LVMH buys Phelps!

[R_Gilbane]

Phelps has some great assets but as a brand it simply does nothing to inspire me. You put insignia on a table next to other similarly priced Napa wines and it rarely garners excitement. I think old, round, soft. It does nothing to inspire. So yeah, a refresh is needed.

[Brent_C_l_a_y_t_o_n]

Möet Hennessy Buys Napa's Joseph Phelps Vineyards

No price discussed in other media. Seems accurate, honestly wouldn’t be surprised if it was north of $300M

[Brent_C_l_a_y_t_o_n]

Buy everything you see Pre-1995

[Zachary_Mancini]

Phelps has some great assets but as a brand it simply does nothing to inspire me. You put insignia on a table next to other similarly priced Napa wines and it rarely garners excitement. I think old, round, soft. It does nothing to inspire. So yeah, a refresh is needed.

I feel like Backus is one of the best wines in Napa.

[P_Soals]

The neighboring vineyards to Backus are legit…look to Tench Vineyard for a similar depth, though with Bevan’s touch it will never be subtle…but then Backus wasn’t either. Addax might be the best value on the block from those neighbors.

Phelps has some great assets but as a brand it simply does nothing to inspire me. You put insignia on a table next to other similarly priced Napa wines and it rarely garners excitement. I think old, round, soft. It does nothing to inspire. So yeah, a refresh is needed.

I feel like Backus is one of the best wines in Napa.

[R_Gilbane]

The neighboring vineyards to Backus are legit…look to Tench Vineyard for a similar depth, though with Bevan’s touch it will never be subtle…but then Backus wasn’t either. Addax might be the best value on the block from those neighbors.

Phelps has some great assets but as a brand it simply does nothing to inspire me. You put insignia on a table next to other similarly priced Napa wines and it rarely garners excitement. I think old, round, soft. It does nothing to inspire. So yeah, a refresh is needed.

I feel like Backus is one of the best wines in Napa.

Agree entirely if we are talking about Backus from 70s through early 90s.

Whatever the quality of Backus today, it’s a wine that is released at a very high price point and can almost instantly be obtained for far less, though still expensive, on the secondary market. Plenty of other Napa wineries do this, highest pricing reserved for those on the list and much lower pricing for retail.

If LVMH does nothing else, you can be damn sure they will not have this sort of price slippage occurring moving forward. Masters of price control are they.

[Steve_Crawford]

Phelps has some great assets but as a brand it simply does nothing to inspire me. You put insignia on a table next to other similarly priced Napa wines and it rarely garners excitement. I think old, round, soft. It does nothing to inspire. So yeah, a refresh is needed.

I feel like Backus is one of the best vineyards in Napa.

fify

[Steve_Crawford]

The neighboring vineyards to Backus are legit…look to Tench Vineyard for a similar depth, though with Bevan’s touch it will never be subtle…but then Backus wasn’t either. Addax might be the best value on the block from those neighbors.

oakville really puts the b in subtle.

[Andy_Sc]

I think it’s exciting. In LVMH fashion, we should see a jump in quality (price too… that’s the downside). They will certainly try to recapture a position among the greatest Napa - a position Phelps once had but since lost.

[Howard_Cooper]

Phelps has some great assets but as a brand it simply does nothing to inspire me. You put insignia on a table next to other similarly priced Napa wines and it rarely garners excitement. I think old, round, soft. It does nothing to inspire. So yeah, a refresh is needed.

Agreed. Phelps made wonderful wines in the 1970s and 1980s but have been living on their laurels for years. The wines I bought from the 90s were modern styled big fruit wines with no complexity that did not age the way previous wines did but rather sort of stayed in suspended animation. Hopefully, LVMH will bring them back to their former glory.

[Michael_S_Monie]

The biggest negative with Phelps’s marketing in addition to the significant price increases is its widespread availability.

[Howard_Cooper]

They also make Dom, Krug, Ch Cheval Blanc, and Ch d’Yquem. I don’t hear anyone complaining about those brands.

Really? I hear people complain all the time about the pricing of those brands. Just look at the board. Complaints (or lack of) about quality of those brands is an entirely different story as it would take a tremendously jaded person to take that position.

At the end of the day it’s a luxury good and LVMH is as good or better as any other company in the space of selling that product. I’m sure they will increase quality. I am also sure they will increase pricing. And lastly, I am sure I will be very happy to try the fruits of their investment/labor when someone else opens a bottle for me to try. Just won’t be on my dime.

Of the truly great wines in the world, Chateau d’Yquem is a relative bargain. Dom Ruinart also has been a very good relative value in high end Champagne. The 2009 Dom Ruinart is fabulous, but still quite young.

[Zachary_Mancini]

The neighboring vineyards to Backus are legit…look to Tench Vineyard for a similar depth, though with Bevan’s touch it will never be subtle…but then Backus wasn’t either. Addax might be the best value on the block from those neighbors.

Not entirely true. Maybe for older vintages, but retail pricing is about the same and phelps pricing for current vintages
I feel like Backus is one of the best wines in Napa.

Agree entirely if we are talking about Backus from 70s through early 90s.

Whatever the quality of Backus today, it’s a wine that is released at a very high price point and can almost instantly be obtained for far less, though still expensive, on the secondary market. Plenty of other Napa wineries do this, highest pricing reserved for those on the list and much lower pricing for retail.

If LVMH does nothing else, you can be damn sure they will not have this sort of price slippage occurring moving forward. Masters of price control are they.

[Adam_Frisch]

If LVMH does nothing else, you can be damn sure they will not have this sort of price slippage occurring moving forward. Masters of price control are they.

Agree. I worked briefly for LV a lifetime ago and they’re very, very strict about their pricing philosophy. In the case of LV, you’ll never see their products at a discount and you’ll never see their products at a retailer. Obviously, the last part doesn’t work for Phelps, but I bet the pricing part will be enforced pretty hard.

[Victor_Hong]

If LVMH does nothing else, you can be damn sure they will not have this sort of price slippage occurring moving forward. Masters of price control are they.

Agree. I worked briefly for LV a lifetime ago and they’re very, very strict about their pricing philosophy. In the case of LV, you’ll never see their products at a discount and you’ll never see their products at a retailer. Obviously, the last part doesn’t work for Phelps, but I bet the pricing part will be enforced pretty hard.

So much of the luxury consumer goods businesses is purely psychic, where consumers pay up dearly for self-assurance.

[R_Gilbane]

So much of the luxury consumer goods businesses is purely psychic, where consumers pay up dearly for self-assurance.

Shit the same applies to two-ply toilet paper my man.

[John_Morris]

The biggest negative with Phelps’s marketing in addition to the significant price increases is its widespread availability.

But think about Dom Perignon (5 million bottles annually) or Veuve Cliquot (18 million), two other LVMH brands. Even Yquem is 10,000 cases a year, and Cheval Blanc 8,000-10,000 cases – in line with many other top Bordeaux chateaus. Phelps is about 60,000 cases.

[John_Morris]

This is bittersweet for me. I feel in love with wine on their terrace on my honeymoon almost 20 years ago when I tasted the 99 Insignia. Insignia was 90 bucks a bottle on pre-release pricing back then. Then came wine of the year for the 02 Insignia (still an amazing wine BTW) and Insignia pricing doubled overnight. Other prices crept up, but you could argue they were still value at times. The regular Napa cab has gotten better over the years (it’s now all estate fruit) but has more than doubled and can often be found cheaper at Costo or Safeway than the club price. Insignia and Backus are both north of 300 a bottle these days. Pinot’s over 200 a bottle, Chard over 150. The parties are a shell of what they once were (covid hasn’t helped). Then the lawsuits filed and won by the former winemaker and CEO. With Joe’s passing a few years back there was a real shift in the winery…it got way more corporate (and expensive). We had already decided to leave the club after we visit in the fall on our 20th anniversary, this seems a fitting end.

I hadn’t realized they could get such prices for their pinots and chardonnays. While no one on Berserkers talks much about Phelps post-1990 wines, plainly the brand is stronger than I realized when I posted initially.

[R_Gilbane]

This is bittersweet for me. I feel in love with wine on their terrace on my honeymoon almost 20 years ago when I tasted the 99 Insignia. Insignia was 90 bucks a bottle on pre-release pricing back then. Then came wine of the year for the 02 Insignia (still an amazing wine BTW) and Insignia pricing doubled overnight. Other prices crept up, but you could argue they were still value at times. The regular Napa cab has gotten better over the years (it’s now all estate fruit) but has more than doubled and can often be found cheaper at Costo or Safeway than the club price. Insignia and Backus are both north of 300 a bottle these days. Pinot’s over 200 a bottle, Chard over 150. The parties are a shell of what they once were (covid hasn’t helped). Then the lawsuits filed and won by the former winemaker and CEO. With Joe’s passing a few years back there was a real shift in the winery…it got way more corporate (and expensive). We had already decided to leave the club after we visit in the fall on our 20th anniversary, this seems a fitting end.

I hadn’t realized they could get such prices for their pinots and chardonnays. While no one on Berserkers talks much about Phelps post-1990 wines, plainly the brand is stronger than I realized when I posted initially.

I’m sorry but who the hell is paying that $ for Phelps Pinot and Chardonnay? No. Just no. Just stop. There’s enough insane BS in the world already. If that actually exists, and someone is insane enough to pay that, the only answer is powerful drugs.

The only truthful statement in all of that is Phelps treats their faithful clients like suckers and charges them through the nose for the privilege of buying a faded memory of former glory. Be on the list and pay north of $300 a bottle for Backus! They sell it to distributors for 40% less. They treated their core clients like marks for years and got away with it. Plenty of other wineries do this and it’s a damn shame. Just call it like it is.

[Michael_S_Monie]

The biggest negative with Phelps’s marketing in addition to the significant price increases is its widespread availability.

But think about Dom Perignon (5 million bottles annually) or Veuve Cliquot (18 million), two other LVMH brands. Even Yquem is 10,000 cases a year, and Cheval Blanc 8,000-10,000 cases – in line with many other top Bordeaux chateaus. Phelps is about 60,000 cases.

I was thinking in terms of their Cabernet and Insignia compared to other Cali wines. I remember some years ago an ad campaign that spoke of “finding a bottle of Insignia” as though that was a rare and special find. I’m only aware of their Freestone line of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. If they have a high end line maybe someone can elaborate what that is.