I disagree. Anyone who buys with no intention to drink the wine is a flipper in my book whether they hold it 1 day or 100 years. They are locking up wine for no reason other than profit that someone else could buy and actually enjoy.
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In business, flipping is the practice of quickly buying an asset and reselling it at a higher price for a profit, with the holding period being short.
Someone who buys it and holds onto it for an extended period of time is a buy and hold investor not a flipper.
I donât agree with that either, but there is a difference.
Also people buy the wine with the intention to drink it, but life happens and sometimes people end up selling wine for any number of reasons. Theyâre not always sales that have been planned at the time of acquisition.
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Thatâs fine if you want to debate semantics about what is a flipper, but that was really your term. I had previously mentioned list squatters, which is really my complaint.
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Not my term but rather I was responding to this comment.
And to be clear, I donât agree with the practice of buying the wine with the intention to resell it, whether flipping it immediately, or holding it with the intention to sell at a later date.
I believe the small allocations nearly everyone gets limits that greatly. When sqn and scarecrow were being widely flipped lots of people had case allocations. That has never been the case with macdonald
I also know a few people I am fairly certain have re-sold their wine. None of them got on the list with the intention to do so originally. Life happened and their financial circumstances changed or they just decided they didnât love the wine. I also know of one person in that category Who ultimately just dropped off the list which is almost unheard of.
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Exactly. Of course most everyone who signed up for this list 15 years ago did so with the intention to drink the wines. Back then nobody knew it was going to become super popular and the list price would be so much lower than the market price.
But then life changes and they donât like the wine or are drinking different wines or arenât drinking wine as much or they or their wives canât stomach opening a bottle of wine worth more than $X, etc, etc, etc. So do they drop off the list to make room for someone else who actually will drink the wine? Of course not, they keep buying and either selling or planning to sell. Thatâs why the list hasnât moved in years and years.
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Are you on the list? If so when did you get on?
Nope.
Agree with that. Things change. I have happily purchased wine from a few of those! Better to keep it between wine lovers and keep that extra margin between friends.
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First vintage was 2014, never sold a bottle.
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Agree
Itâs not that list squatters, flippers, or whatever term you prefer make the wines unavailable to those who want to drink them. They make the wines more expensive for those who want to drink them, and who werenât informed and/or lucky enough to get in on the ground floor.
That the secondary market pricing shuts out people who would appreciate the wine and could afford it at release price but not on the secondary market is lamentable. But itâs not the fault of the re-sellers. Itâs the buyers who set the secondary market pricing.
If the MacDonalds increased the release price to current secondary market pricing, it would eliminate most of the re-sellers. But it wouldnât get the wine into the hands of more people that want to drink it. The wine ends up there one way or another. It would, however, eliminate availability for those currently on the mailing list who canât afford $500-1000 per bottle, skewing availability towards the wealthy.
Edited to add: the fact that the MacDonalds are willing to leave money on the table so that their wine is available to those on the list who do want to drink it but would be priced out on the secondary market is pretty damn admirable.
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Actually with the exception of the churn on the list (giving opportunity to those who are willing to pay more at release) it probably would decrease the availability to those not fortunate enough to be on the list. At long as there is some significant disparity between release price and FMV there will be some availability on the secondary market which to some extent benefits someone like me who is willing to pay the fare for a few bottles.
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I was on the SQN list years ago. After a couple of years decided it wasnât for me. Emailed them, thanked them for the opportunity, said let my spot go to someone who will enjoy the wine. Elaine wrote back a very nice response.
Now, did my spot go to someone who would drink and enjoy the wine? That is another matter entirely.
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I dropped off SQN as well. Not my thing.
There have been a couple of occasions that I bought into the hype and got on the list without tasting anything, then kept buying every time, patiently waiting until they were ready, only to open them and go âwell, I sure wish I didnât have two cases of thisâ. So I sold them. Once or twice at cost to friends, and a couple times at higher âmarketâ prices. Didnât really care about the money, but saw no reason not to take what the market was willing to pay.
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Flipper was faster than lighting, so I side with Baum on the silly semantic debate.
I was, to some degree, an SQN flipper- I sold half at profit to be able to keep half. Growing up to stand up to FOMO, more sqn than I needed, and SQN no longer being flippable at strong profit chased me off that list.
Otherwise, IMO, exclusivity drives as many buyers as the quality of the wine.
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âMy brother and I are humbled by the interest we have received during this yearâs release. As a result, our 2022 MACDONALD Oakville Cabernet Sauvignon has sold out.â
No big surprise. I am guessing that everyone who received an offer, did not pass.
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Great to hear that from them.
I did not pass. I have a 2015 with me on vacation, think weâll give it a go later in the week.
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No pass here. And, not to out myself but I have sold a bunch of my bottlesâŚall to friends at cost. Happy for them, but sad to see my collection (buying since the 2013 vintage) down nearly 50% even though Iâve only opened 1 bottle myself. Crossing my fingers that they will open their bottles when I am around.
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Iâm a Cubs fan. Thereâs always next year.
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Thatâs a really generous gesture. While no one ever sold me any of their bottles, many in my circle have opened a range of vintages over the years. Iâve always appreciated that spirit of sharing, and Iâm all about paying it forward - so I plan to open some of my bottles with others who might not otherwise get the chance to experience them.
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