Throwing in the towel - a study

[Jon_H]

This thread makes me sad because these inflating prices make it simply impossible for many to even taste, let alone regularly drink, more and more great wines. I never expected to be able to have DRC, First Growth Bordeaux, Bartolo Mascarello, or G-Max on a regular basis, but these prices are keeping many more great wines out of reach as well. Now I have to forget about trying Chave, Rayas, Egon Muller, many second growths, scores of Burgundy and California wines, as well. It seems like I’m hearing about more and more wines that are being astronomically inflated to the point of undrinkability. The whole N Rhone and Piedomont seem to be going the direction of Burgundy, unfortunately. I would have thought that such a market was unsustainable, but apparently not; these prices do nothing but climb- right through 2008 and COVID. Seems inevitable that a few years from now most of us will be subsisting on Budweiser and Carlo Rossi.

Eric Asimov has a nice piece about this in the NY Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/22/dining/drinks/wine-prices.html

Asimov is spot on: this is 100% a function of income inequality. It’s hard to imagine - as the tech revolution continues and more and more jobs become automated - that this does not continue for at least the next 10-20 years. At least this is how I justify buying rolexes and nice wine. Doesn’t really justify drinking that wine though…

[Greg_K]

Seems inevitable that a few years from now most of us will be subsisting on Budweiser and Carlo Rossi.

I don’t think this is true. I agree that there are a lot of wines that are “out of reach” for a lot of people, but modern winemaking has never been better - there’s never been a bigger ocean of good wine coming from every region in the world.
I guess I take a fairly philosophical view of this - if a wine becomes too expensive, and I have to stop buying it, so it goes. There is always plenty of other wine; almost nothing in the wine world is genuinely irreplaceable.

[Tom_R_W]

I mentioned this on a Colgin thread. I’ve been getting Colgin’s IX & Cariad since 2001, but last year decided to drop the Cariad. Love the wine, but after enough price increases one starts to wonder if its worth it.

Stopped buying the Saxum syrahs a few years back. I’m still all in on their grenache based wines, but after 8 vintages of their Syrahs, I stopped trying to convince myself I would eventually enjoy them if they aged enough. That’s a style issue, not price.

[Robert_G]

I know this is really a tangentially related point, but the rising prices of wine has caused me to stick with a few select regions I love (Bordeaux, Napa, and Champagne). I feel I can afford to deeply explore those regions. However, I also like Rhone, Burgundy, and Piedmont (among others). There is no way I could ever afford to comprehensively explore all 6 regions. So, I only buy one-off bottles here and there from those other regions. I think I subconsciously do not want to fall in love with Burgundy because I will not be able to afford the wines.

This boils down to the age old question of going deep or wide. I stick to going deep on what I love.

[Craig_G]

Seems inevitable that a few years from now most of us will be subsisting on Budweiser and Carlo Rossi.

I don’t think this is true. I agree that there are a lot of wines that are “out of reach” for a lot of people, but modern winemaking has never been better - there’s never been a bigger ocean of good wine coming from every region in the world.
I guess I take a fairly philosophical view of this - if a wine becomes too expensive, and I have to stop buying it, so it goes. There is always plenty of other wine; almost nothing in the wine world is genuinely irreplaceable.

I agree (that it’s not true). What has happened over time is a stretching of prices from low end to high, not an overall increase (if you adjust for non-wine inflation). Off the top of my head, since I started buying in the late 80’s, stuff like Bdx super-seconds have gone up around 4x; Bdx 1sts 6-8x; and high end rare wines like DRC maybe 10-20x. But stuff at the bottom of the “high quality” wine range has only gone up by 2-2.5x, not far off of overall inflation. That category (say $15-$50 now) has improved significantly in quality, consistency, and the number of interesting wines available in the market.

If for whatever reason I could never buy another wine outside of that range, I would still have a huge set of great wines to explore and enjoy.

[Greg_K]

Seems inevitable that a few years from now most of us will be subsisting on Budweiser and Carlo Rossi.

I don’t think this is true. I agree that there are a lot of wines that are “out of reach” for a lot of people, but modern winemaking has never been better - there’s never been a bigger ocean of good wine coming from every region in the world.
I guess I take a fairly philosophical view of this - if a wine becomes too expensive, and I have to stop buying it, so it goes. There is always plenty of other wine; almost nothing in the wine world is genuinely irreplaceable.

I agree (that it’s not true). What has happened over time is a stretching of prices from low end to high, not an overall increase (if you adjust for non-wine inflation). Off the top of my head, since I started buying in the late 80’s, stuff like Bdx super-seconds have gone up around 4x; Bdx 1sts 6-8x; and high end rare wines like DRC maybe 10-20x. But stuff at the bottom of the “high quality” wine range has only gone up by 2-2.5x, not far off of overall inflation. That category (say $15-$50 now) has improved significantly in quality, consistency, and the number of interesting wines available in the market.

If for whatever reason I could never buy another wine outside of that range, I would still have a huge set of great wines to explore and enjoy.

I think the bolded is a really good point, and is consistent with the view that as prices increase the increase in quality is progressively smaller. At the same time, since there’s more wine than before, the amount of wine that’s kept up in price with inflation has increased, which gives people even more choice than before to drink good wine.

[J_Galang]

I don’t think this is true. I agree that there are a lot of wines that are “out of reach” for a lot of people, but modern winemaking has never been better - there’s never been a bigger ocean of good wine coming from every region in the world.
I guess I take a fairly philosophical view of this - if a wine becomes too expensive, and I have to stop buying it, so it goes. There is always plenty of other wine; almost nothing in the wine world is genuinely irreplaceable.

I agree (that it’s not true). What has happened over time is a stretching of prices from low end to high, not an overall increase (if you adjust for non-wine inflation). Off the top of my head, since I started buying in the late 80’s, stuff like Bdx super-seconds have gone up around 4x; Bdx 1sts 6-8x; and high end rare wines like DRC maybe 10-20x. But stuff at the bottom of the “high quality” wine range has only gone up by 2-2.5x, not far off of overall inflation. That category (say $15-$50 now) has improved significantly in quality, consistency, and the number of interesting wines available in the market.

If for whatever reason I could never buy another wine outside of that range, I would still have a huge set of great wines to explore and enjoy.

I think the bolded is a really good point, and is consistent with the view that as prices increase the increase in quality is progressively smaller. At the same time, since there’s more wine than before, the amount of wine that’s kept up in price with inflation has increased, which gives people even more choice than before to drink good wine.

I do agree to the points pointed out in these posts, my only additional point of curiosity is when these increases or price stretching occurred and in what amount of time did it occur. This is in line with the producers I mentioned in my OP. The top tier producers (DRC, Leroy, Roumier, Mugnier Rousseau, etc.) already had their “hockey stick” moment earlier (the time when their prices suddenly shot up). If I recall correctly this was back in 2005 vintage? I was never a buyer of those top tier wines so I may be wrong (maybe it was 2002?). My hypothesis now is that I believe these “second tier” wines (price wise at least) have also just experienced their hockey stick moment in the past 1-3 years. Wines that used to cost between $70-$180 are now experiencing a huge price boost. Of course this is not across the board, I believe it is happening to this specific segment of Burgundy, Piedmont, N. Rhone that to be honest, are quite board darlings (Barthod, Allemand, Jamet, Gonon, Bartolo, Dujac, Keller, PYCM, Egon Mueller). It also is happening to a few others, while not exactly board darlings, are quite well regarded (Hudelot, Arnoux, Lambrays).