Can Someone ITB explain Mystery Wines?

[Rory_K]

@Ian Dorin

@Rory K.

Unfortunately, as in most things, it seems to be both. On the one hand it makes perfect sense that a winery wants to protect its brand and $ perception while still moving some tough inventory that is good but not great (or any other reason), but with Garagiste it also seems too much like a bad car salesman pitch designed to offload crap. Both are probably true in different situations. I’ve never bought any of his Mystery wines, but I’ve seen people post about what they ended up being and not all of them were crap. my 2 cents.

To your point about “not all of them being crap”, that’s one of the pitfalls of “Mystery Wine” not always being something for the masses. It gets used to pimp wines that otherwise would be a hard wine sell since the deal isn’t that sexy.

I hear what so many are saying about the “protecting the price”, but the irony of that is the price does get out, and it does hurt the brand. It usually becomes a slippery slope too, once you do one deal, 6 retailers will call asking “what else do you have???”, and I should know, I made those calls all the time!

You have to sprinkle in enough truly great wines at well below market price, and it doesn’t have to always be an OMG price either. Folks are just as content with getting Insignia at 25% off (since it’s basically the same price everywhere) as they are getting some single vineyard Barolo for $29.99 for at least a good producer.

That’s a great point, though I wouldn’t underestimate the effect of a price on wine-searcher on the market (as opposed to a mystery wine price getting out by word of mouth). But you’re right, they wouldn’t do it if the deal was a sexy one to begin with…

[Bryan_Carr]

Maybe I’ve been lucky but all the mystery wines I’ve bought have been either fair deals or quite good deals, though to be fair I only really bite on a small subset of them (WA red wine, OR pinot, under $40). It was pretty nice when I was just starting out to get some decent Washington red wines for less than half retail. I’ve picked up some Boudreaux cab and merlot for $20 a pop and a bottle of the Dunham Lewis Vineyard Merlot for $30. I’ve gotten some stuff I wasn’t trembling with excitement about for around $15 but they were certainly worth what I paid all things considered. I think if you’re far along your path and know what you like and are trying to build a cellar filled with specific things the mystery wine model makes a lot less sense but if you’re sort of new to wine, pretty much all wine is mystery wine even if you know what the label is so why not?

[Barry_Paul_Price]

Usually when someone is wearing a mask it’s because there face is so beautiful they don’t want you to see it.


… Am I right?