Burgundy prices - valuation - investment

I was just doing some comparison - we have a new shipment of the 2017 white Burg’s and I was curious to look on Searcher and compare the exact same wines from the same producer from 2012 and 2013.
I was surprised to see in that brief time span - how prices at retail have doubled. I think I am too close - with the nose pressed up against the window pane, to have the deeper view of this phenomenon.
A premier cru from a respected producer of Chassagne in 2012 & 2013 is currently retailing for say $45.oo, and now that bottle is $80, or $85 or $90.oo

On a certain level we have realized this and more and more have placed our money not in the stock market or real property but in the wines that are viewed as commodities.
Obviously a White Burgundy would not be the choice for that, … I just had lost sight that 4 years back these wines were half price.
I remember that St. Aubin 1er Cru from the best name cost us $17.oo and we sold whlse. @ $21.oo and I thought that was high as I think the 2009 & 2010 cost us 11 Euro,

Today we are selling the 2017 at $48 and change… Wine prices for fine wine have accelerated far higher and faster than other costs.

This is very true and I have noticed it as well. With a lot of stock available to backfill, even for Burgundy which has smaller supply than other regions, I wonder if the incredibly rapid inflation in release prices is sustainable. A lot of producers are undercutting their own 2015-2018s with the stock still available on the market from the many good vintages between 2008 and 2014.

mmmm…
I am under the impression that in regards to Burgundy, all of the good wine sells through.
For Bordeaux and other regions that is not necessarily so.

You keep telling yourself that. Some producers are impossible/hard to find (e.g. Coche, Roumier, Mugneret-Gibourg, of course DRC), but I have no problem locating lots of high quality Burgundy.

(Also, wrong forum)

Yes, this thread needs to be on Wine Talk, it will get no attention here and is misplaced. Could one of the mods move it? (Don’t know if OP can).

As for Burgundy always selling through, all you need to do is poke around Winesearcher for a few minutes and you can find plenty of examples of excellent Burgundys where the 2009 or 2012 is selling for a much lower price than the current release. True that you won’t find case lots like Bordeaux

I do not know how to move it…
let it die… I think

I’m moving the thread to Wine Talk

Yeah, in the last two years a fair number of good/great producers have had their pricing escalate significantly in Burgundy. Wasn’t a gradual increase but a sudden and immediate jump since 2018.

I always remember the image of one of my visits in the late 1990s, the families with parents at a gathering and their life style coming out of a way of life that included the possibility of going under and/or changing to be farmers. And the children who were now grown slowly taking over the management who spent the winter in the South of France or a Caribbean Island. And in the summer included Hot Air balloons and they all drove Porsche and high end BMWs.

There is an attitude in the air you pick up as soon as you enter. There is an air they all carry themselves with. And when you go down into their cellars it is rather astonishing - particularly if you can do some quick math.

Outside of a handful of cult domaines, I have the sense as a consumer - just from what I see around - that a lot of high-quality stuff does not sell through.

Well certainly I do not know about all markets and all Domains. We distribute in Hawaii and we sell into California, New York, Boston, Las Vegas, New Jersey, and I forget where else in the U.S. and we sell a lot of fine Burgundy into Asia and we sell out of every single bottle that we can acquire if it is a good wine a good name. I am not speaking of the top names those fly off the shelf before we can stock them
And just to be clear - this is not the Hawaii market which is the least tuned into French wines of any market we work in.
So from that I form my perspective.

Huh? Pretty much the same thing at ANY wine area: Napa, Germany (where they drive German cars!), Bordeaux, Rhone Valley, Piedmont…wine attracts money and money attracts wine. Like bees to honey.

At the very least there is the fantasy of the salt of the earth vigneron who cares only to express the glories of their terroir, and is above petty material things. As opposed to the filthy mercantilist Bordelais etc etc.

I freely admit that I have carried this fantasy around in my head, and I’m sure many others have. Now I am not experienced with Burgundy, unlike very many on this board, and it’s possible that few are susceptible to this fantasy, but FWIW I thought William’s post interesting and enlightening

thank you - what does FWIW mean?
I’m copying this beautiful sentiment I just read from someone email, at the bottom he has this and it really touched me…
it is in my heart and why I chase the wines I do. These are not my words, I’ve borrowed them… AS the most succinct statement …

“There are many ways to the recognition of the truth, and Burgundy is one of them.” – Isak Dinesen

“When a wine’s flavor is inherent, it is expressing something about its home. We needn’t look for words for it. We only need to look on. Its home is layered; there’s its particular place (Le Montrachet), its general place (the Côte de Beaune in Burgundy), its more general place (France), and its final place (the earth itself), and a great wine writes a text of the entire world, radiating out from the specific to the general. This is where I live, and this is where we live. Perhaps you pause for a moment while the wine makes you more human. Because it does.”
– Terry Theise (with small adaptations of example of place)

Yao, I should have added - go to Burgundy, you must visit this place, drive up N74, starting at Chassagne, go into each village, taste the wines, speak to people, it is unlike any wine region in the world that I have seen or heard… drive into any Village appellation, at lunch time and feel the eerie quiet of not one human…
be there in the rain and watch the owners carry the dirt by hand and in buckets back up the hill, see the stone walls erected by the Monks in 1600th dividing one entirely different appellation or climat from another.
Be there in August when a hundred square yard piece of land is pelted by golf ball size balls from the heavens (or hell) heat or rains ravish a few vineyards, where the farmers cannot water… it is a most amazing place.
a place that you can taste the difference of the chardonnay grapes so distinctly on this side of N74 compared to that side…

It means you need to learn how to use google or another search engine. fwiw - Google Suche

Well if it’s all that, then 48 dollars and change sounds like a bargain.

Silliness. Prices have escalated absurdly in Burgundy, which may be hard to farm but certainly not as hard to farm as the Northern Rhône. The scarcity may be a real thing, but there are metric tons of good Burgundy out there and I get several offers every day. Some offers I trust, some I don’t. But there are dozens of excellent and hardworking producers there and even a Plebe like me can get both mid-range and high end Burgundy if I’m willing to pay the inflated prices.

It’s not all that different from Piemonte where there are a handful of big names that command absurd prices and dozens of relatively lesser known producers with great vineyards and great history and they’re kicking up their prices. In both regions it’s just hard to k ow what’s really good and what’s just okay.

Hi Noah,
I’ve always wanted to ask, in your photo, it appears the head which is pasted on to another body, is that so?
and if it is so, is it your body from another photo? With your head?
Or something entirely different?

William,

Noah’s photo isn’t Dr. Noah; it’s Dr. No. He’s a James Bond villain. The shirt collar is causing the effect you note. Check out the film. It’s great.

Cheers,
fred

Funny, I always wondered about his odd photo too!