
Anyway guy does great but comes back to my office a week later bitching that I didn’t do the operation I spoke with him about pre-operatlvely and he accused me of letting my visitor from India do the actual operation!
It’s not a wine thing, it’s a 21st-century thing. Nobody in business can win. Being whipsawed rules, that is the only winning perspective.
I love Steele wines (goodness did I drink these up in NW Fla during the 90s) and Carlisle Dupratt.
Glenn,
I think the reasons people complain so much is that we get e mails every five minutes about ‘how was the checkin’…‘how was the phone call?’ etc…we are encouraged at every step to complain.
Wineries Mondavi size cannot undercut their customers, ie wholesalers and retailers, so for many years the best place in Napa to buy Mondavi wines was at a store in Napa.
But for wineries like Mike’s, DTC is more important than stores.
Adam is probably in the middle.It’s what gives him insomnia.
Mel I think surveying plays a part but Monday-Morning QB’ing and sounding off about the slightest slight remain multi-factorial problems invading so many aspects of modern life.