Gotcha and thanks. Aside from the vig, if buying direct we are almost always paying shipping and tax so the $160 v $285 or $260/265 whatever the release price was is a much better number for a great wine.
I was a huge buyer of Spottswoode sub $200.
You may be again.
The cycle will start in 2026 with laying off sales staff and reviewing variable overhead looking to save on costs/weather storm, before it gets to resetting MSRP at a lower cost for consumers.
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Burgundy prices are going to tick back up soon with a very small 24 vintage for reds, it’ll be like what happened when 21 was released, but that probably won’t be as stupid about pricing it above much better vintages.
I do think 2024 will have an upward impact on back vintage pricing, but the fact that the dollar is down as much as it is against the euro, and the 15% tariff that is still currently in place, it will make it a very undesirable vintage to buy for consumers.
There’s not much wine on the red side anyway, so won’t be much for the consumer to worry about. Whites however are fantastic and will be hotly contested as usual regardless of FX rates and tariffs as release prices have been flat in most cases.
Of course the retailers in the 3 tier system that have importers and distributors that are pushing margins (and/or they themselves are pushing margins) are going to continue to see stock languishing.
This is going to be especially bad where I’ve noticed a clean 20% jump in some cases, which you know is directly due to tariffs that were initially being eaten to keep prices suppressed now being fully passed to the consumer. That’s going to have the biggest effect on sales issues in the US.
I’d go Devil’s Advocate and say that most blue chip wines are good but don’t cover the spread against much less expensive lesser known high quality wines.
While I really enjoy Grand Marque champagne, for me none of them justify the difference in price at this point. I’m more price sensitive than you, but even if my disposable income went up quite a lot I don’t think I would switch. That’s more because, in my eyes, many lesser known wines still deliver what I’m actually looking for as well as the blue chips do.
I have always really enjoyed Dominus as a Napa red, though it’s been 20 years since I last drank it. But even at $249 (vs $300), it’s $3000/case and I am more likely to buy either Olga Raffault or Frog’s Leap, and given a drastic rise in my salary
would likely switch to Clos Rougeard for a blue chip.
Which is a matter of palate, but also simply shows how big the pool of “blue chip” wines has gotten. There’s a lot of options for expensive wines these days.
I won’t speak to Les Mesnil, LaTache, or Haut Brion, as those are hard wines to replace (from what I understand). Probably Monfortino as well. But that’s such a miniscule percentage of blue chip wines today.
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You touch on an interesting point that I failed to make earlier.
While we don’t like the prices of many of these wines now, if they stay flat, what happens is that people get used to the new release prices, and then older vintages go up, setting a new market price.
Hopefully there will be a prolonged gap between new release prices and secondary market prices (in a good way). It’s really the only way for the wine market to be healthy.
Collector’s aren’t consuming large quantities of young wine, and have a preference for older wines. So the supply of younger wines not depleting quickly contributes.
100%.
Add in that wineries have 365 days until the next quantity of inventory is ripe on the vine. There are things you can do to minimize that, but for estate fruit there is a floor for sure. And for those of us purchasing fruit, anything you don’t take is definitely at risk for being sold to someone else.
Spirits lower production or simply stop distilling for awhile. Most wineries suffer serious setbacks doing that.
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That’s the age old argument right? Law of diminishing returns. Is it worth double the price when something is 90% as good? 4x price when 80% as good? Each person can only decide for himself where to draw the line on the spread. I have those limits as I think most everyone does. But I do firmly believe that there is a spread in most cases, as opposed to some people who try say the lesser known wines are “just as good”. The market is pretty efficient at finding those true needles in a haystack and fairly quickly they get priced up to meet their quality.
just made me think of this Meadows line
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d’auvenay was a closeout regular for quite a long time. i would argue large and sudden swings in price and demand indicate that the wine market is not behaving in an efficient manner. however, this does not apply to all ‘blue chip’ producers. look at price action over the long run for lafon vs coche or dauvissat vs raveneau.
Yeah like 12 years ago. This thread is actually pretty hilarious with people complaining about the d’Auvenay chevalier being E1600.
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/01/07/us/trump-news#dietary-guidelines-alcohol
Maybe this will be a boon for the alcohol industry 
sure, but the first vintage was 89. andrew’s post purported that a wine’s price finds equilibrium with its quality fairly quickly. my examples were simply to illustrate that there are plenty of elite wines which have maintained a more stable price growth and level of interest over the years. how can such disparate dynamics be explained if the market is so efficient?
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I think for some, sought after and very expensive wines, it is not a matter of their being twice as good or only 10% better (whatever those statements might mean), but that they are highly distinctive wines. No wine quite replaces them. I am thinking of Rayas in CdP, and Rougeard in the Loire. I have heard people compare say Chappelle St. Theodoric to Rayas and Baudry to Rougeard. I think those are two very good wines and both are way more affordable (I can’t buy either Rayas or Rougeard anymore). But they are not really comparable. Whether tasting those wines is worth the tariff is a question you can only answer for yourself, but the answer won’t be because you are paying xtimes the price for only 10% more quality.
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You could also get Leflaive on closeout a few years ago as people were turned off by premox for so long, but it didn’t take too long for the market to correct itself.
Also, I love Lafon, but Coche is another level. IMO Dauvissat is nowhere near Rav (and still overpriced for what you get - not to mention premox).
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I drink a lot of singular wines and I understand what you are saying, but everything in wine is replaceable. It’s not going to be replaced by something nearly identical or even necessarily substantially similar, but you can replace anything with something that gives you XX% as much pleasure even if it’s not really “comparable” per se - that’s what I’m referencing.
Rav is a good example - no Chablis is even close to the same - but that doesn’t mean there’s not still a price to value ratio on Rav vs other Chablis producers or even wine from other areas and you have to decide whether the additional pleasure Rav gives you is worth the extra tariff.
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Morris made an interesting comment in his 2024 vintage report to the effect that Burgundy producers are sensitive to the idea of releasing a weak vintage at higher prices when there have been many good vintages recently. Perhaps trying to avoid the issue the Bordelaise are experiencing.
Agree with other comments that some producers will increase prices regardless esp with small 2025 vintage and of course the f***ing tariffs
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Well, if Raveneau is comparable to Rayas in uniqueness, then the decision will entail more than just how much “better” Raveneau is because part of the “better” is the uniqueness. As I said, I don’t buy Rayas or Rougeard anymore (though I am happy to have tasted both), so I don’t think uniqueness trumps everything. I just think it is an aspect to the question that is qualitatively different than xtimes the pleasure vs. ytimes the price. At least for me it is.
Didn’t stop them in 2021.