This is really a superficial analysis. But it is an interesting question. The scores from outside critics should be attributed especially if he is picking and choosing to make his point.
Besides, I really think most major critics are not trustworthy,and a few are really poor. How do I know? Well they don’t agree with me
Slightly more insightful are the author’s own analysis and scoring. It makes much more sense to have a single palate tasting.
So putting aside the less than perfect methodology, the question is one we have all thought about. What have you decided?
I don’t think it’s a scam, it’s just for people with considerably more money than me.
And I do think that often you can buy something that will drink very, very well (even profoundly) for a much lower price. Learning to be happy with that has saved me tons of money, but I don’t have any La Tache bottles to look at either. C’est la vie.
There is also an unquestionable aspect that for top Burgundy producers you are buying the concept that they will make a tremendous wine every year. Which may be true, but that “sure thing” is also a big part of elevated pricing. And in any given year, sometimes other producers still hit the ball out of the park, for much less money. Finding those wines is more work for sure. For some it’s easier to just “buy the best”.
These are all serious generalizations. In the end La Tache is La Tache, and it is one of a kind. And those wines should sell for what the market will bear.
If they fit my palate and budget, no. It’s like “why would I drink a 2008 Cristal when a Roederer Estate MV Brut can get me buzzed.” It’s a logarithmic increase in enjoyment for a exponential increase in price. You can taste night and day between Roederer MV vs their L’Ermitage bottling for relatively “cheap”, but going from L’Ermitage to Cristal is hella expensive for a slight increase in enjoyment. This doesn’t account for scarcity and supply & demand that pushes the price into the stratosphere.
I personally think that there is a ceiling on costs for a wine to be produced. Barrels, farming, land, winemaking techniques, pick, elevage, bottle choice, and bottle aging pre-release, etc. I don’t know what that number is since I’m just a layperson, but I imagine if you are agnostic to brand identification, the most a wine can cost to produce is only otherwise related to the cost of the land and the volume being produced and maybe has some cap around say $50. Beyond that, it’s impossible to really spend more money making the wine itself. The more wine is made per unit of input, the lower that cost would be, so scarcity plays a larger role in pricing more than quality. And not all quality wine requires expensive inputs. High price doesn’t equate to better wine, however, it can and should equate to dependability. But wine doesn’t exactly work that way. The scarcity argument is a difficult one to equate entirely to quality. It’s one of the reasons I was so inquisitive on the Beta/Jasud and the notion of “singular” wines. “Singular” wines are more like scarce artwork than they are necessarily a “quality” product. They will be unique, good or bad. The uniqueness and the label I think is what @Marcus_Goodfellow is referring to. Being able to stare at your rare bottle is worth something to someone.
I opened a $78 bottle of 2022 Kalimna Sands Shiraz last night. It sucked. I opened a 2020 Ultramarine, that sucked too. I opened a $13 de Negoce and it was tremendous. A consumer can find great wines without spending money if they want to match their palate and taste. That isn’t to say there isn’t value in owning more expensive wines. Just examples of bad experiences this week.
So, my answer is that expensive wine isn’t a scam, necessarily, but you shouldn’t equate cost with quality and enjoyment beyond a certain $ number.
This can be huge though, although driven by the value of the wine. A vineyard (or plot) that can produce high quality wine can sell for a lot more $$ (or €€) making the land cost (via opportunity cost) a lot higher.
Example - orders of magnitude differences in prices per acre (10x-1000x).
Yeah, hard to address that since there’s a degree of subjectivity to land quality. Of course, there’s also quite a bit of objectivity about the climate, etc. But even within that realm, that’s just another tool of scarcity. And lot of other factors will play into the quality or enjoyment of the wine more so than just the land on its own.
While I tend to agree with the scam part, it’s the expensive part i have a problem with. Who decides? The $100 percent bottle limit I place on myself is not the price of admission for most Burgundies of note. After a brief sojourn into really “fine” wine, I decided to recognize that my palate is not fine enough. Not to mention the fabulous value of southern Rhône reds.
Not a scam, but for my palate the value typically rapidly weakens as you move up the price brackets. Mass market, industrially produced wines excepted (too many are flabby & confected to appeal to those who find acid and tannins ‘rough’). Such wines may be cheap, but value is questionable.
It’s absolutely possible to find interesting wines at the £10-15 range with a focus on less prestigious/trendy regions. It does take a bit of knowledge/experience though. £15-25 opens up a lot more regions / wine styles and can be a lovely sweet spot for value. Moving up from that typically progressively offers better wines, but the value for me starts to fall away. Past £100 I find the value has disappeared.
The ‘why’ would have us venturing into economic politics, so I’ll avoid commenting on it, except to note how remarkably different the price bands were if you went back 30, 40, 50+ years ago.
There are absolutely exceptions e.g. for me, despite the very high price, Avignonesi’s vin santo wines offer a unique level of intensity/complexity, which I’d say still offers good value… even if it’s beyond the amount I can justify spending on wine.
It’s fun to play the game of substitution. Start off with a $30k bottle of Leroy Musigny, or a $4k Petrus, and then decide what you could sub easily without losing too much.
For the Musigny, you should be able to find a Drouhin Musigny for around $1k, then an Amoureuse for less etc.
Petrus is for me easily substituted. Lafleur of course, but you can buy nearly a case of Trotanoy and of course VCC for the same money. I think the substitution is a lot closer with Petrus than the Leroy which tends to have a fairly strong signature.
If I earned enough, I probably wouldn’t worry so much about finding those substitutes. But like most people on this planet, I have a fairly finite wine budget, and although I’m always exceeding it, I tend not to buy the really expensive labels, because at that level, I’m either seeing seriously diminishing returns, or no return whatsoever
I recently met with a collector who stopped drinking a few years ago due to health reasons. His wife has passed and his kids don’t share his love of wine. His cellar is awesome… all the great wines bought over the years and wonderfully stored. First growth, soldera, bubbs, the big burgs, etc. He still buys wine, especially “expensive” allocated wines. Interestingly enough, he also has little interest in selling his collection.
If wine were simply about consumption, we would never see the escalations that we have. Buying wine, especially rare and sought after wine, scratches an itch that many collectors can’t help but wanna address. It’s satisfying to be the person to acquire the thing that lot’s of folks want but mostly can’t have. To be honest, buying wine can be substantially more satisfying than drinking it. It’s not cerebral but rather it’s emotional. And despite all of our protestations about pricing, we should all be thrilled that we have found a subject to be so invested in that it elicits the passions that this very board gives folks a forum for every day.
So, no, expensive wine is not a scam. But it’s also not logical at it’s core.
Largely agree with you, though substituting doesn’t really work with a wine that has singular qualities. Petrus, at least for me, exemplifies that. It has a unique profile.
Is all fine wine a scam? No. Are some charging a price not commensurate with the quality they offer? Absolutely. Some of that is of course scarcity, brand value and all the intangibles that make any luxury good worth more than an equally functional product from a less collectible producer.
Most of the Chateaux that produce classified growths will have significantly lower production costs than other wineries, particularly compared to those in the states, due to practically no cost of land.
That does not mean that the quality and terroir you pay to experience is any less real or impressive.
Is Ch. Lafitte worth x times what a bottle of Ch. Haut Brion is? Personally, I don’t think so, but it’s not a scam, it’s just marketing and positioning.
Now Liber Pater… I’d probably say yes it’s a scam.
!!! Maybe for you. Definitely not for me. Worrying about what other people want has never seemed like a good life strategy to me. But, we’re all different!
Probably depends on whether one has the collector/hoarder personality type, which can be aimed at anything.
There are a few things that allow the cost of production to go through the roof. Expensive consultants being one, and a money is no object approach to equpiment (optical sorters, etc.), some farming practices (like tying every growing tip so thatbit faces down to discourage further growth rather than hesging) but even then there is a limit. The winery building can be a huge cost as well, but that’s not really “in the bottle” and I always wonder at whether it’s correct to charge a consumer a high price to pay for ultra fancy winery architecture.
As much as La Tache is a unique and beautiful site, the vast majority of very expensive wines are far less unique. There are very few truly singular wines. So a lot of the difference in costs really does come down to fruit/land costs, buildings, over priced labor(consultants), but pricing is what consumers will pay. That isn’t to say that making expensive wine is a scam, the costs to sell expensive wine (marketing and distribution) can also be very significant expenses (look at the Champagne sets in your local grocery store during the holidays).
Ultimately, there is often a much less expensive wine that is fairly close to the quality of much more expensive wines if you look hard enough.
I also just really like the Ecard S-L-B wines. They don’t sub for Musigny at all, but I find a tremendous amount of enjoyment in them and don’t have to worry about the cost.
