Does this seem fair for a tasting at a retail shop / wine bar (not producer)?

A semi-local wine bar / shop is putting on a tasting in a few weeks with 6x recently released Ganevat wines. Tickets are priced at $50/person, with 2oz. pours of each wine included. On one hand I’m tempted to attend because I love Ganevat and can’t afford to stock much of his wines, and I certainly can’t taste through a lineup of 6 bottles given my measly stash! On the other hand, $50 for ~12 oz. in this setting seems a little steep – certainly not gouging, but also not a feel-good price for me. None of his most expensive bottles are included (but none are negociant bottlings), and there is no mention of included food or snacks.

What are your thoughts – does this seem fair? Would you attend?

If the wines are special to you and hard for you to otherwise sample en masse, then the value is probably there. The fact that you are asking here suggests that this is a meaningful amount to plunk down for a tasting. I’m not sure that it is a fair analogy, but I’ve paid considerably more to taste through special burgundies from Leroy and Domaine de la Romanee Conti. Also, don’t discount the value of getting a read on the vintage if you anticipate needing the information for a future purchase decision.

Cheers,
fred

My initial reaction was that $50 is quite a bit for this sort of tasting, but then again I’ve paid closer to $15 in the past for tastings with half the bottles and a quarter of the scarcity. Being somewhat new to wine I wanted to make sure that the arrangement didn’t sound outrageous, but it sounds like that isn’t the case. I will have to spring for the occasion! Thanks for your input.

I suspect it just comes down to a personal value judgement. There are plenty of free / subsidised tastings that are relying on the event to generate future sales, plus swanky events at much more than this, aimed at satisfying a quasi-religious drive to taste sought after wines from a prestigious producer. At some point on the spectrum most of us would bow out, thinking it’s too much money to taste mere wine.

Everyone’s break even point is different, but for me, if I could taste 6 x 2 oz pours of wine that excites me and which is hard to get, in a nice setting, I’d do it.

Hell, we’ve all paid $15 for a 5 oz pour of Kim Crawford or Domaine Chandon before.

The other thing is that the wine experience isn’t a straight line at different volumes. If a 750 of 89 Haut Brion is $1000, I’d get way less than $500 marginal value out of the second half of the bottle, consumed by myself.

2 oz is pretty small (hopefully they pour heavier than that), but it’s a lot more value to the taster than 1/13th the cost of the whole bottle, if you follow my meaning.

I’ve dropped $65 a head for tastings in Napa that sucked.

Yeah, but were you HAPPY about it? champagne.gif

It sounds as if the tasting here isn’t being subsidized by either the importer or the retailer; it’s a “full boat” tasting fee and then some. The value is a bit of a flip of the coin,
but it’s not crazy $$$ either.

Bruce

Think of it another way: 2x6 = 12oz, which is essentially half a bottle. Not sure which bottles are being poured, but they typically retail for $50-60 and up. So $50 for this tasting seems very reasonable to me. And I’d be preparing to Uber home after finishing all the tastes.

It seems reasonable to me.

Ganevat wines are in the neighborhood of $40-$100 wholesale (obviously excluding entry-level negoc stuff like Le Jaja du Ben), and very allocated. $50 seems very reasonable, even a value, in my opinion. People in the wine business are notoriously generous and love sharing good wine. Even though they are advertising 2oz pours, I am sure you will be welcome to revisit any particularly noteworthy bottles.

The price seems reasonable. A retail shop that Alan and I frequent charges 1/10 the retail bottle price for a 2 oz pour. They run a tasting bar 5 days a week, and it’s a model that seems to work well as they’ve been in business for 30 years. If you take into account waste, corked and flawed wines the 1/10th retail price gives them decent margins and we get to taste amazing wines before committing to buy them. Win/win.

I think it is high as I don’t think the point of a tasting event is to make higher than normal margins on your wine…

For those that don’t have a chance to try Ganevat it might not be too bad for that consumer…but it just seems like the trend in the US is these tasting events are there to try to make money and not to get the wine out there, get people to try it, buy more, learn about the region, etc…

A little steep, but something like that would be worth it to me if it helped me make a buying a decision. Usually I walk out of tastings like this with a few bottles of my favorites from the tasting.

Man, I was going to post almost exactly what Alan said. It’s 12 ounces of wine that’s usually $50 a bottle or more and you get to try different wines.

Kevin - Unless you’re in the trade or friendly with producers/distributors, you’re not going to get a lot of chances to taste wines like that. People will do free pours for $20 wines but not wines made in small numbers when the wines are costly. It’s true that the idea is to make money, but getting wine out there, having people try it, learn about it, etc., is a really long-term proposition. In most cases, it’s better to cash in while you can. And in this case, anyone who’s going to pay for a tasting of these wines is likely to buy anyway. Those aren’t wines they’re selling at BevMo or the supermarket.

If you’re interested in the wines, then go for it. Odds are, you’ll be allowed more than 6x2oz, as the wine frequently flows quite freely at such tastings, even if it’s not advertised as such.

An interesting thread indeed - and I guess it just depends upon your perspective. There certainly are lots of tastings that are less expensive that this, and there are ‘mass tastings’ that are about the same price as this tasting.

That said, the retailer is most likely pouring bottles out of his/her inventory - most likely wines that they personally have paid for. I think it’s perfectly fair to ‘recoup’ those costs, especially for ‘rarer’ wines. And as others have said, you most likely will be able to ‘revisit’ wines if need be in order to purchase.

The only thing I would inquire about is whether you can get some of the tasting fees refunded in the case that you purchase that evening - as one might do in a tasting room. Just a thought . . .

Cheers.

Considering most glasses of wine you order from at a restaurant, you’re paying the cost of the bottle. Paying $50 for the equivalent of 2.5 glasses of wine across a lineup of $50+ wholesale cost wines seems like a fair deal to me.

As Larry states above, given the rare nature of the wines, the retailer is likely pouring wines from their paid inventory.

If these wines are important to you and you are wanting to buy, then the fee represents good value.

Greg - Not really talking about free or $20 wines…Just talking about tastings in general.

In other countries the tastings are still about getting the wine out there…getting people to try it…familiar w/ the region…building your customer base and their interest in wine. In the US it is about trying to make money on the tasting.

Granted, this is Ganevat and there is probably sufficient demand and low enough supply to make this a reasonably good opportunity to try these wines…

But in general, the tasting fees shouldn’t be there to make a huge profit…I’m also seeing this trend in the US where they tend to serve more than a normal tasting amount (1oz/30ml) which turns this more into a drinking thing more than a tasting…

Just seems like a bad trend in general when compared to how things are elsewhere…

Just make sure you get right up to the front of the wine bar and stand there whilst making small talk with the person pouring. Do not stand sideways and absolutely do NOT move from that spot! That’s how you get your money’s worth. [wink.gif]