And I think you are purposefully missing the point but that’s what I get for trying to give folks an understanding of the actual way these things happen. @Greg_K has it right. It’s all free or your money back.
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![[rofl.gif]](https://www.wineberserkers.com/uploads/db3686/original/2X/a/a7452fcd8e675af869f8da01174474a545b03944.gif "rofl"){kind=small}
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A stupid world in which FOMO and resentment rein for some people in relation to wines that are priced at stupid levels by retailers that are getting the price they can from those who can afford and are silly enough to chase is not a reflection of “gouging”. We are not talking about milk, eggs, petrol/gas, or toilet paper.
Or more succinctly: The VLM (@Nathan_V ) knows what he is talking about here.
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Just so it’s clear, what’s unreasonable for Guillermo M isn’t relevant in any way. The issue of price gouging or windfall profits are relevant for industries that are either monopolistic or otherwise necessary for consumers. This is why windfalls taxes on windfall profits are often talked about for oil companies - there’s no substitute for oil. But if some wine merchants charge a lot of money for a bottle of wine, there’s a very simple solution to this seemingly difficult problem - buy a bottle of literally anything else. No one has yet been materially harmed by failing to drink a bottle of Charles Lachaux’s wines, even if they’re quite good.
It sucks that burgundy is really expensive, and the producers (especially the younger ones) are very much aware of the problem (though they also have new cuveries to build and land they’d like to acquire). But deciding what pricing is reasonable based entirely on one’s personal views isn’t a solution.
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Just to be clear on my post basically simultaneously with Greg’s here. I have FOMO too sadly over some wines so that’s not a comment meant to cast aspersions on anyone else. I would love to drink more of Lachaux’s wines, not to mention my first love Rousseau, but I’ll live and be just fine.
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More generally, I’m still totally mystified every time I run into a grown-up who claims/feels that wine so-and-so is “irreplaceable”. Kind of missing the point of both life and wine itself, and by a long chalk, if you ask me. Grow up, grown-up.
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I’ve found this to be a term that describes something that is unique and special to someone, something not easily replaced. It would be a bit sad to have a hobby to which one dedicates a significant part of one’s life if every part of it was purely functional and interchangeable. If all wines we drink were so easily replaced, what’s the point? Sometimes it’s nice to fall in love 
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What about the first growths full of brett, or the multi-generation domaines whose wines all oxidized after a few years in bottle? It’s great that you’re so passionate about holding people to account, but having a one-off issue with microbial stability can happen to the best of us.
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I get what you’re saying, Greg, definitely one way of looking at it. But I was not advocating any sort of disenchantment. Quite the opposite, in fact: “growing up” as in waking up to the fact that something just as lovely or worth your while might be, and often is, just around the corner. But then, I suppose it might also be purely a matter of personal disposition. In my case, any sense of wine’s relative hierarchies comes a distant second to the value I place on and enjoyment I derive from wine’s diversity.
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Sure, we can agree on the obvious, anyone can have a one-off issue. But a whole, fully paid apprenticeship is potentially a little more questionable, I would argue. On the specific example I referenced, I think the interesting question is where, over his ten or more years of predictable microbial disasters, do you draw the line? What is the point at which it is OK for you to have a laugh about it on a wine forum (or “passionately hold to account”, depending, of course, on one’s perception, sense of humour, etc. 
)?
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I think I’d probably prefer to have a laugh at anyone silly enough to have followed Cornelissen for a decade.
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I do not think of things I enjoy via hierarchies - they are simply my favorite things. I have yet to find anything that replaces a bottle of Allemand for me in the northern Rhône. That doesn’t mean I don’t look, but it does mean that as of right now, it’s irreplaceable:)
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Other than the fact that any preference necessarily implies a hierarchy, I can definitely relate to what you’re saying.
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In which case you can join me and the rest of the gallery 
Sometimes I wonder, though… Hindsight is a wonderful thing. If I weren’t the judgemental person that I am, but, say, someone dispassionate and slow to judge (must be crystal-clear to all by now that this is purely hypothetical)… and… it’s, say, 2004, and my job is to review Sicilian wine for a major international wine publication… oh well… OK… hopefully not…
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Such lack of reading comprehension. So many straw men. Muting this thread.
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I’m not sure this is the right take. Charles Lachaux pulled his wine from retail because retailers were overly successful in marketing his wines and the price went crazy. Rather than allowing retailer to reap those gains, he will be selling directly to the consumer via crurated I believe. He is creating further artificial scarcity in an effort to maintain this price bubble.
I’m not hating on this by any means. I think we will see more and more of this, and producers should be the primary beneficiaries of increasing market prices. But this isn’t a move against greedy retailers. It is a move to maintain a price bubble and capture more of it.
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In case anyone wants a taste 
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Yeah, I pulled the trigger on both the '19 Pernand-Vergelesses ‘Les Fichots’ & the '19 Beaune ‘Les Prévolles’. I’ve had the Pernand-Vergelesses before, that’s is the bottle that changed my mind about Les Horées.
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2020 Aligoté showed great over the weekend here in Beaune…
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I sold a bottle of '19 Aligoté last week in the restaurant I work at, I couldn’t agree more!
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