I buy Schrader, Continuum and have bought Scarecrow, Ovid. 04 Fontaine-Gagnard Le Montrachet (plus some other big GCs), 85 Haut-Brion (for my 25th anniversary) and 61 Gevrey from Trapet (for my 50th birthday) pushed above my unofficial 100 buck ceiling for special bottles.
I can count on one hand the number of times I have spent over $100 on a bottle. I rarely go over $50, most is in the $15-30 range. Interestingly in looking at CT purchases by store, 95% of the wines > $40 I have purchased have been online/winery direct. Makes me wonder why I have such a hard time buying a pricier bottle in person at a brick & mortar store. That being said, everything is definitely ‘usual’ and not absolute.
$100 tops; usually less; and I am a Burgundy drinker. No, I do not usually bother with the grand crus. I work very carefully to find reasonably priced, high quality Burgundies, both 1er cru and village level, that really deliver. Plenty of deals out there if one is interested in buying wine, not labels. I’ve been burned a few times with over-priced wine, and I’m a quick study.
The same goes as well for my other loves, the Northern Rhone, and even (gasp!) Bordeaux.In the N. Rhone,Chave is a good example; I had the '09 negociant St. Joseph Offerus ($39 here), and it was superb. I have a hard time imagining why someone would spend 7x that amount for a domain Chave Hermitage for $275. Is the stuff 7x better? I doubt it, and that is a testament to their skill with the humble, disrespected Offerus.
I am not going to spend hundreds of extra dollars for the equivalent of a couple extra points.
Although it’s not an hard limit, I don’t like to go above $100 and it’s rare for me to go that high. I think that most of the times I’ve spent close to $100 it’s been for gifts. Ideally I like to stay below $50 and, except for certain regions where it’s not really possible, I like to stay below $20-25. However, I will never turn my nose up at great QPR $8 wines either. Who doesn’t love a bargain?
I have no limit. I have purchased bottles of wine for thousands of dollars, but in those cases, I am (hopefully) buying an asset under market value, similar to buying a stock, or piece of jewlery, or art. However, if the question is more specfic, what is the most valuable bottle I will drink, I would say about $300, and that for a Northern Rhone, Burgundy, or D’Yquem.
Stay under 50 bucks except a couple of bottles a year. Warden has a shelf full of daily drinkers under $20.
I don’t have a hard limit, but there are probably only a few bottles a year that I buy over $100. I do the vast majority of my buying in the $20-70 range, and concentrated towards the middle of that range the most.
I read wistfully about all the Grand Crus, Cult Cabs, First Growths, Giacosas and all, but I just have a small smattering of those in my cellar, mostly there to serve as the price of admission to the occasional big boy tastings I get to attend.
I like the point of how expensive does a bottle have to get before I won’t drink it. To me I’ll spend upwards of $200 per bottle but once a wine is worth more than $300-$400 I’ll sell it and get a 6 pack or a case of something different. Example, bought 00’ first growths for under $150, they went north of $600-$700 so I sold and traded them and bought more futures, I ended up with three times the wine, yeehaw!
That does read a bit condescending…
Just a matter of perspective not judging others choices. Not right or wrong.
Usually in Burgundy you are buying the labels, as year after year - certain producers clearly out-perform their neighbours. I buy wine, not labels, although I do like the Ponsot label. I will say I find that village burg is usually NOT a value play vs. spending a few $ more for a good 1er.
Is it better to spend $30 on a village that could honestly be from anywhere south of Dijon and north of Macon or spend $20 more on a 1er that very likely speaks about a place and time? A choice.
Re N. Rhone - Same could be said by others to you re the Offerus. Is the Chave Offerus really whatever x better than some central coast syrah? I doubt it…
More of an old school Jaboulet man myself vs. Chave, but I did buy Offerus sometime in the past decade.
$100 is my limit, most of my stuff is around $50. My wife paid $140 for a Torbrek RunRig for a wedding gift for me. I bought her a Taittinger Comtes de Champagne 1995 for about $130 for a special occasion. Nothing else has topped $100, that I can think of.
No limits…If I can afford it, and it is something I really want to drink, I’ll buy it.
There is a big difference here between the Chave Hermitage and Offerus. 7x better? Hard to say. Better for me? Yes. You’re talking about a fairly simple but well made Syrah and a world class wine that will age and improve for at least 20 years. Some things are hard to measure in points.
yep
$10 for every day, $25 rando weekend with the wife, $250 max
+1
Ghost Horse $100
Maybach $125 and $150.
Schrader - Purchased Old Sparky $400 (mag). 750’s = $150+
Most expensive 750 that I ever purchased = 2008 Kapcsandy Family Winery Cabernet Sauvignon (Grand Vin) State Lane Vineyard $285.
Average bottle = $40’s
I think this question can be a bit misleading. What if someone buys 10 cases/yr with avg bottle price of $50…that’s $6000/yr. What if another person buys 2 cases/yr with avg bottle cost of $250…that’s $6000/yr. I’m in the buy less, but more high quality camp (yes, I know you don’t have to spend large coin for great wine, it’s just that the wine I like happens to cost more and I have enough inexpensive daily drinkers to last me awhile). Everyone has different income and comfort levels on what to pay for luxury items (and wine is definitely a luxury item). $500 to somebody might be like $50 to someone else based on their income. In the end, it doesn’t really matter, buy what you like at a price you’re comfortable with.
$ 150.00 is my general limit, but I can be enticed by an occasional one of a kind, or have to have wine. As far as daily drinkers, the range is $14 to $40 and when we find a QPR, we buy a bunch of it.
In general, i try to keep things under $40 (and usually between 25-30). Recently, though, I’ve been buying fewer but better bottles. In fact, the most i’ve spent came on the latest rhys offer.
+1 on the no limit comment. If I want it and have available funds, done.
But the purchases report on CT is really illuminating. After buying more than 2,000 recorded bottles of wine since mid-2007, my average price per bottle is $28.87. If trying to account for all the unrecorded purchases of QPR wines, the average is probably even lower.
I feel really super good about that.