They’re widely available at European restaurants for several hundred euro and thatchers sells them for lower prices than that to customers with an allocation.
Now you are being disingenuous. An allocated US vendor, and European restaurants. Not exactly much availability to the general wine lover. If you want the wine, you are going to have to pay secondary market prices.
And to your point about experienced wine drinkers not knowing about the wines, it may have something to do with them having to buy on the secondary market at the prices I quoted.
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It is, if you include the cost of buying the vineyard. The completely uncomproming focus on quality is almost incidental to that, financially speaking.
Several hundred euros for a bottle of wine is a lot of money, FWIW.
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Almost no one is paying the wine searcher or K&L auction prices; quoting them is pointless. It’s like quoting Guilbert gillet prices, they’re just not available really except at restaurants.
Sorry, in most wine regions around the world, you will not recoup the cost of buying the vineyard until you sell it.
If you purchase 1 hectare of Chambolle-Musigny at €2,400,000 for the hectare, and you make 2.4 tons of wine. That’s 140+ cases of wine.
Bulk out the press wine, call it 40 cases.
Your 100 remaining cases at €2500/case.
€250,000 gross.
I can do 2.4 tons in my sleep with no help. I can probably even pick the fruit myself, though at 58 that’s also probably not what I would do.
Fancy farming and all my cost of goods is going to be less than €500/case, so €50,000. Leaving me a €100,000 salary and €100,000 payment.
But if I make the press wine into Bourgogne and get 4.8 tons per hectare (still a tiny amount, that I need zdero help with other than picking). My farming costs didn’t change. Most of my fixed costs are the same. And I don’t need more than €100,000 salary. So now I have €200,000 to pay on the vineyard. And I have my press wine to cover unforeseen costs. I can recoup my costs on the vineyard in 14-15 years.
That assumes no disasters, my wines and reputation hold up over 15-20 years, my health holds up, and Burgundy remains Burgundy. But it’s a better row to hoe than anywhere else in the world…
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I give up; this is a real head scratcher. Here am I quoting market prices, including a recent auction where people were actually paying nearly $2000 for Moulin a Vent, and over $3000 for the Gevrey Eteliers.
But that is not the market, because you and a few insiders and several European restaurants pay less. Please give me the secret handshake, so I too don’t have to pay market prices.
I didn’t learn much with my master’s degree in business, but I do know what a bloody market price is. It’s quite simply what people will pay for a good or service in an open market with a willing seller and buyer. I think a recent auction fills all of those criteria.
So tell me Michael, how much did you pay? And what did you buy?
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Wine-searcher price as been discussed often is simply the price the wine isn’t selling for. There was literally 1800 bottles of all the wines combined, it’s not like it was being traded too much and much of it went to restaurants.
We’ve been asked not to discuss the allocation pricing. I have a reasonable amount of the Kelley wines, and am excited to drink them. I paid substantially less than what you’re claiming the market price is.
Yes some people paid a lot on that K&L auction. That doesn’t reflect the reality of what people are actually paying to drink the wine. Many people on here have had the wines in restaurants including @Mark_Y @Eric_Egan and others. They can tell you what they paid but I’m sure it wasn’t thousands of dollars a bottle.
Thank you Marcus. I believe you can also depreciate the vines in France (not the vineyard) over 25 years. Probably not a huge amount, but every bit helps.m
Thieret is the only one on Michael’s list of producers I have had. Liked the wines a lot. Really good for their appellation. But, IMHO, the ones that I have had do not taste as good as good Grand Cru Burgundies.
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I’d agree with that, I don’t think every one of those wines are grand cru killers, just a list of newer burgundy producers making great wines.
It actually does reflect reality, because there was at least one bidder.
This thread was launched, so we the old fogey guards need to realize that there are winemakers who can magically make wines from lesser appellations that rival Grand Crus if not surpass them. Even DRC.
But if we want to sample these wines, you have to be an insider, or go to Europe to a restaurant who has an allocation. But wait, if you are not an insider, well you have to pay market, which judging from your tone, only an idiot would pay. Double talk all of it.
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I don’t think you have to be an insider but you need to buy wine from the company importing the wine. There are lots of people on this forum who have allocations of the wine, including many of your friends, obviously since you already had the wine.
Short note from the first time I tasted her wine. Visit to Burgundy and Champagne - WINE TALK - WineBerserkers
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I hate to derail the discussion a bit, but this drives me insane as an “outsider”. I’ve had some of these wines at tastings but otherwise my only access to them is thru the secondary market. And no one at all will give an outsider a straight answer on how to buy these wines (or any highly sought after Burgundy) on the primary market.
There must be some shibboleth I’m not privy to. I suspect it requires six figures yearly of purchases of other wines.
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As far as Guilbert gillet? Or William Kelley? Guilbert gillet is mostly just not available anymore unless you’re @CFu. I don’t have a single bottle in my cellar. @J.Vizuete was generous enough to open a bottle for us a couple weeks ago, no idea where he got it. The William Kelley wines are allocated through thatchers and preference is given to their private clients. Obviously spending more will likely get you bigger allocations.
I should note that although I have not had any wines from Guilbert Gillet, I did meet Benjamin Guilbert in 2016 at Jacky Truchot’s house. He was working then at Domaine des Lambrays and somehow knew Jacky Truchot. Truchot asked him to come by when we came to his house to translate as Jacky Truchot does not speak English. I sat next to Benjamin and so talked with him some. I did not learn until after the Verticals this year on the train on the way home that he is now a winemaker and was at the Verticals showing his wines. Glad to see him doing so well.
FYI, on his website he discusses Truchot as follows: “Benjamin Guilbert cites Jacky Truchot, the legendary former producer in Morey-Saint-Denis, as his most important mentor, and his philosophy is deeply influenced by Truchot’s respect for the land, emphasis on traditional methods, and commitment to letting terroir speak clearly in the glass.” Domaine Guilbert Gillet — La Souveraine So, I do not at all diss the producers Michael mentions and would love to try the Gilbert Gillet wines.
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He’s a really nice guy, very apologetic that his wines are so hard to get. Poured us his 22 corton at the gala and it was insane.
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I think climate change and social media are probably accelerating the “great new innovative producers” phenom, but it is hardly very new. There have been great producers making wines that are as good or better, or more interesting, or better drinking early, than some highly-hallowed turf for decades.
I reckon there’s also a wide range of personal, individual tastes and preferences. Michael has been very clear on many threads that he values freshness. Clearly, some of the exciting crop of new producers are making wine in this sort of style and it’s great that Michael can both source and enjoy these. There’s people who much prefer characters that only emerge with serious cellar time. Good luck to them too.
I don’t know who you think “eschews” these wines, which is perhaps a loaded term in this thread. Fact is, hardly anyone will have a chance to try most of these wines. Of course, hardly anyone gets to try d’Auvenay Criots either, or Lamy’s, or Caroline Morey’s. I don’t see anyone turning down the opportunity to try one of these wine, were it to present itself.
I don’t think anyone who loves Burgundy would be better off if more people chased and hyped these new producers. I get the excitement, and in many ways that sort of passion and excitement is what can make wine so special, but the small production means the wines will naturally be gate-kept. I mean, we could start some argument about why Lamy Criots is better than D’Auvenay Criots, based on trying dozens of bottles over the last few vintages, but I reckon there’s probably only a handful of people who could validly chime in.
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I think we all know who I meant when I said they were eschewing the wines.
If you’re coming at things with the preconceived notion that no wine from Savigny can ever be great you clearly won’t appreciate these wines for what they are and that’s fine: