Samuel Pepys has a word of advice from the 1600’s to the reluctant Gen Z drinkers:
“And here I drank upon necessity, being ill for want of it, and I find reason to fear that by my too sudden leaving off wine, I do contract many evils upon myself”.
Bad juju not to drink wine. You don’t want evils upon yourself. 
At the rate we’re going, in a few years the reason for that may be the same as it was in the 1600s: less risk of cholera from wine than water. 
Don’t be ridiculous
If they’re selling less they need to raise prices to make up the difference. 
I don’t know about the general wine market, but has anyone checked out the Acker auction today? Lots of offerings going at high estimates. Just watched a single mag of Leflaive Montrachet 2011 hammered for $28,000.00😲
There seems to be a huge disconnect between the collectors prices and the rest of the wine universe…or maybe this is just a sign of the end times. With the Asia market drying up, who is buying all these high end wines? Is this an alternative asset to the stock market???
When some are making 28k an hour what does it matter?
The high end market has been going up in the last few months. The last HDH auction went for way over estimates as well. I’ve been buying a lot of wine lately as there’s been deals as I suspect prices will go up quite a bit soon. Prices for drinkable vintages like 07 and 17 have skyrocketed lately.
These types of wine have nothing to do with the wine market in general…this is a collectible echelon of its own, with its own elite tier within the wine world…same with collectible whiskey has no relevance to spirits market in general.
At this tier you buy what you want for what you want in a price tier with a lot of competition but very few entrants.
They made probably 12 mags. It’s 300 bottle annual production. No correlation to the market as a whole.
most of the lots are going for decent prices. I understand this is a bit of a unicorn, but the secondary auction market for Burgundy at least seems rather healthy. You would think with all the economic and social turbulence that the wine collectors would be a little more jittery. Suppose that there are enough millionaires and billionaires around that are immune from regular market shifts
Another quiet brand sale of a well known Napa name, Cain. Looks like the estate will go to someone else.
This is an interesting play by Third Leaf which also owns Last Bottle, Wine Bid, and a couple more estates according to the article. Makes a lot of sense how they’ve been selling so much back vintage Cain on LB now.
Glad to see they’re keeping Chris Howell on to make the wines.
Some interesting charts today…
Prices have been going up lately. People are buying what they can at the last of the lower price points. For some burgundy vintages prices have nearly doubled since the same time last year. The high point was sorta 2021-2022 but we will start heading back there soon I think. Market volatility is just a way for HNWI or their hedge fund holdings to actually make more money with judicious trading.
As well as those that directly benefit from the actions of the current US administration
Dollar Stores sell wine?
Kris,
Don’t let the facts get in the way of the narrative 
Good article. I suppose Cameron Hughes can be one of the winners from all those upcoming changes!
Another datapoint. I was bidding on a 2021 Keller RR (4 bottles) on winebid until it started going up aggressively. It hammered at 94$ per bottle before fees and taxes. Quite a bit higher than the original retail price which would have been around 50-60$.
I abandoned the bid once I saw the 2024 at retail still for 59$ per bottle.
Perhaps someone had a hinkering for 2021 specifically, but seems a bit steep to pay ~2x when the 2024 is a strong vintage.
Outstanding article. Thanks for posting Erica.
It was interesting seeing not just the vines ripped out but many more than normal fallow vineyard plots across the valley last week. There is definitely a reset happening. I can’t say how deep this is but it is real and can’t be ignored. We’ve hammered the topic at great length on this board.
