Wouldn’t it be better, from a client retaining perspective, to reserve maybe 50% of your rare production to those that are on your list, like they do today, but then let anyone who’s signed up have a go at the remaining 50% of the unobtainable, on a first come, first serve basis? That way, psychologically, if those who aren’t full members miss to get the unobtainable items of desire, they will then simply blame themselves for not being fast enough (“better luck next time, old chap”), rather than start resenting the winery for giving them no soup for 10+ years? Seems like much better strategy to me.
At the end of the day, the goal is to sell out the wine, right? Give more people a chance at it and you’ll have a broader base that will spread the word and feel like they’re part of it. Win, win.
For some wineries, the exclusiveness, rarity and how hard and/or expensive it is to obtain bottles are part of their brand and marketing. Opening up even some of that inventory to more people, effectively goes against that.
Even is some wineries chose to switch to that model, for some more established wineries that might prove logistically challenging. They may already have a certain number of members on the mailing list and scaling up production has its own hurdles, so to do that, they’d have to pair back some of the existing members’ allocations.
I would agree if the waiting list times were just a few years - that long you can string people along under the guise of exclusivity. But when you have 8-12 year long waiting lists, you will turn a lot of people into haters eventually, as evidenced by these threads. I think it’s bad ju-ju. And I think few will stand to be rejected for 10 years straight.
Let’s negotiate. I’m only 70, but I’ve been at it longer. Cellartracker says that I have every year of Bionic Frog back to 2011 except for 2015, and the missing 2015 is probably a data entry error. about 15 years ago, we had a Saxum versus the world dinner with Justin. So let’s suppose I will put up a few frog bottles for a dinner in NYC and other people can put up things that I want but do not have and we can all share. I can’t drink much for medical reasons so 2 ounces per bottles is my limit. So what would people put up for a frog tasting. I have plenty of Saxum, SQN, Scarecrow, TRB cabs (Schrader, Outpost, Rivers Marie Black Sears), Aubert, Mike Smith (Myriad, Becklyn, Quivet), Quilceda Crack, MacDonald and a few others. What would you like to open against The Frog?
PS - If you want to offer Burgundy, the words Conti, Coche, Richebourg or Musigny (without Chambolle in front of it) should be in the wine name.
Personally, those kinds of long wait times can be a turn off to me. So I know where you’re coming from.
Though I’m not sure how much my opinion may be in line with the wider consumer base of those cult wines.
I would imagine that as you describe, there will inevitably be some who are turned off by the long wait times and chose to distance themselves from that brand, others I imagine see value in that scarcity, even after waiting 10+ years on a waiting list. Others may see their palates change and now participate in the list only resell the bottles.
Human consumption behavior is so interesting. I often wonder what the basal need stems from biologically? Is it a need to stock up caloric mass for a rainy day, i.e. scarcity? Acceptance from peers or fear of being abandoned by the group/herd? What instinctual need does it serve at its core?
I’m not in any way exempt from it, so my observation is not from a high horse perspective, just a curious observation.
There was no Bionic Frog in 2015 – that was the year of the cork scandal. The only 2015s are Armada and God Only Knows, because they are released one year later than the others (and thus were not bottled with the faulty corks).
I contacted them a couple weeks ago via an email address that I thought I got from this thread, although I can’t find it in this thread now. No response. Any suggestion on how to contact Marcassin?
I haven’t used it as it’s a friend of mine who has the allocation, but I know he had the allocation since he was out of the country and I wrote the check and sent the letter.
