They do. I don’t have a problem with that. It’s their business. If they put the wines on sale, I’m buying the ones I want and not giving the matter another thought
I’m sure many people do, looking for a bargain.
The dealer may have to reduce the price of the ugly-duckling brown car to move it. Most people wouldn’t choose dark brown as their first choice for a car — or a suit for that matter. But some are happy to drive them off the lot if the price is right.
Same with Santenay! ![[wink.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/04707e6a7bbb03e0153e349d8a9270d30e1e9525.gif "wink"){kind=small}
Clearly every person here is a cherry picker. We are thoughtful and selective about the wines we buy and drink. So there’s nothing wrong with it - if it’s standard Berserker behavior then it’s by definition good!
I also have no problem with retailers packaging wines or requiring X to buy Y as long as it is clear and upfront.
When I first got into wine I focused on ‘top’ vintages and top producers. The more I drink the more I learn about how limiting a strategy this is. Not only is it expensive, but it also means I miss out on many utterly yummy happy satisfying bottles. Over the years my tastes have widened and my average bottle cost has plummeted.
One thing I really like about Bordeaux is how prices very with perceived vintage quality. So basically one can find ‘discounts’ if you do some homework. I just bought some 2004 Malescot St. Exupery for $70 that I’m really looking forward to, for example.
Totally agree with that. But I’m not buying the shit brown car with plaid interior at full price because I feel sorry for the dealer.
So many different things going on in this thread. Point chasing, hostage wines, free markets and party manners. When a commercial transaction is involved, the seller structures the offer however he or she wants, in her best interests. The buyer decides whether the offer makes sense to him. If it does you buy. If not, leave it for someone else. Pretty simple in my view.
That used to be a big problem about 15 years ago, but with prices off in the stratosphere now, a retailer has no one but himself to blame if he’s publically displaying an item for sale at below market value.
I can [reluctantly & begrudgingly] understand the need to reward “Big Lumber” customers who keep the store afloat, and maybe give them a few weeks heads up [via a secret email] about the arrival of an extremely rare wine.
But once it’s out there for public display, my guess is that in many jurisdictions nowadays it might even be illegal to refuse to sell it to an arbitrary customer.
Good luck!
I took the question as relating to what our “wine process” might be.
You buy more than one bottle every few years, so the car analogy is crap. (Apologies.)
Neal, do you taste and buy, try new things, make up your own mind; or read the ratings and reviews and buy cherries as you are told?
Most of us “cherry pick” by purchasing what we taste and like, not via Parker or WS assigning us our shopping list.
I guess there is a corollary…would you rather drink ten bottles of the same 100 point wine, or ten different bottles of what you have chosen for yourself as ‘good wine?’
It’s seems to me that a cherry picked cellar would be more dull than only being allowed to buy reading material via the NY Times Review of Books.
Cherry picking reminds me of that old joke about the gauche billionaire who walks into the art gallery and says, “Which way to your most expensive art?”
We once had a device in this country, called “The Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890”, which was supposed to have criminalized most of this behavior.
But because our politicians are all bought and paid for by “late stage capitalists” [and/or aspire to become late stage capitalists after leaving office], I doubt they even teach the SAA of 1890 to children anymore.
[We had to learn it in 9th Grade “Social Studies” class.]
And they sure as hell don’t seem to teach it to anyone in law school.
[Which is not meant to imply that lawyers would give a damn about what the law actually says.]
As I have said, the OP confused, and continues to confuse, me. You are suggesting that the OP wanted to know if we are sheeple. I buy what I want which is not usually the stuff that gets big scores from the critics. There was a time, however, when I listened much more closely to their views because I was a newb and still learning what I liked. I don’t really try a huge number of new things because in the nearly 45 years I’ve been drinking wine I pretty much have learned what I like, and given the fact that I only 3-4 bottles of wine, max, a week, there aren’t enough nights for me to drink those bottles.
But I did not see the OP as asking these questions. I thought (and many others apparently did too) that it was asking whether there was some moral or ethical restraint on buying what one wanted – whether there is some compunction to do the retailer a solid by buying stuff you wouldn’t otherwise buy because, you know, they have it on offer. That seems to be an alien concept to me.
The way it ends up working is that there are 2 classes of customer. A long time customer who has a relationship with the store and buys regularly will generally be offered “cherries” at a standard mark-up. Other folks (and the internet) will generally be offered “cherries” at market price. So, you could sell 2015 Fourrier CSJ for somewhere around $375 as a standard mark-up, but no way I’m selling it at anything less than $600 (W-S low) to someone off the street or on the internet. If no one is mad about having to pay $600 so they don’t have to buy anything else from me, then everyone is fine. The problem is that people want market efficiency to only work in their favor.
Yeah, I am not playing in that space at either price so not really an issue for me
Interesting you should ask that particular question. I generally know the car I want even before I go in and have a strike price in mind. It either works or it doesn’t. I approach wine auctions the same way. I have a price in mind and if it doesn’t work out, that’s fine. But I’m not cherry picking in either of those markets, I’m generally bottom feeding or looking for inefficiencies (brown cars are fine with me).
I’m with Neal. What exactly is the OP asking about? As the thread has shown, there are several ways to look at “cherry picking”. It would help if the one asking the question was more specific.
Sure, but that’s what I took the OP to mean by “cherry-picking”. You’re a Bordeaux and Champagne guy so this issue doesn’t hit you so much, there is a lot of fungible product.
Cherry-picking or a cherry-picker is generally meant to be someone who comes into your store and only wants to buy your Raveneau Clos, Allemand Reynards, Fourrier CSJ, etc. That is traditionally how the trade refers to customers like that.
Choosing only quality products is what everyone does (or thinks they do).
So, you sell it to him or you don’t. You name your price, if there is one, and he pays it or doesn’t. There is no moral dimension to this equation so far as I can tell.
But I did not see the OP as asking these questions. I thought (and many others apparently did too) that it was asking whether there was some moral or ethical restraint on buying what one wanted – whether there is some compunction to do the retailer a solid by buying stuff you wouldn’t otherwise buy because, you know, they have it on offer. That seems to be an alien concept to me.
Me too. Or maybe, like Neal, I thought the question and resulting answer were so obvious I didn’t look for alternative possibilities.
As far as whether importers must take things they don’t want, I don’t think many people here know how that business works. If you’re a new and small producer, like many here want to champion, then you’re so happy to get an importer you give him whatever he asks for. If you’ve been established and there’s so much demand for your product all over the world that you can’t imagine an upper limit on your pricing, then you dictate the terms. In general, in the US, “tying” frowned on and isn’t always legal, but it’s not worth anyone’s time or money to challenge most such arrangements.
But nobody forces any consumer to buy a wine. The fruit cocktail analogy doesn’t hold up at all. A better analogy would be for the host to put out a bowl of mixed fruit from his garden. If you knew that the apples were really good, and the sour cherries even better, should you take the bruised and sorry plums that you hate anyway? If he didn’t want you to try the apples, he wouldn’t have put them out. If those apples were scored highly by an apple critic and you hate apples but you take those even though you much prefer the sour cherries, then you’re just an idiot.
Agreed, as long as everyone is OK with classes of customer and market pricing, I’m OK with it too.
Oftentimes it seems that folks bemoan “greedy [insert part of three tier system]” making allocated “cherries” expensive with the underlying sentiment that this is somehow morally wrong.
I wouldn’t agree this is the only kind of cherry picking.
Restaurant lists
Friend’s/acquaintances cellars
Choosing wines at dinners
Buying from mailing lists
Buying from importers
Only buying best vintages
Only buying best crus
If it really is about retail only, then I’m not sure how that’s an issue. It’s always been an open secret that retailers cater to whales who do not peruse the store shelves. That’s just sales. If someone wants those, they need only inquire and the store will source them for you or help for the next vintage.
I can’t afford to do that but it would be odd to begrudge those folks that can. I personally don’t know anyone who has expressed a problem with it.
The fruit salad thing is just all wrong to me. If I am a guest at your table, I am not going to fish through your bowl of fruit to pick out all the “best” stuff because I am not an ungrateful shit and I hope to be invited back. Ill even take a few of the kiwi slices even though that isn’t really a food. (I may just push it around on my plate because kiwi is not really a food).
If I am in your store, I am not a guest, I am a customer. I am buying what I want, not what you may or may have been forced to buy by your supplier. If there is better stuff in the back room you save for better customers, no sweat off my brow. If I don’t like what you are offering me, or the prices you offer it at, I’ll go someplace else.