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.
I think that’s certainly fair. And if your point is that it’s too hard to tell which player is going to turn into something really special once they have reserve wines, more resources, etc., that’s definitely fair play. And if they begin to show that unique ability, then there go the prices. It’s a race to get in early, and even if you do, you get priced out fairly quickly.
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Yeah, and some of the new producers make very small amounts of wine, so it doesn’t take much to drive the prices up. It’s why I’m not at all sanguine that Collin, Bouchard, Prevost, Agrapart and Bereche can easily be replaced by new producers. Those new producers not only need to make great wine, they need to do so while justifying the cost of ever more expensive land given the increasing prices of champagne. I’m sure there will be great new producers in champagne, but the prior generation was buying in at a down market. That’s not the case now.
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We now have most of the new price lists, the price increases from the producer’s side are minimal and justifiable, we are talking in most case of 1 or 2 € not massive increases. In contrast Charles Heidsieck are going for aggresssive price increases, the Brut Reserve no longer the bargain it once was.
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My secret to buying all these great producers is to get them in Europe while on business. I picked up so Cedric Bouchard Roses de Jeanne for about €70 to €100. 
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Eh?
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DP is right. I was at L-B in 2022. There were significant price increases across the board with the most recent release. They’re great people and I love their wines so I don’t mind so much, but I don’t expect to see many deals in the future.
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What is L-B?
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I’ve been at L-B twice in the past 14 months and didn’t notice a price increase, but perhaps it’s based on my American perspective.
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