I think in a few years we’ll find that all the producers of richebourg besides Leroy, DRC, and perhaps HN and Grivot are relative values and the same can be said for RSV other than Leroy, DRC and Arnoux Lachaux (although I wouldn’t be in a hurry to stock up on latour)
Sure it’s all relative, but MM Rich is double for '20 what I paid for '18. I might have missed some better offers last year, but MM and Bouchard aren’t nearly the value they were very recently.
Just wait. I think getting 19 af gros riche for 600 this year will be a steal in a year or less.
Trapet 2020 Latricieres Chambertin Grand Cru and Chapelle - Chambertin are both $599.00 !!!
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Pavelot Savigny
Jouan especially Clos Sorbe but the Clos Saint Denis VV can still be found under $300
Glantenay Volnay and Pommard
Guyon
Drouhin Chambolle premier Cru
And you are absolutely right about Lafouge
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I will never in my life understand how we can be discussing $300 bottles of wine as if they are bargains.
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Everything is relative; just because it’s an expensive item doesn’t mean it can’t be a bargain (and vice versa).
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Value (and more likely “relative value”) makes more sense to me as a term than bargain. We’re not finding Chambertin in the bargain bin anymore.
Trapet is certainly not cheap but it’s 1/5 the price of Rousseau.
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is this THE NIck Gangas? if so, or even if not, I echo the frustration over these prices. I’ve been buying St. Aubin and Santenay and Fixin and now those are getting out of control too
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Exactly.
Great Loire wines (Huet Sec, Peppiere) are still under $50.
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Its interesting to see more producers in burgundy start to hold back their wines from merchants so that they can sell them themselves and take advantage of the secondary market prices. Seems like there is at least a chance that this could cause the market to crack - if what is really going on is that the folks who pay the “real” ex cellar price and an initial allocation are getting a windfall that also reduces supply and creates more scarcity, and the opportunity to do that disappears, then maybe you suddenly find out that some of the secondary market pricing isn’t so sustainable on a larger scale. Maybe it goes the way of Bordeaux. I’m not that hopeful given what I’ve seen to date, but given the chatter on '21 pricing and how quickly the sales process is changing, I no longer rule out the possibility of a reversal of burgundy prices.
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i don’t rule it out either, statistically. but the sheer quantity makes top tier burgundy inherently different than bordeaux. allocations are spread so thinly that a single bottle is good news for most buyers.
as you note, there are myriad opportunities to sell directly through partners such as ficofi, pearl of burgundy, zachys, and so many more. WD has sold DRC directly for years through their private list. the demand so far outstrips supply that even massive demand decay won’t make a dent. all of us have experienced not only massive price increases but more important, offered quantity decimated.
the chances of this trend accelerating are far higher than any reversal of burgundy pricing (aside from normal fluctuations at auction which is not what i think you mean).
edit: i’ve pitched this to a well-known domaine years ago and for at least one specific reason, it doesn’t make sense for them. but for others the best outcome is to work with a platform that handles allocations directly and requires balanced purchases across the entire domaine portfolio and converts them to shares (e.g., if the domaine produces 12 bottles of bourgogne to 1 bottle of grand cru, that’s the ratio that a member must purchase to stay on the list). then those shares are allocated according to some metric on loyalty, whatever, etc. The domaine can decide how long to hold back, whether they care about flipping, etc. It’s quite easy to do today and current companies such as what i mentioned above are doing a version of this. but i think it’s inevitable that some domaines take it in-house and manage themselves.
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Yep that’s the problem with a theory about a correction. Half the buyers suddenly disappear and the rest get 2 bottles now. It’s not like people are buying cases and cases a la BDX. You would need a significant portion of the buyers to back out like what we saw during COVID with restaurants closed and suddenly things were a bit easier to find and prices were slightly lower.
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Right - it really depends on whether the seller allows the cherry-picker buying or requires purchasers to buy accross the range. You might quickly find another buyer for Musigny at the prevailing rate, but if you have to buy a case or two of village and 1er as well then the financial picture changes quite a bit.
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Does this model work though when for some producers literally every wine is a cherry? Roumier village wines are themselves heavily allocated. You’d have to require a sizable purchase of a less desirable producer to get any Roumier cuvees.
this is the real issue with the tiered system we have in the States but also applies to any broker, etc. Those sellers usually require the buyer to support some other wines to get the so-called cherries. This aligns with the seller’s incentives fine, but not at all with the domaine that’s not only providing a rare product but also providing leverage for that middle seller to build her business. when it’s time for your allocation of some top domaine, the seller must look at how well you supported the rest of their business; this is the only logical and fair way to allocate those wines (this has nothing to do with price, you will pay the price regardless).
Historically, those middle sellers provided a lot of value - distribution, lower payment risk, marketing, etc.
that no longer exists. so we are living in the hangover period which can last for a while, but is inherently unsustainable - and i’d argue, inherently unfair - to the domaines themselves. i’m not diminishing the existing relationships, loyalties, etc. that exist in the sector, each domaine needs to do what’s right for them. as we’ve seen in all other industries and of course in burgundy, all it takes is 1 or 2 to start and the rest will follow. from my pov, this evolution has already begun, but we don’t yet know how and when it ends.
i’ve thought about this a lot - these are details that need to be worked out, can change pricing accordingly, etc. you can also have an internal system where you can sell off some of your allocation to others. point being, all of this should be controlled initially and primarily by the domaine. the permutations are varied, but don’t really matter. and to be clear, versions of this already exist in various forms which already diminishes the “normal” channel supplies.
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Seems to me this would be crucial, to the extent the domaine wishes for more, rather than less, folks to have access to their wines. That is, unless one could buy only the lower rung wines, and pass on the upper end wines (i.e.: the opposite of cherry picking).
Not everyone can afford to buy the upper end wines, let alone across the entire range. Of course, when there’s enough demand for a domaine’s wines, the domaine may not exactly care if they’re shutting-out the folks who would buy only at the lower end because they know there are plenty of folks who will buy across the entire range.
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i’m of the opinion that the market sorts these things out quite well. but in this system, the domaine controls the initial pricing, allocations, and also any internal sales. you can’t prevent all away-market activity, but that’s not the goal here.
require payment up front for membership (can be tiers), and then annual obligation to purchase what’s offered. there can be tranches, etc. also, there are some buyers (like me for example) that would rather buy the village and 1er wines from some domaines and perhaps there are top-tier sellers in this paradigm that are happy to take a “loss” to not have to deal with those wines.
in a standard distribution system, this could be a huge cluster, but if you tailor the platform for each domaine to control as they see fit, it’s an incredibly small problem to solve for.
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