Allocation question: When retailers break up with you

WINE TALK
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@Robert_Panzer specializes in certain old world regions at good prices, including some hard-to-find wines (as the OP demonstrates) in Burgundy and Champagne. You can see a lot of his producers (not all) at his website https://downtoearthwines.net/.

I’m not spending $20K+ a year like Dentice… but I’ll tell you what I buy from him. For many of the below, Robert is consistently the most complete source at the best price:

Germany

Mosel

  • Max Ferd. Richter
  • Günther Steinmetz
  • Loersch
  • Clemens Busch

Nahe

  • Schäfer-Fröhlich

Spain

Getariako Txakolina

  • Urkizahar

Ribeira Sacra

  • Guímaro

Bierzo

  • Castro Ventosa

Canary Islands

  • Envínate (*This one I did not get allocated.)

Cava

  • Pere Mata (try the L’Origen - I don’t recall where I first tried it but it’s a QPR superstar – labeling could better distinguish dosage though)

France

Burgundy

  • Jean Javillier
  • Gilles Lafouge
  • Charles (Cyril) Audoin
  • Pattes Loup

Champagne

  • Marie Courtin
  • Larmandier-Bernier
  • Laherte Frères
  • Cedric Bouchard (maybe LOL)

and Eric Bordelet Normandy Ciders

Italy

Alto Piemonte

  • Le Piane

Other interesting stuff I haven’t bought (from him) but many like includes:

  • Mugneret Gibourg
  • Michel Rebourgeon
  • Clusel Roch
  • Markus Molitor
  • Dr H Thanisch
  • JJ Prüm
  • Wagner Stempel
  • Rings
  • Baudry
  • Benoît Marguet
  • Benoit Déhu
  • Suenen

And about a dozen+ more

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84

Bouchard’s Boloree is produced in minuscule quantities. Even slightly reducing its allocation likely takes it to zero.

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It’s got to be incredibly hard for Rob and other retailers to balance the addition of customers with static or diminishing allocations from their suppliers.

I recommend Rob all the the time to local wine aficionados and I know it’s effectively shooting myself in the foot, but I do it anyway.

Like others have said, he sets super explicit expectations in each email offering and his pricing is as sharp as it gets. A full 20% of my cellar are wines purchased from him.

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My only issue here is offering wine to people who will never get it. Sure, you COULD say it should be clear that you aren’t just going to get a bottle of Grand Cru Burgundy by responding to an email, but why put it in at all? Dangling a carrot and then pulling it away is only going to create resentment.

With all the incredibly powerful technology & email tools out there, it’s really not that difficult to create different lists and tiers of contact. And if there really are only a few bottles of X remaining, you know who your interested/“deserving” customers will be anyway so you should probably just reach out to them directly.

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Understood @Greg_K, if he’d been getting one bottle, no where else to go. If he’d been getting one bottle every year for 5 years, I’d probably want a better response. For the times I’ve been in this situation, it is transient, because once this happens the price soon goes up so much that I am eventually no longer in the market :).

Edit: I agree with Sean, most folks I do business with, these things tend to go quietly and not to the general email group unless they are bundled, which is another topic altogether.

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Arv, I would disagree about Panzer. Robert is a very fair guy, who is very passionate about wine, trying to share his knowledge with others.

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In spite of spending quite a lot per year on Burgs and Riesling, I am on no one’s allocation list. Such is life. Its a hobby and a fun one.

I appreciate the OP’s initial circumspection, and I get that no one wants to be left out of an allocation, but we’re talking tip of the iceberg here. Rob’s palate and nose for good winemakers coming up is excellent, his prices are fair and he consistently turns me onto good producers I didn’t know, a theme others have noted here.

The guy is real, up front and consistent about what’s on offer and how a broad order may garner me favored bottle. Got it. I applaud and respect his transparency for posting on this board, opening himself and his business to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune (and Berserkers).

And so many things offered are not allocated, reasonably priced and wonderful finds. If we want to next Wassermans, Kermits and Thieses to emerge, we need to vote with our wallets. Along the way, we’ll be sipping good juice. I’m in.

Some Panzer bottles I’ve tried and liked or look forward to trying
-Berthaut-Gerbet (Fixin, oh yes really), Vigot, Audoin, Glantenay, Drouhin-Laroze, Mallard, Violot, H. Magnien
-Molitor, Richter, Prum, Steinmetz
-Urkizahar Txakoli, Pere Mata cava, Bordelet Pear cider?? Amazing stuff. Be told.

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I basically asked for whatever I could get, with a little nudge toward Boloree. I’ve posted on this board that Boloree is for some odd reason my favorite Champagne in the world. He has rewarded my loyalty in the past by allocating me a bottle on occasion with the odd Vilaine.

And I want to make a point here – that my initial ask could’ve been more respectful of Rob’s position and my now lowly status in his pecking order.

Here is my quick, flippant reply. Please note beseeching, fight-for-the-rebound-with-sharp-elbows tone. It’s so effin humilating when I think about it. Note the use of “Dude” in desperate attempt to create familiarity and bro-hood. Note the overt reference to my buying history, to separate me from the pack of Johnny-come-latelys. Note the reference to my tiny, pathetic vertical to try and vainly induce some sense of guilt and obligation. Major ick.

Hey dude, good luck with this one. :sunglasses:
I’ll take whatever you can spare but please note I’ve been buying these wines from you for many years before the [recent] ga-ga hype.

I’ve got a vertical of Boloree from you i’d like to keep going.

Best,

Matt

I’d hate to read slavish shit like this all day if I were in Robert’s shoes. Or maybe it’s exhilirating to play God. I doubt it. But you’d have to ask him.

In hindsight, if getting this one stupid bottle of Boloree was so freakin’ important I might have recast my ask to better recognize our current relationship:

Dear Rob:

Hey, thanks so much for finding me a bottle or two of Bouchard over the years even though I’m not your biggest customer. You face an impossible task trying to spread these few bottles across your entire base of supporters. I don’t envy you.

Boloree is my favorite Champagne in the world, so I’d really appreciate any consideration. I know I don’t buy friom you as much as I once did, given my relative age and near-full cellar. So let the chips fall where they may.

I agree with Michael Chang. If you can’t stand the heat, then get out of the kitchen. It’s probably best at my life stage/buying patterns to just go online and pay the big markup at SommPicks or whatever. No more supplicating and genuflecting.

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91

not totally related to the OP but a very similar problem to this happens in bourbon and it is why i ended up making the switch from bourbon drinking and collecting to wine. in the price ranges I’m normally swimming in, there is much less need to boot lick and maintain certain buying levels to buy the things i want. I got to a point with bourbon where I had to ask myself why i was trying to be friends with people I would never normally associate with just to have the chance at buying a semi hard to get bottle of bourbon and still probably overpay for it. wine overall has much less of a problem with that due to there being so much more options. of course, I’m already priced out of Lachaux and Gibourg and others being mentioned here anyways, so i dont have to worry about the really allocated stuff normally.

**this post is in no way a comment relating the retailers mentioned in this thread to liquor store owners I dont have any desire to associate with. more just comparing the situation in general and deciding that I think the situation is better in wine than in bourbon collecting.

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“Matt,
I appreciate your spirit, sensitivity, and passion.
However, only asking for Mugneret Gibourg and Bouchard is unsustainable for me.
These will be spread around to people who support me year round, as I offer a massive array of wines that aren’t under such allocations pressure.
I hope that you can understand.
santé
robert”

I’m a little conflicted by this response from the retailer. This is, indeed, a very transparent and honest response, but I also find it insulting to the customer - it’s like pointing at the customer in their face and saying “Sorry, you aren’t a good enough customer for this. Buy more and we can talk.”

While I appreciate the brutal honesty, I think it’s a horrible response to a customer. A simple “I’m sorry. Unfortunately, all of the bottles have already been sold.” is a far more diplomatic way to handle this situation and is very unlikely to elicit any hard feelings from a customer.

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I don’t see how Robert could have handled this allocation issue much better than he did, and it seems that, with hindsight, Matthew sees it the same. Robert is handling a lot of good wine, selling it a fair prices, and no doubt has many allocation decisions to make. As a retailer making similar allocation decisions for similar wines, I know that such decisions are agonizing and it is uncomfortable to explain to a customer (both new and long-standing) that you can’t get him/her what they have requested, as most customers have a keen interest/passion for the wines (as Matthew does in this case). From this thread, I have gleaned that some customers simply want to be told that the retailer is unable to get them the wine requested, and that others want to know why not, and maybe even what they need to do to get allocated wines in which they have interest. Of course, as a retailer, it is impossible to know what is going to be better received by the customer. Moreover, time is precious and I don’t know a good retailer with good prices who has time to tailor what he/she believes is the perfect “sorry, I can’t get you that” reply in each situation so as to not hurt the customer’s feelings. After about 13 years of trying to fashion the ideal communication to the customer in these situations, I have arrived at essentially what Robert explained to Matt, i.e., “thank you, but I really must allocate such wines to those who are broadly supporting my business.” Unfortunately, if a wine business is going to remain viable, such a message may have to be sent to someone who once did provide such broad support.

Having different lists and tiers for allocated wines is not particularly effective because it takes time, there is the potential for establishing a good, long-term relationship with a new customer with such wines, and some customers get sour if they learn that they are not seeing all of what is being offered.

The bottom line is that allocation of the gems is difficult. I believe the best that can be done is for retailer and customer to put themselves in the other’s shoes and assess reasonableness from that perspective. I am always relieved when, in response to an allocation decision I have made, a customer replies with something along the lines of “I understand.” And, of course, human nature being what it is, if there is a close call on a future allocation decision, that customer is going to get some wine.

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I think really what is boils down to is that people dont mind the truth if its presented in the right way. both retailers and consumers would rather get communications that are respectful, understanding, and non-rude. no one likes losing access to a wine, but I think everyone who currently receives allocations of wines like Bouchard, Gibourg, etc understands that retailers have to take care of the people who take care of them, and also understands that they have access to a wine that which does not have enough to go around.

but there are always two ways to say “you arent a good enough customer for this wine anymore” just like there are two ways to say “well damn i wish I was”

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I’m in , certainly not a unique situation with many other non US domiciled members here, but a different one than most of you. It makes things much harder.

I now have case storage in the outskirts of Niagara falls NY but everytime I want to bring wine home it’s a 1.5-2 hour drive each way plus pickup and border crossing which usually means about 5 hours round trip. Plus about a 100% tax/duty on the stated value. I can bring just over 4 cases back at a time but I know I’ll get absolutely no breaks from the Customs officers when I do.

So buying QPR in the US isn’t QPR. A $20 USD cellar defender is nearly $60 CAD plus 5 hours of hassle by the time it gets to my basement cellar. So buying the low end to get the allocation that I really want is outrageously painful. I’ve also made the decision to largely drink less but better. Double whammy.

I buy more from Panzer and Crush than any other US retailers by an order of magnitude. But I know I’m a minnow. I only order wines I want from each and not to pad my order sizes because well see above. I don’t always get everything I want but they’ve both been very good to me. I’m certainly not complaining. I like that if I get an email from Crush and I respond I know I’ll get at least one or two bottles. The emails where I wouldn’t get a bottle because of my relative spot in the pecking order I just don’t get sent to me so I never know what I’m missing out on. I like Robert’s way because I get to see a producer holistically and buy through the range but I might not get everything.

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I’ve dealt with Rob on various occasions. I think he’s a little condescending. I agree. Why send offers to us if you have no intention of selling us anything.

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If you make things too transparent, you won’t have customers blindly spending into the void in hopes of crossing some magical threshold (when they realize they are way far out of contention for allocations).

In reality, I’m guessing there are just too many factors for a smaller business to keep up with; they will never please enough customers if they throw resources at the issue; and they have decided the juice ain’t worth the squeeze as far as trying to setup a system other than “what do things feel like to me today knowing what I know about customers?”

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That would likely have been a lie and a very easy one to catch.

The OP was posted here exactly 12 hours after the offer in question went out. In those twelve hours the email exchange had already happened. And everyone knows, because again, it’s laid out in the email, that there is a one-week period for requests to determine final allocations.

There is no need to lie. And much less to call for lying. Matthew could have a macro set up to reply automatically requesting Boloree to any email from Robert mentioning Cedric Bouchard. His request would be the first, almost certainly. Then what?

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Allocations are a pain in the ass for everyone. I had a small, high-end wine & liquor store for over 20 years and nothing caused me more grief than hard-to-get Bourbons. In a typical year I’d usually get one bottle of Pappy Van Winkle 23 Year Old and had dozens of regular customers asking for it. To avoid having to lie or piss good customers off I eventually decided to donate the bottle to a local school’s annual fund-raising auction. Pretty much everybody understood, nobody got angry, and it ended up raising a lot of money for the school.

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Nobody said you can’t buy the wines, you were simply invited to buy them somewhere else.

I bet everything you have been getting can be found on Wine Searcher in under a minute!

I’ve been priced out of wines I used to have access to, and it’s a great hint from life to climb out of a wine rut and find the next thing you will love.

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allocation strategies are a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy, no? if you want people to buy across an entire portfolio maybe stop putting particular producers on a pedestal. of course it is a bit more tricky than that, but telling someone they can’t have a particular wine in a way reinforces delusional market dynamics.

at any rate, there is way too much stellar wine out there to get caught up in such silliness.

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As I said earlier, this is a relatively difficult situation for the retailer and decisions hopefully aren’t made lightly. I posted about a situation that occurred last year where I felt like I wasn’t getting adequate consideration from a vendor and for the most part, I’ve taken my business elsewhere, spending probably 30x less with them this year than with the prior year. It just is what it is.

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