Right. And the direct importer/grey marketer isn’t getting the wine from the domain, they’re getting it from some European broker (which is a grey area in the chain of custody, hence all the cooked wine in CA). If you price “cherries” at a standard mark-up, you get fleeced like a fool. I had to institute an in situ policy for wines at my restaurant because NYers would grab Overnoy or Rougeard to go because I priced it to entice customers to, you know, drink it with dinner.
Producers need someone to buy their 2007, 2011, etc. at a similar price to surrounding vintages. Same with distributors to retailers/restaurants. The current prices of many Burgundies do not reflect the wholesale prices through the official channels, they are driven by the “need” to have certain wines, so the grey market fills the void. As a retailer if you start charging market price to a long term customer who gets an allocation of a cherry and you charge them market price, you’ll lose that customer. Good customers aren’t plentiful. Cherry pickers are easy to find. This is one of the reasons retail is dying.
