Most of my mailing list wines are from California and I find it harder and harder to spring for the really high end stuff. Even though I rarely, if ever, take advantage of selling wine, it helps to know that I could in the event of an adverse financial situation or if my palate changes.
What mailing lists can deliver on holding their value inclusive of acquisition/sales costs? Let’s keep it irrespective of vintage for simplicity. I’m thinking
Marcassin
SQN
Saxum?
Rhys?
Screaming Eagle
Schrader
Next of Kyn
Alban
Saxum
Aubert
Boars View (even after one release)
Cirq (even after one release)
Kistler (the Cuvees)
Kosta Browne
Eagle, Crow, Marcassin, SQN, NOK
Scarecrow
Hillside
Cayuse
Abreu?
For a while you could get the off-vintages for well below release price, but recently the prices have been holding.
Now how do you know they will hold their value if they have had only one release?
In addition to those mentioned, Ridge Monte Bello.
Ridge Monte Bello, though it is futures pricing versus mailing list.
Thanks,
Ed
I trust my Magic 8-Ball
Quilceda Creek (after the first release)
Hard to argue with any of those, but another consideration is liquidity (no pun intended). I won’t name names, at the risk of being ‘de-listed’ - but I will sell off bottles if cellar tracker shows values of any of my wine exceeding my upper limit of what I’d pay for any wine.
There is a glut of at least a few of the above in the secondary market.
As a general observation, it also appears almost all wineries have found their market value in the last few years and raised prices accordingly. There are a couple notable exceptions, but I’ve noticed a trend of wines either holding, or slightly dropping in the secondary.
Harlan
Colgin
Sloan
Bryant
DRC
Kapcsandy. I don’t know if Ridge counts because it is so value priced already.
I don’t know which mailing list wines will hold or appreciate in value and don’t buy on that basis.
The past history, highly allocated and flipped wines favor Screaming Eagle, Marcassin, SQN, and
the release system seems to work for Kapscandy and Schrader.
Looking at the secondary market for things like Abreu, Araujo, Bryant, Colgin, Shafer HSS, Harlan etc., if you bought off vintages, (say 2000 or 2006 i.e. not the stellar points) and you are buying at today’s release price s it might be questionable to say they held or maintain their value relative to what you spend to acquire and store them.
Some price increases for recent release wines are downright obscene.
Staying on the list is more a matter of liking the wines, people behind them for me.
If they price themselves out of reach, move on.
If you fear you miss out on a vintage of the decade, century or whatever or don’t want to get dropped, you playing a game that favors the house not the buyer.
I depends how you want to sell it. Almost everything mentioned would have to be sold at a loss if you’re selling to a retailer or distributor.
I agree with this. Almost all US wines are very poor investments. Besides Screagle and SQN, everything else is questionable that it will hold value unless it is a Robert Parker 100-point wine.
Rhys almost always sells at a loss at auction. Abreu used to be a horrible investment, but has come back in the last few years because the Asian market discovered it.
Kapcsandy sells at a loss?