I would normally agree with you Ian, but I did grab a Halloween mystery case at $149 and it did have value in it. Even had a bottle of Elivette 2017, which oddly I did not have in my “teens” vertical from previous purchases. I was surprised they even sold them, the case that is, knowing this winter marathon was just around the corner.
I bit on the Bollinger Magnum for $129. That might be all I get.
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Honestly, including an Elivette makes tons of sense as 1) the “crazy” discount of it inflates the full box value nicely, and 2) the have sooooo much of it across so many bottle sizes (even with it selling well).
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On Reddit someone mentioned there was a 1999 Gaja Barolo for $199. Did anyone see that? I didn’t even see it; disappeared too fast.
Great buy.
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I saw the Gaja, right when it popped up, and I added to card clicked buy and it said my cart was empty. Must have been just a couple.
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Bought 2 more of the 2019 Elivette. I already had a bunch of 2019.
I’m assuming this vintage needs some time, but how approachable is it now?
Is last bottle basically the wine equivalent of a drop shipper at this point?
Tried to buy the ‘99 gaja then the ‘15 d’angerville clos de ducs mag in the span of about 5 minutes and failed on both. By far the most interesting bottles I saw all day
Are you asking if they only take possession of the wine after it is sold? I don’t think that is their model.
A -It’s a flash site
B- marathon days liquidate odds and ends from their sister site, First Bottle
C- they liquidate large one off lots like Elivette
D-they have a private label brand that they feature a lot. I forget which one it is
Was that during Power Hour?
Yeah, 4:30ish. They did it to drag me back in and it worked.
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I understand that they are not a true drop shipper due to the three tier system, but outside of the small number of lots they get straight from the winery, does it not feel like they are a liquidation venue for distributor(s) needing to offload random bottles?
*The lots from the winery may be small in number but large in size such as spring mountain.
Would I be crazy to think they tie right into a distributors systems to determine what to liquidate?
Of course they liquidate from all sources
I’ve sold to them (as well as buying a lot from them) and been in their offices and warehouse.
There is a WHOLE LOT OF WINE!!! in their warehouse.
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they’re located in california so they often don’t even have to go through distributors. but even so, wineries and distributors are sending them samples and inventory counts constantly. once they decide to work with a specific wine, they can have the vendor hold X amount of inventory. LB can elect to buy it all in one drop and then work through it, or they can buy some and then go back for more if the offer does better than expected. obviously taking it all in one drop gives them buying leverage to negotiate for even better pricing.
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I’d love to know the Elivette details. Seems like the bought tens of thousands of bottles at once…
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I think it feels exactly like what you suggest and I think most people aren’t too concerned with how the sausage is getting made.
I sort of assume all of these discount sites are accruing wine from everywhere and wherever.
definitely looks that way from the outside. i believe they’ve bought out entire winery inventories before. luna, conn creek…i’m sure folks here can name some others. i think they also bought out a few brands like mark herold’s flux. they also clearly control the offers from bounty hunter and the wine club, along with invino. quite possibly several others
Man, they’ve been pushing that 2023 Peju Limited Release pretty hard. Must have a lot of it. I’ve seen it at least 3 times this marathon (and haven’t watched that closely), and it was a daily deal twice.