Cali Cabs. Can a $75 bottle really be a good QPR?

[Bill_Tex_Landreth]

@ki punwar

I would throw in Chappellet Signature in as a QPR cab,along with the CRU bottling from Vineyard 29 and Drinkward Peschon…Myriad was mentioned but Mike Smith is also great work at Quivet and 12C among others.

Agreed.

[K_John_Joseph]

Bill, if you think you were treated like shit, you should have seen how the prick-jobs at Plumpjack treated me at 22. They spent as little time as necessary pouring our wines, talked down to me the entire time, literally ignored one of my questions with a chuff (about whether they’d noticed any reduction issues with their new screw-cap program – I still remember because I thought it was a good question) and hurried me through. I still remember the guy telling me “you know you have to pay for the tasting?” at the beginning. I should have just turned around right then.

I’ll likewise never go back.

[Bill_Tex_Landreth]

@K John Joseph

Bill, if you think you were treated like shit, you should have seen how the prick-jobs at Plumpjack treated me at 22. They spent as little time as necessary pouring our wines, talked down to me the entire time, literally ignored one of my questions with a chuff (about whether they’d noticed any reduction issues with their new screw-cap program – I still remember because I thought it was a good question) and hurried me through. I still remember the guy telling me “you know you have to pay for the tasting?” at the beginning. I should have just turned around right then.

I’ll likewise never go back.

Nice. Insulting you with the tasting comment. Corporate ownership is a bitch.

[Chris_Seiber]

QPR means quality to price ratio. A wine at any price could be good or bad QPR – it’s just a relative measure using price and quality as the variables. If I could buy 1989 Haut Brion for $300, it would be extraordinary QPR.

Having said that, the expression “QPR wine” is a casual one that usually refers to lower-priced wines, though of course “lower-priced” depends on one’s own perspective – I expect most people in the USA would think that wines we consider cheap weeknight wines are very expensive.

So, yes, a $75 bottle can be good or even great QPR, but a $75 wouldn’t be a “QPR wine” as that term is generally and customarily used.

[Dan_Rosenheck]

I think age plays into this a lot. I would absolutely consider $75 a great QPR for, say, a 25+ year old bottle that has been perfectly stored. You’re paying both for the wine and for all the cellaring time. For current releases, I think it’s probably a stretch.

[johngonzales]

@stanb

@Bill Tex Landreth

Compared to recent BDX pricing for similar quality wines, then hell yes, $75 is a good QPR.

As to O’Shaughnessy, they could give the wine away, and I wouldn’t drink it. Worst experience ever for a tasting visit in Napa.

The experience may have been bad but their wines are the real deal. Drinks a lot like a Bryant Family in my opinion at a margin of the price.

Don’t believe me? Drink them blind.

They’re casual friends of mine. I don’t doubt dispute nayone’s experience there, but can say they themselves are nice and extremely generous on a personal level. All of that aside, I think their wines are very good, especially for the price-point.
I think that a $75 bottle can definitely be a good QPR. Perhaps it can’t be as great a qpr as some $15 bottles, but there is a diminishing return. That diminishing return is not unique to cab or any one type of wine. I was just talking about the 2010 bordeauxs with a friend and we were both looking at wines we would barely buy ten years ago as value buys in the $60-70 range, as well as a champagne we both wanted at $80.
Technically QPR is a ratio of quality divided by price, so that ratio goes up if either the quality increases OR the price decreases. If I could buy a cab that drank like a $225 Shafer Hillside for $75 I’d buy it by the multiple cases. That’s not that different than a $25 wine that drinks like most $75 wines. Especially for someone that has significantly more disposable income. If you’re pulling in $500k a year, $75 on a bottle of wine isn’t much.

[Marshall_Gelb]

@Greg Smith

I might have to agree on O’Shaughnessy but if you took your top 5 $45 Cabs and your top 5 $75 Cabs is there a BIG enough jump in quality to justify the extra $30/bottle? I understand King Cab’s point above about that $75 bottle that drinks better than other $75 bottles but my point is are there diminishing returns with Cali Cabs between the $45 and $75 price-points where the extra $30 is not buying you that much more in quality?

Greg; I think the concept of QPR has been well explained by many people in this thread. However, in truth, no one can answer this question for you. The only thing, in my opinion, that matters is how you feel. You need to try a few of these wines at the higher price points and make a decision. For me personally, the answer is unequivocally yes, there are $75 QPR cabs out there.

Cheers!
Marshall

[Scott_Brunson]

we were treated like royalty at O’Shaughn so I should show them some love
big +1 on Drinkward-Peschon which actually comes in a bit under 75 on the mailing list. Plus, they are certifiably nice

[Larry_P]

Some people use QPR to mean inexpensive bottles that drink above their price point, but that’s a jumble relative and subjective terms. Given that QPR literally means quality to price ratio, a $20 bottle that drinks like you think a $40 bottle should, would be the same QPR as a $75 bottle that drinks like a $150 bottle should.

That said, I’m personally skeptical of the concept of a $75 QPR since I believe this is getting into the realm of diminishing returns when it comes to wine, above which the price becomes more and more about scarcity and less about quality.

[Corey_N]

@johngonzales

They’re casual friends of mine.

Can you confirm that Betty O’Shaughnessy is gregarious?

[Brian_G_r_a_f_s_t_r_o_m]

@Greg Smith

I, unapologetically, like full-bodied California Cabs. I certainly still buy the $20 everyday drinker and still enjoy finding a hidden gem. However, my sweet-spot is $40 to $50 and you can find a tremendous amount of great wines including Chimney Rock, Hall, Sojourn, Cabot, Ramey, Robt. Craig etc…I love trying new wines but I read about a wine on this site and someone is loving it and saying it is a great QPR. When I look up the wine it might be $75 plus shipping. Given the abundance of very good Cali Cabs out there at $40 to $50 can there really be a great QPR cab at $75?

Yes.

[G_D_y_e_r]

@Chris Seiber

QPR means quality to price ratio. A wine at any price could be good or bad QPR – it’s just a relative measure using price and quality as the variables.

Let’s try to quantify this a bit:

Price = P
Quality = Q = 1 - exp[- b P]

Quality ranges from 0 (at P = 0$) to 1 (at P → infinity$). The constant ‘b’ determines how rapidly quality asymptotically approaches perfection as price increases.

QPR is the price to quality ratio:

QPR = Q/P

The maximum QPR is found at:

d QPR/ dP = 0 → P = 0

In reality, wine quality is not a deterministic function. There’s a distribution of quality (subjective person to person). That allows for finite priced wines to be excellent QPRs. But as long as QPR is Q/P and Q(P) is sub-linear, it is highly unlikely any expensive wine offers a good Quality-to-Price Ratio. At best, expensive wines can be better QPRs than price peers, but not great QPRs in an absolute sense.

[Mark_Y]

I just lost some brain cells I would like back… but i’m also a bit of a math nerd so i quite enjoyed Greg’s analysis…

…

[Bill_Tex_Landreth]

[Merrill_Lindquist]

@markye

I just lost some brain cells I would like back… but i’m also a bit of a math nerd so i quite enjoyed Greg’s analysis…

…

I got lost on line 2.

Net/net is value is personally based. What’s it worth to you? I’ll spend money on hotels, wine, clothes, and meals; I will not spend ( a lot of)money on tickets to sports events, music events, shows, TVs, computers, cars. You can’t spend it twice, and only you can decide what in life you want to spend your money on, and what kind of value it represents to you.

[Robert_Pavlovich]

@Bill Tex Landreth

Compared to recent BDX pricing for similar quality wines, then hell yes, $75 is a good QPR.

As to O’Shaughnessy, they could give the wine away, and I wouldn’t drink it. Worst experience ever for a tasting visit in Napa.

Had a similar experience there but I was already hooked on the wines beforehand, so now I just chalk it up as a wine to drink occasionally but never to visit.

[Robert_Pavlovich]

Have yet to have a truly profound wine at anything less than about $60, and for me this involvement with wine is all about finding the best wines I can afford.

I often think of all that money spent on cheaper “QPR” wine that I’d hoped would save me money, but in the end I just regret not having the cash around to help pay the tax on higher ticket items…

For Rhones, Italians, and CA wines I’m finding a sweet spot in the $60-100 range. Ironically, Burgundy has been one of the few regions I’ve really been able to enjoy at the $30 level.

[mike_pobega]

@Robert Pavlovich

Have yet to have a truly profound wine at anything less than about $60, and for me this involvement with wine is all about finding the best wines I can afford.

Chiarello Eileen $52 (on sale)
Snowden Ranch 2007-2010)
Groth Napa in 2008 & 2009 (possibly 2010 too)
Myriad Napa Cab
Jones Sisters (Always)
Congruence Napa (in 2010)
Round Pond Napa (in 2010)

[mike_pobega]

@G. D y e r

@Chris Seiber

QPR means quality to price ratio. A wine at any price could be good or bad QPR – it’s just a relative measure using price and quality as the variables.

Let’s try to quantify this a bit:

Price = P
Quality = Q = 1 - exp[- b P]

Quality ranges from 0 (at P = 0$) to 1 (at P → infinity$). The constant ‘b’ determines how rapidly quality asymptotically approaches perfection as price increases.

QPR is the price to quality ratio:

QPR = Q/P

The maximum QPR is found at:

d QPR/ dP = 0 → P = 0

Math is the reason I cut out of class in 11th grade, now I wish I had went…

[Walt_Hoehler]

Check out Neal Family, Rudius, and Arns.