What do you find is a good value play at K&L? I have been buying from them for well over a decade and have always found them to be a class act. Great customer service, good shipping pricing. But…for much of their wine the pricing is qutie a bit higher than I can usually source elsewhere. I don’t tend to search for the cheapest bottle of any given wine I’m after, but K&L is often quite a bit higher than other reputable merchants. I used to find their auctions to be decent plays, but that seems to have changed in the last couple of years or so (or maybe I’m just getting cheap as I age). Just wondering which wines, regions, etc. you find that they excel at and what you choose to use them for.
If you can find a better price than don’t buy from them! Every city has at least one or two great places to buy quality wine and usually when they have a sale they are better than most in that market.
Oh, sure. I don’t buy from a merchant simply to be supportive. What I mean is, are their certain value plays at K&L that you notice? For example, California, Burgundy, Lebanon. Or even more specifically, any particular producer with which they are well priced?
Oh, sure. I don’t buy from a merchant simply to be supportive. What I mean is, are their certain value plays at K&L that you notice? For example, California, Burgundy, Lebanon. Or even more specifically, any particular producer with which they are well priced?
They don’t ship to MN anymore but when I was looking to buy from them it would be usually in their closeout wines that I would find good value.
To be honest, not much value play anymore since they moved to the new store in San Francisco. 10+ years ago I would have said value plays are mainly Bordeaux and big house Champagne, but now they are just “OK”. Burgundy prices are quite high, and harder to find wines are also on the high side. K&L will not be in the lowest price bracket in WS-Pro, but they are more of lower middle to middle of the pack in terms of pricing.
They used to be pretty good with pricing across the board. That changed a good handful of years ago, and they have lost tons of my business as a result. Quite frankly, I’m having a hard time thinking of a direct, responsive, answer to your question.
Most recently, I bought some German Riesling and Sherry from them; I think their pricing in those categories is reasonable, but it’s really a wine-by-wine thing with them these days.
I love K&L, been buying there for 30+ years. Perfect service, the auctions are great. If there is sometimes a price difference, I find they still offer value.
Been a K&L customer for decades, it’s a really good operation. I think people make the mistake of blaming the retailer for price increases, when the truth is that wine prices have just gone up over the years, way up in some categories. The internet, global wealth, and fixed amounts of certain wines will do that, duh. I do wonder how the exit of the other big player on the peninsula, Beltramos, impacted them, maybe that loss of competition gave them room on some pricing, but Belts was never known as a low priced store. Another consideration: service. Given some of the threads on other stores, and their deterioration in service, K&L has superb service. When you walk around their two bay area stores, you won’t have trouble finding someone to help with any questions. Their web site and inventory management is top notch. You want answers about delivery or pickup, you’ll get them quickly. All that costs money, so take your pick. You want rock bottom pricing, you probably get out of date inventory, people who aren’t helpful on the phone, etc.
Yup, they are a class act with great customer service. No doubt. But, when you are purchasing online, what types of wines have you chosen to purchase from them lately?
Given the thread today from Michael Chang RE 2018 Ridge Geyserville, I looked and K&L has good pricing on that wine. So that’s one example.
FWIW, my comment on pricing was relative to other stores; K&L used to have some of the best prices in L.A… That’s just not true, anymore. I’m still a customer, but only a fraction of what I used to be. There was an inflection point with my purchasing from Envoyer — when that happened, it was largely at K&L’s expense.
No consistent pattern with me, but wine-by-wine the pricing can sometimes be attractive. Like for whatever reason they had surprisingly competitive pricing on 2016 Fratelli Alessandria Barolo. And sometimes they get good deals and pass along the discounts, like a 2015 Vajra Bricco della Viole within the last few months. But it’s not consistent with regions, like not all Barolo is well priced, same with Champagne, etc. Sometimes they buy aged wine and sell it at very reasonable prices, but those sell out within a day or two usually. Recently they have had a ton of aged Ridge wines.
I like K&L, especially for backfilling older vintages. Either via auction, where they have a very competitive buyer’s premium. Or via alerts in the regular store. The insider deals are often very good. I accumulate will call orders until we happen to be in the area, so I never have to worry about shipping.
I’ve bought from K&L for many years and things became even better when they started offering local delivery for free if your orders were over $1k. But it’s true that their pricing on many wines has become less competitive, for example I used to occasionally buy Chevillon or Dujac from them but now their prices on those wines are no longer close to competitive.
Bordeaux prices are mixed. Sometimes they’re competitive but often pretty high. But I bought a 2017 PLL Mag for $240 today (price seems to have gone up to $300 now).
Insider’s advantage is often the source of great deals. I picked up 2010 Tertre roteboeuf for <$150, and they still have it for $169, which is still $50 lower than the global low on wine-searcher.
They sometimes also have great deals on other wines not labeled insider’s advantage, like older pegaü for <$50.
K&L has such a huge selection, you can always find good deals but it can take a while as the general pricing is not usually attractive. But their insider’s advantage sales often have some great deals - most of what I buy besides auctions are from these on-sale wines.
Wines/regions I’ve found well-priced deals for in the last 12-18 months:
-Brunello
-Champagne (especially their direct buys)
-Californian whites and non-cab reds
-Austrian wines (not a big selection but well chosen)
And of course, they have easily the most incredible selection of rare and special spirits I’ve ever seen. They direct import so much interesting stuff especially Scotch and Armagnac, usually at terrific prices. This has dried up a little over the last year due to the tariffs I think and they can’t ship spirits out of state any more, but they will hold it for you and you can collect if you ever go through CA.
Oh I should also mention their selection of Loire cab franc library wines. The Joel Taluau 1989 St-Nic-de-Bourgeuil for $50 is still a great value (it used to be $32 5 years ago). They’ve also historically had good prices on aged Breton, Raffault, Couly-Duthiel etc as well.
Their wine prices are a generally a bit more than other retailers in the area, but their spirits prices are competitive if you can act quickly enought to buy the allocated or sought after bottles. I have been selling some of my wines through their auctions to covert to store credit in order to buy spirits. It’s a pretty good system.
I agree that K&L auction prices are often ridiculously high - but that speaks far more to the mentality of their Bay Area customer base than it does to K&L. As for the non-auction pricing, you and I must have diametrically different tastes. Their international direct buys, especially from the Commonwealth countries, are sometimes as cheap or cheaper than local country pricing. Bordeaux pricing is as good as anything else on the west coast, often with direct orders for older vintages. Burgundy pricing is less consistent but it can be exceptional. Direct buys from Napa and Sonoma are sometimes great values. And the cherry on the cake is their readiness to mark down slow-moving skus aggressively.