Wine, as with love, is a many splintered thing. Or at least that’s what a daytime soap from back in the day told me. But wine is complicated, also like love. Take price, for instance. Why is it that some bottles cost a few shekels while others cost thousands of dollars? To that point, a 750 ML bottle of Barefoot Cellars Chardonnay at the local Total Wine retails for $5.99. On the other end of the spectrum, a bottle of the 2021 vintage of Romanée Conti from the famed Burgundy producer Domaine de la Romanée Conti will set you back over $16K.
Why again are some wines exorbitantly expensive while others the price of a Happy Meal? There are many factors that can potentially influence cost, and one or more may play a role in determining the bottle price. Here are some of the factors, in no particular order.
Supply and demand: There’s a veritable ocean of commercial wines cranked out every year vs. a scant 400 cases or so of the Romanée Conti in any given vintage. Thus mass production should—and usually does—equal low price. However, I also have to mention the fact that in any given year one of the first growth Bordeaux chateaux will produce over 30,000 cases of their grand vin. Depending on the vintage, the wines can command between $750 to over $2,000 a bottle. If you do the math, it’s easy to understand why some chateaux are owned by corporations. Otherwise, high-quality, limited-production wines from small producers and single vineyard sources tend to be more expensive. They should be.
Track record: Speaking of Bordeaux, one of the major factors in bottle cost is a winery having a lengthy record of producing high quality age-worthy wines. The top properties in Bordeaux are the original collectible wines along with Vintage Port. Collectors have been putting away cases of Bordeaux as an investment for centuries. That’s still true today although the prices, as just noted, are far higher than in the past. There’s a reason and we’ll discuss it shortly.
Vintage: historically, more important for European wines where the quality of the harvest can vary dramatically from year to year because of changing seasonal weather patterns. No surprise that wines from an excellent vintage fetch much higher prices vs. the opposite. However, climate change has now made vintage variation a reality everywhere.
Cost of vineyard land and winery infrastructure: This is a relatively new one and it immediately makes me think of Napa Valley, where the average cost for an acre of vineyard land now hovers around half a million dollars—or more. Many who are new to the winery game in Napa arrive flush with cash from other ventures. Traditional business acumen tells them that the cost of land and a shiny new winery must be amortized and passed along to the consumer in the form of a stratospheric bottle price. This despite the fact that the wine has no track record to speak of.
Scores and press: potentially a major influence for high prices. A high numerical score awarded by a major publication like the Wine Spectator or Wine Advocate can mean instant success for any winery or wine, track record or not. It goes without saying there are more publications and writers/critics than the two mentioned. All can have a similar influence and result in a winery suddenly doubling or tripling the price of a highly rated wine. Supply and demand can also enter the picture here as well.
Cult wines: are called the unicorns of the wine world. Actually, they’re not. The true unicorn of the wine industry is the 100-point scoring system which presupposes an objectivity and accuracy in wine that has never—and will never—exist. That’s another issue. Regardless, cult wines are those prohibitively expensive and impossible to find red wines made in small quantities that tend to garner 10,000 point scores. Just kidding, but I think you get the idea. All are fawned on by the press and whispered about reverently in hushed tones by consumers who wistfully dream of being able to buy a single precious bottle one day. On a more serious note, so-called cult wines are usually Cabernet Sauvignons and Cabernet blends from California, most often Napa Valley. The pursuit of elusive cult statis drives many into the business (see point three).
Consortium decision: at the turn of the 21st century the top chateaux in Bordeaux saw Chinese consumers as their most important potential market. With that in mind, they significantly increased their prices over the next several vintages, in effect abandoning other traditional markets. The prices didn’t stop rising for over a decade, despite the fact that the Chinese government all but put an end to business expenses and gift giving some years ago. Did the top Bordeaux properties carve out untenable pricing they couldn’t retreat from? Some think so.
Marketing: or wine as a brand. Champagne is a perfect example of this factor with the top four houses making millions of bottles of non-vintage wine every year. The average retail price for the wines is between $40 and $70 a bottle. But it’s not just the non-vintage wines. In any given year, Moët-Chandon produces thousands of cases of their prestige cuvée, Dom Perignon. But give credit where it’s due. The Champenois are better than anyone else in the industry at promoting their top wines as luxury brands. And they’ve been doing it for a long time.
What the market will bear: Finally, there is the age-old maxim of throwing a price out to the market and seeing if it will stick, like spaghetti against the wall. In time, consumers will either embrace the wine regardless of sticker shock or ignore it.
Back to the beginning, as Fezzik once said. A wine’s price reflects how much of it is made, how badly people want it, how good the vintage was, or hallucination on the part of a given winery or group of wineries. But more than anything, a 95-point score or higher means most of us will window shop, complain, and then buy another wine that is probably as good and more sensibly priced. And that’s how it should be.
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