Burgundy pricing question

WINE TALK
1

Before posting this I searched through a bunch of old threads but couldn’t find anything that addressed this issue:

Why when I look on Wine-Searcher, with prices displayed in ascending order, it seem like most of the time, but maybe not all the time, that all the Asian sellers offer it cheaper than US sellers? Seems like I often have to scroll through a whole bunch of Hong Kong and Singapore guys before I get to the first US seller and there’s often a significant price jump vs the average of the 3-4 Hong Kong guys above?

2

Most wines have always been found cheaper around the world and that’s only been magnified with the recent tariffs.

3

Currency exchange rates and local market demand may have a lot to do with it. Different countries have different tax rates, for example, it used to be beneficial to buy many pet meds from Singapore or Australia as they were being manufactured in Singapore.

Several countries that are (or used to be) French overseas territories also have limited foreign French taxes. Haven’t ever applied it in a wine collector context, just as a consumer while visiting.

4

Was it like this even before tariffs?

5

It can also be that they are just showing feeds from Livex with slightly different markups…

6

Just filter your search to US.

It’s always cheaper to buy wine from Europe and Asia even with the tariffs which is why a lot of us buy most or all of our burgundy from Europe and Asia, but you have to deal with importing it which can be a challenge as well as costly.

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7

You can go to settings and filter to change to US only

8

Yes, I get it, and have done that before, but my question was more about WHY it hits the store shelves in Asia cheaper than here.

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9

Most of the times is tax related, Forex impact, and/or to a lesser extent retail focus to penetrate a market or high stock.

When it comes to Asia it’s Hong Kong I suspect. They might offer wines that are not custom cleared (?) for example which UK retailers also do.

10

Thanks!

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11

There’s also the three tier system in the US, which raises prices.

12

Indeed, good point though depending on the setup for how the wines are brought in to US that’s more or less, or not an issue.

13

Can you give a couple examples? I sometimes experience what you experience, but not seemingly not as often as you are.

Also, there is a “right now” vs “usually” question. @Mikael_OB hit the things on my list, most of which are tilting against the US right now.

14

Small W-S pet peeve: I wish they would quote the price in the offer currency and convert to the desired currency in grey as a comparative estimate convenience. It’s important to know you can’t transact at the quoted price.

15

There is no import tax on wine in Hong Kong. I suspect some of the price weakness relates to tempered demand/ offloading by Mainland Chinese who often take delivery of wines in HK. Been a big wealth clampdown in Mainland and entertainment of Chinese government officials is banned. Extravagant shows of wealth in Mainland also frowned upon/ more risky. Plus Mainland and HK economy both a mess. It’s easy to move wines into HK from U.K./ Europe but it’s extremely difficult to send it back to the U.K. / Europe which partly explains why this price differential has persisted/ widened. HK is a wine drinkers paradise….heaps of rare wines at best in market prices with 0% import/ sales tax. I’d be hard pushed to think of another place so wine drinker friendly. This secondary market pricing gap between HK vs ROW really opened up during 3yrs of Covid isolation (HK/ China closed until Jan 2023) and never closed. My simple thoughts.

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