A fellow ITBer called me from Costco today. Louis Roederer 2002 Cristal Champagne for less than wholesale, I believe he said is was 159 a bottle. That’s about a 100 less than we “were” trying to sell it for. Check you local Costco if you want to get a steal of a deal on Cristal.
The rap star market must have dried up.
At mine, $152 with coupon.
I guess we’ll be offering ours up at near cost to stay competitive or go ahead and sell it the Nigerians e-mailing every week with a bogus credit card.
Hmmmm…
Anyone had the 2002? Any opinions on this wine?
Saw it for $199 a bottle today in Fort Worth.
yup, part of the christmas coupon book, good till the end of the month IIRC
Walked into the nearest Costco today, located in the furthest northern suburb of Milwaukee where Duboeuf Bojo is considered high-brow by many of the local wine literati, and resting in a wooden box were 18+ 2007 Etienne Sauzet Puligny-Montrachet @ $39.99/bottle. Purchased a couple and opened one tonight. Ya, it’s a heckuva vino. Go Packers!
Yes…lovely. Excellent. A buy at that price for sure.
It’s not just Costco going sub-$160 this holiday season. Lots of places have the ability to do this if they bring in new stock at volume (new stock = stock from the distributor not new stock from France).
Roederer has had problems moving the 2002. Even with big scores from a number of reviewers, it hasn’t moved nearly as well as previous vintages leaving them with a backlog of 2002 (especially in the US). This is an issue as the 2004 has now been released.
I can’t recall ever seeing so much Cristal out in the marketplace (both the regular and Rose) and prices are back down to around where the 1993/1994 came out at.
As to the reason why:
- Production of Cristal is higher than ever and was rising when the 2002 cuvee was made - As Champagne always needs to look a number of years ahead, I don’t think Roederer saw the backlash against Cristal that now exists. Combine that with the current economic market and it really isn’t a great time to try to up production and price.
It is amazing to me that past vintages that were sub-par like 1997 and 2000 sold through much, much faster than the 2002 which is a better wine (I’m not huge on the 2002, but it is nice enough). I don’t know if anyone knows exactly how much the hip-hop “dis” has cost them, but I think it is quite a bit as a number of hotels, clubs, etc… have cut back quite a bit and are now promoting/selling other cuvees.
If you like the 2002 Cristal, this is a very good price and bests the $170-$180 price that they were trying to sell at last holiday season.
There is also some hope that the 2002 Dom P will help sales of Cristal. The 2002 DP is selling very well and with the Cristal coming closer in price to it, there is hope that it can draft off of it and move some inventory. This may sound odd, but with both being from the same vintage, there is a chance to do some creative selling - it is a store by store decision, but I’ve already seen/heard of a few betting on it and taking in more stock of the 2002 Cristal so that they can offer it at a lower price in hopes of this.
What is the backlash? I have not heard about this.
Barry,
Roederer came out a few years ago and said that they didn’t want to be associated with hip-hop as that association sullied the company and Cristal brand. They then continued to say that the statements would not hurt the brand because they don’t produce that much and always sell-out. You can Google “hip hop cristal diss” or click here to learn more.
This led to the hip-hop community moving elsewhere for their bubbly of choice and of course the Ace of Spades being positioned as it currently is (though knowing Jay-Z’s business sense this likely would have happened regardless).
Thanks for the info. Did you ever see that 30 Rock episode regarding Champagne and hip hop? Hilarious! (And has more context for me now)
Found this excerpt from Jay-Zs book about the incident.
http://www.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,2032217,00.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
My how times have changed. When I was ITB and sold Cristal accounts were pleading for as much Cristal as they could get. Both inner city and high end accounts. The problem was it was the most tightly allocated item in my book. There was an allocation formula that allocated mere bottles based upon buying cases of other products from the importers portfolio.
I found it very interesting that the wholesaler was always complaining their Cristal inventory was so low. When I went to the warhouse to pick up an order I saw a full pallet of Cristal on the floor. There could have been even more for all I know.
Now Cristal is being discounted at Costco. My how times have changed.
Now I have even more decisions to make!
Its kind of sad watching them try to sell this stuff. Its been out for a while and on WTSO a whole bunch. They have seriously lost their market. Thanks for the info Brad.
These days the really cool kids drink Vilmart. (Thanks Terry!)
BTW this is also at K&L for $179. The $20 extra might be worth it in exchange for saving 90 minutes getting into and out of the Costco parking lot, and standing in line.
Depends which Costco you go to…and at which time.
Sometimes Costco will have random vintages on the pallet which makes for interesting one-off finds. I remember three or four years ago, I saw on their pallet of 1998 DP, some 1985s, 92s, and 96s at the current (then) vintage pricing. The 85 drank really well for Thanksgiving that year.
re: Cristal…I never bought into the marketing hype as I’m not really into the hip-hop world. I believe it affected cognac sales also ?