Not a subscriber or familiar with your offer wording, but was it “first come, first serve”, subject to your allotment.
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I’m idly scrolling through this thread, knowing very little about the Memento Mori wines, and I’m a little baffled by the discussion. What I gather is that a talented winemaker has bought some very expensive grapes, and has made a very expensive wine. He has offered that wine to the public and the public has responded enthusiastically, to the extent that the wine will sell out in two or three days. I also gather that some wine drinkers are unhappy that the price was so high, and are wishing that the winemaker had sold them the wine at a lower price. There are even some suggestions that the winemaker may be alienating his customers by increasing the price, but the rapid sale of all the available wine suggests that, in a more limited way, the winemaker might be at risk only of alienating the customers who don’t want to pay the asking price. There is also a suggestion that the winemaker should buy less expensive grapes, so that he can offer a wine at a price that would be more acceptable to the customers who don’t want to pay for the expensive wine.
I guess, at the risk of being obnoxious, that I don’t quite understand why a winemaker should offer his wines at a lower price if he can sell everything he makes at a higher price. I guess I also don’t quite understand why, if the disgruntled non-consumers want to buy less expensive wines from less fancy vineyards, they don’t just do that and leave the winemaker to do what he wants to do.
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I also have just been passing by, Im priced out but thats in no way MMs fault, the wines are selling, people like them, critics like them and the team is here giving context, genuine answers and explanations for why things are what they are so I dont get it? Does DRC have to come out and explain pricing, do firdt growth Bdx? Or screagle? So why should MM not do what is clearly working?
Hope I get a chance to try them one day
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the tor and lithology crane 2021 were 300. i never had a b cellars but they are about 325.
i agree with the greer being an alternative . excellent juice. let me add as alternatives
piper
blankiet 250
macdonald if u can get it
kinsman
morlet some at 300
spottswoode
VHR
all in the 300 dollar and less range.
i prefer not to buy one bottle of something when i can get a few of an equal or better. fortunately, i have been accumulating Crane for years so i should not be longing for the Crane too soon. Let me add as we approach 400 plus we are getting into some serious competitive territory.
i do agree with those that say the price is the price and if the seller can sell out at a price, so be it. Will wait and see what happens when and if they cannot sell out.
on personal level when u get to 400 and can afford the number then u are not even thinking of price but taste and quality give me a futo, hillside select and a few others in napa all day. if you are on the younger side go for the bordeaux palmer, angelus, recent figeac, and a few others. When u drink one of those you will know you made the right choice.
If you can afford to, get them all and enjoy
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Great post . . .
I think that you need to look at this post in context of other recent posts discussing Beckstoffer fruit and the increased pricing all wineries are now being ‘forced’ to charge - and some seem to be charging more than others . . .
They certainly are entitled to charge whatever they’d like for their wines - and the fact that they sold out so quickly is eatament to the commitment of their customers and the perceived of their customers.
What you are missing are that there are other current customers who have expressed concern with the very large price increase - and they are entitled to express this as well.
I have actually found this thread fascinating - and ci grats to MM once again. . .
And this also goes to show that you don’t need to please everyone to still succeed.
Cheers
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That’s not the point I was trying to make. There have been a number of threads with winemakers pointing at Andy Beckstoffer and saying he’s forcing us to sign contracts committing to charge above x per bottle to use his grapes. My question is whether that’s worth dealing with or if it makes a producer like MM start to look around.
DRC, Screaming Eagle, Greer, William and Mary, Jasud, Mouton… those are all estate vineyards. That gives more freedom on how much to charge. And there’s a commensurate variety in prices between those projects. Not everyone in Napa is that lucky. Sourcing fruit is way trickier - try to do the math and it’s hard to figure out how winemakers are able to make a living doing what they do other than that they love it. No doubt the math and prices being charged are made harder by all the folks trying to source fruit from “fancy” vineyards to make a vanity project wine. But there are “fancy” vineyards out there with great fruit that don’t come with the baggage that the Beckstoffer vineyards seem to and ultimately I’m wondering if for wine producers these kinds of price increases and contracts make you start to wonder about cultivating different relationships.
Part of the reason is because as someone else said, once you do start to hit 400 plus the competition is different. I mentioned Impensata - tough to come into your first vintage offering a merlot based blend where the all in cost is more than VCC…. I wish everyone the best and think it’s cool to see projects that are successful whether that’s a long waitlist, high prices, both, whatever, but I think it’s willfully blind not to see that there are difficult choices there and a fair deal of risk - not just some sort of gold brick road to charging willing customers whatever the market bears.
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Hayes- I’m really loving MM wine. At the roadshow tasting I went to in New York City in November, the Memento Mori and Vida Valiente wines that Lauren and Lacey were serving up were my favorites among all the wines I tried that night.
I bought the 2021MM flagship offering , but I’m on the fence with the SVD’ s which at the top of my budget. The Dr Crane is almost $500 all in with tax and shipping. No doubt it’s a great wine but is it that much better than the flagship wine?
I can justify paying $500 a bottle if I’m pretty confident it’s going to appreciate in value. Selling a few bottles here and there allows me to buy more. I rarely ever see MM come up at auction, but I really wonder these price increases will hold up on the secondary market.
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Just to let you know I am a purchaser of the MM wines. Love Sams work. Shout out to Genivieve who hosted me twice and was just wonderful
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I love MM wine, it’s up there with Colgin as my favorite Napa wine. I bought the flagship and Dr. Crane was only offered 1 bottle and wished for another. I appreciate @Hayes_Drumwright coming here to discuss. This isn’t isolated to MM it’s across the board from these Vineyards. I wish the winemakers could somehow stand up to the problem and we all know who that is.
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Some of the customers expressed their concern in a rather crass way in this thread. It certainly doesn’t help in keeping winemakers active on the forum.
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Agreed - just seems to be the case these days. And it would be sad if winemakers are scared off by a few crass comments when the majority are favorable but that’s just my opinion. Cheers.
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Hi guys, just want to clarify pricing for Spinning Plates. The release price is 450$/3-pack 750ml but this is only for the offering period. After the offering period closes, we are increasing the prices , same for all the wines. This is a new policy that we have started to implement with the 2019 vintage as we want to give an advantage to our members who buy during the offerings.
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I caved and ended up buying one each. My 2021 Realm Dr C and BTK are going to need drinking partners down the road. My wife and I opened 2018 MM and Realm Dr Cs along side each other last weekend and enjoyed them. Not happy about price increase but other than Andy probably no one is.
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I was going to buy today, but it sold out. Good for the MM team and my wallet.
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I tasted the 2021 Dr. Crane at the Estate in Sept and have been thinking about it ever since. Then the 2x 100pt scores came out and I maxed out my allocation immediately when it came in. I have been very selective on Napa purchases over the past few months and will cull a lot of the allocations I have but MM is one I will continue to buy. These guys are just so good.
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