Wow-Received an Email For 2017 DRC

Received an email from a company I’ve bought from previously. Probably under 2 cases total. Surprised to see they were offering 2017 DRC. La Tache & Grand Echezaux

$$$???

yes

La Tache $2,500

Grand Echezaux $4,000

No idea if this is good or bad. Never have bought DRC

you have those reversed?

LT- back up the truck

Oops! Told you I know nothing about DRC except I can’t afford it

La Tache $4,000

Grand Echezaux $2,500

WS Low for La Tache (non-auction) is 3,300, so seems a bit pricey? I have no idea in pricing either…

From Benchmark’s email today:

DRC Echezeaux 2017 ~ 1 @ $1899 WA94, BH93
DRC Grands Echezeaux 2017 ~ 2 @ $2875 BH94, V94
DRC La Tache 2017 ~ 3 @ $3999 WA96
DRC Richebourg 2017 ~ 2 @ $2439 BH95, WA95 bin stained label
DRC Romanee Conti 2017 ~ 2 @ $18999 WA98, BH97

Retailers can ask these prices because they know it’s basically impossible for even VIP clients to buy DRC at wholesale prices and there will always be a buyer eventually for DRC no matter the price.

Email from GRW today offering a 2017 DRC RC 3-pack OWC for $48,500.

I wasn’t aware that DRC sold the RC separately in 3-packs. Thought they were sold as 1 bottle in a mixed case. Not that I’ve ever had the $$$$$ to buy one.

They come in 3, 6, and 12 packs. As do all the others they offer.

Thanks. Not being an active DRC buyer may explain why I’ve never seen them offered to the “general public” like that.

Typically in today’s Burgundy craze they are usually never offered to the “public” in those types of packs. Maybe you’ll see a single floating around here and there sparingly. 99.9% of the time they never see the light of day because they are all either pre sold by retailers to their top tier clients and also bought at distributor prices by special clients on the WD private list and never made public.

Don’t believe they make 6 or 12s of the RC. They also don’t make 12s of much of anything anymore. The standard shipment to the US is 6 and the RC and Monty are in 3s.

Party at GELLMAN’S !!!

Those are secondary market prices.

This is spot on. 6’s for all except RC and Monty in 3’s.

I passed on the 2017s, but in case it is helpful for reference, here are the pre-discount full retail prices I was quoted this year (and no- I am not on the private baller list),

Echezeaux - 900
Grands-Echezeaux - 1,325
Richebourg - 2,250
La Tache - 2,500
Romanee St. Vivant - 2,500
Montrachet - 5,000

I was not offered RC, so no idea the retail price with normal markup. The only new trend I can point to is the fact that pricing for Richebourg and RSV have been very aggressively brought a lot closer to La Tache, with RSV equal to La Tache in 2017. This kind of sucks for me since RSV has always been my favorite wine. I also like the Montrachet quite a bit, and while it was much slower to rise in price (2007 was the last vintage I bought, and at $1,800 per while RC was about $4K) it is now really up there and not too far from Romanee-Conti.

PS- before anyone PMs, the above noted offer is now sold out, so I would not be able to buy and share. I don’t do that much anymore now anyway- with so many other people waiting their turn these days, I feel like I am cheating to buy anything I am not intending to keep for myself.

Correct- and to give the history in case of interest, in the US market I have only ever seen Montrachet in 6 packs for 1996 and prior, and 3 packs from 1997 to the present. Romanee Conti was also 3 packs from 1997 to present, but a bit blurry as to when they went from 12 to 6 packs. I know for sure by 1994 it was 6 packs, and up to 1990 I have seen 12 bottle cases. 1991 to 1993 I know there were 6 packs, but might also have been 12s.

Everything else was 12s up to 1995 in the US and then 6 packs from 1996 to the present.

But as with Bordeaux there can always be exceptions- and given how widely DRC trades you can see cases in other sizes that originated in other markets- though they will be smaller than what I have reported above.

David- to address your question on RC being sold outside of assortments, it is true that back in the days of the assortment it was possible to get RC solo as I have noted above, but that privilege was offered to very few retailers. Many retailers just got assortments- getting individual cases of any of the wines outside of La Tache was less common. I do not know how those allocations worked, but in Making Sense of Burgundy by Matt Kramer, Mr. Kramer indicated that when buying outside of the assorted case format (which never included Montrachet by the way- a rumor that persists to this day) importers had to buy 15 bottles of other DRC wines to get 1 bottle of Romanee Conti and 50 bottles of other DRC wines to get 1 bottle of Montrachet.