Don’t forget Tarlant!
Cuvée Sainte Anne is running $79 right now at my nearest local wine shop.
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I am an L-B fan but unfortunately never found the Latitude thrilling while the Longitude, (back then called just 1er Cru Blanc de Blancs Extra Brut was one of my grower Champagne epiphanies). However this producer has really gone up in price too as the Longitude used to be a ~40 € bottle not so long ago but now already goes for over 60€, i.e. quite a hike. While not nearly as dramatic as some proper superstar producers it is still a big change.
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Yeah, this used to be one of my go-to 30€ Champagnes only a few years back…
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There is lots of young talent coming through in the champagne, as prices increase for certian producers there ae plenty of other producers to take their places.
The bigger problem will be the champagne shortage, The short sighted consequences of the 2020 decision to allow only 8000 kg/hectare followed by the disasterous 2021 vintage. The maisons learned nothingfrom 2008/2009.
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What are some of these examples?
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Most of these names aren’t “new” in the grower space and many of them reflect my worries going forward.
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Did you read the full post? Most of the ‘new’ ones I mentioned are on the first few releases.
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L-B has definitely gone up. The whole range. Now, who has what piece of it, I don’t know. But Levant is now 120s, as is Chemins. And seeing Longitude in the 60s and Latitude in the 50s. This is why I encouraged the guys to clean out the Latitude from B21 when it was there for 50 bucks.
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Yes, I read the full post.
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I guess we have a different definition of new then, if producers on their 1-3rd releases aren’t new I’m not sure what is.
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At the opposite end of the spectrum, I was wandering around a Trader Joe’s yesterday - first time in quite some time really looking around in browsing mode - and I noticed they have a $3 French sparkling wine on the shelves now. I’d never seen/heard that they were doing that. It doesn’t have a wire cage / mushroom style cork, and the foil covering looks like its on top of a plastic stopper. But its not a crown cap.
I just can not recall seeing sparkling wine of any ilk being sold at that price point.
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Here I would guess that the producer is actually profiting (although could also be that their costs are up quite a bit) as the prices are up in France everywhere even at shops known for modest margins.
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Sounds like something made with Spanish grapes.
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I’ve had almost every producer on that list and it hasn’t changed my views. It’s not our disagreement as to the definition of “new”. I’m also not convinced that anyone is able to project the ability of producers on their 1st/3rd release to to make wines as good as the top echelon of growers make today.
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It’s really producer by producer. Some producers have complained that the increase in secondary market pricing has nothing to do with them, but others have clearly raised ex-cellar pricing. I think L-B prices are a general victim of champagne pricing inflation though - their ex-cellar prices haven’t really gone up very much.
Well, I’ll keep looking for the good deals on the stuff I buy. Caveau dropped a bunch of Laherte Freres last month at some great pricing, and with no tax and the shipping quite reasonable, I felt good about that, as much as the Latitude this week. If some retailers and guys (say like Scott at Lopa) want to try and keep working with their customers to try and push back as much as we can, I dig that and appreciate it.
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That’s an insane price. In the UK duties alone are almost $3 (more than $3 for Champagne). I don’t even want to know how they make that possible.
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This is not true of, the ex cellar prices have gone up considerably. The price rise was importer motivated, they have alienated a lot of customers.
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This is like Mousse is not relatively new, despite only recently making their own wines, because they’ve been growing in France for like 250 years.
I had Christian Gosset (admittedly not a new player) A01 just a few nights ago, his first ever release. I felt like that’s pretty new even if he’s been a presence in Champagne for a while.