What is the most egregious wine pricing you have seen?

[JamieBahrain]

Beautiful wines from the 80s early 90s when unique, Victorian cool climate expressions . They got a bit mainstream in warmer seasons.

$200 Aussie is not in my interest unless a belter. Thing is it was best when relatively simple. Not Cliff Edge simple I must add.

[Mahmoud Ali]

$200 a bottle seems a bit much for the Mount Langhi Shiraz. Frankly speaking, when I was at cellar door, I was more impressed with the 1998 'Joanna' Cabernet than I was with the shiraz. I don't know where they got the cabernet but I don't think they make it anymore.

Mahmoud.

[mychurch]

2nd hand Info and unfortunately I don’t have a photo...
A friend sent me notes on a bottle from Portugal at the weekend. Not many wines at €150 a glass can be thought if as a bargain, but when it’s a 1795 Madeira, well we make exceptions...he only had 1 glass as there was plenty to taste (including an 1840 for only €40 a glass). These are super intense and complex wines and so a little goes a long way. In saying that he didn’t think there were more than 25 pours a bottle , which would work out to 3750 a bottle. That’s a lot, but the asking price for a full bottle in the shop was €14900. Over the top ? Hard to say. While there can’t be many drinkable wines left in the world of that age, I imagine most of them come from Maderia. It’s also a style that’s not really on most people’s taste radar.

Would have loved to try it though.

[Croquet King]

I was in a bottle shop today and they had a bottle of 2013 Rockford Basket Press for $329.
2010 Wendouree Shiraz Mataro was $220.

Ouch

[felixp21]

Almost the opposite has happened in China. I guess the FTA for wine has kicked in.
Was down at the Ole supermarket yesterday.... Penfolds 2016 Bin 128 for the equivalent of AUD $60. Not sure what this costs in Australia, but it is about 40% less than it was here (China) a year ago.
Fancy bottle, too, with engraving above the label a la CNDP.

[Croquet King]

Almost the opposite has happened in China. I guess the FTA for wine has kicked in.
Was down at the Ole supermarket yesterday.... Penfolds 2016 Bin 128 for the equivalent of AUD $60. Not sure what this costs in Australia, but it is about 40% less than it was here (China) a year ago.
Fancy bottle, too, with engraving above the label a la CNDP.

Around $50 generally.

I just looked on the Penfolds site for the new releases and they have an RRP of $60 and selling it for $48 for the 2017

[Croquet King]

Almost the opposite has happened in China. I guess the FTA for wine has kicked in.
Was down at the Ole supermarket yesterday.... Penfolds 2016 Bin 128 for the equivalent of AUD $60. Not sure what this costs in Australia, but it is about 40% less than it was here (China) a year ago.
Fancy bottle, too, with engraving above the label a la CNDP.

I lived in HK from 2010 to 2013 and I remember buying quite a few Australian wines cheaper in HK than I could get them for in Aus.

[JamieBahrain]

HKG has zero taxation or duty on wine as you know. So all Aussie wines should be cheaper by about 30% minus freight ! Currency movements can present paper bargains when say the $AUD weak and wine exported, and then you buy when the $AUD strong and with a possible retail discount. I was buying Grange at $200 AUD when retail in Aussie was $450 at the time for example.

China has significant duty and Felix could fill us in on the latest.

For me, Aussie wines are uncompetitive in HKG retail versus say directly sourced European.

[sjw_11]

I don't know if this belongs here or where, because this is super weird, but seriously ... what the?
(this is from a French online wine shop, supposedly shipping from a German company specializing in old wine).

2019-09-05 12_40_10-Microsoft Text Input Application.png

PS the website claims someone has bought it and rated it 4* ... so I know for sure their reviews are bull shit.

[Ian S]

or should that be bull stuhls...?

I'll get my own coat

[sjw_11]

or should that be bull stuhls...?

I'll get my own coat

The English language version of their site has this review (from a different "person" ... apparently there is loads of this wine going around):

Kaiser Stuhl Rosé 1968
31/07/18 |4/5
A rosé which I enjoyed with my friends.
I especially liked the colour. Cheerful, lively and fresh. I liked the taste of blackberries in this Kaiser Stuhl Rosé.
I like it with fish.


Cheerful and fresh after 51 years, well done Kaiser!

[sjw_11]

"This wine game is too expensive, I will just stick to beer..."
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/sep ... for-a-beer

[Ian S]

to be fair 55,000 pounds is probably the equivalent of about 5 dollars given our political chaos at the moment. I reckon he got a bargain.

The most shocking thing about the story, was them saying the refund would take 10 days to arrive in his bank account

[WAwineguy]

Almost the opposite has happened in China. I guess the FTA for wine has kicked in.
Was down at the Ole supermarket yesterday.... Penfolds 2016 Bin 128 for the equivalent of AUD $60. Not sure what this costs in Australia, but it is about 40% less than it was here (China) a year ago.
Fancy bottle, too, with engraving above the label a la CNDP.

Around $50 generally.

I just looked on the Penfolds site for the new releases and they have an RRP of $60 and selling it for $48 for the 2017

I remember not so long ago - less than 10 years - Bin 28 and Bin 128 retailed for around $25.

[WineRick]

St Huberts (Yarra Valley) 1976 Cabernet Sauvignon $13.95, same price as 1973 Grange!
The year was 1979, and later that year Penfolds sold the entire 1974 Grange for retail $7 per bottle. Dog of a wine, and only gets money these days for Grange verticals. Another high flyer was 1975 Virgin Hills, for an amazing $5.50.

[JamieBahrain]

Wow! What a cool yarn.

[sjw_11]

St Huberts (Yarra Valley) 1976 Cabernet Sauvignon $13.95, same price as 1973 Grange!
The year was 1979, and later that year Penfolds sold the entire 1974 Grange for retail $7 per bottle. Dog of a wine, and only gets money these days for Grange verticals. Another high flyer was 1975 Virgin Hills, for an amazing $5.50.

Fascinating. Did that make St Huberts one of the most expensive wines at the time? Anyone with a long memory recall what Wolf Blass BL was at the time (having just won 3 Jimmy Watsons IIRC)?

I wonder which of the relatively new high flying wines of today selling for $80-$100+ we will look back on in 30 years and think, wow who paid that much. (I am not going to speculate or name any names!)

[Mahmoud Ali]

This isn't going back that far but the first vintages of Grange to hit these shores, in particular the stores in Edmonton, was the '80, '81 and '82 vintages, and they were goiung for about $60 Canadian. At the time the Wolf Blass Black Label was going for about half that and the Chateaux Tahbilk and Taltarni Cabernets were half again.

[Rossco]

Not sure if it should go here, but it is in the same
vain as the Taylor's. Better brand I believe, better fruit source ect ect...still $ 2,000 per bottle (magnum)

https://www.therealreview.com/2019/09/11/pet ... terstroke/

[Mahmoud Ali]

Not sure if it should go here, but it is in the same
vain as the Taylor's. Better brand I believe, better fruit source ect ect...still $ 2,000 per bottle (magnum)

https://www.therealreview.com/2019/09/11/pet ... terstroke/

So the Lehmann Masterton is made from a parcel of the vineyard, from fruit that would normally be used in the Stonewell. If the fruit is that much better, then intuitively the Stonewell is equivalently diminished. Of course one should take into account that the Stonewell is made in larger quantitities and the dimunition is therfore spread out.

[Rossco]

Not sure if it should go here, but it is in the same
vain as the Taylor's. Better brand I believe, better fruit source ect ect...still $ 2,000 per bottle (magnum)

https://www.therealreview.com/2019/09/11/pet ... terstroke/

So the Lehmann Masterton is made from a parcel of the vineyard, from fruit that would normally be used in the Stonewell. If the fruit is that much better, then intuitively the Stonewell is equivalently diminished. Of course one should take into account that the Stonewell is made in larger quantitities and the dimunition is therfore spread out.

Actually you bring up a few interesting points. How many bottles (say standard 750ml) do you get from a tonne of grapes?
Article says its $15k per tonne from this vineyard, but I dont know how far that goes.

Yep agree with you and will be interesting to see what the 2015 will be like now the fruit isnt in it. Guess it depends on how much stonewell is produced.

I also wonder what the price of 2015 stonewell will be, and whether it will reflect the fact the best fruit isnt in there this vintage.

[crusty2]

600L per tonne is the ususal conversion rate

[felixp21]

The 1973, 1974 and 1975 Wolf Blass Black Label rocketed the company into fame, along with some serious marketing featuring the man himself.

Right thru the mid-seventies and early 80's, the Black Label Cabs were more expensive than Grange. I reckon Grange became more expensive in about 1984, so about the 1978 or 1979 vintages. But at auction the Jimmy Watson Blacks were more expensive than the equivalent years of Grange probably right thru until about 1987-88, maybe even later.
In 1982 or thereabouts, both Leeuwin Estate Chardonnay and Wolf Blass BL were more expensive at release than Grange. Indeed, both were also about three times the price of Hill of Grace.

[dave vino]

Does this count?
https://www.breville.com/au/en/products/wine ... wd600.html

[sjw_11]

The cost of grape comparison is indeed interesting...

"As for Penfolds Grange, Torbreck The Laird and other top Barossa reds, the price paid for the grapes was very high. Nigel Westblade valued the Masterson grapes at AUD $15,000 a tonne. The average price for Barossa shiraz grapes this year was AUD $2,315."

Now a tonne of grapes makes about 60 dozen bottles. We know the Masterson is $1,000 per regular bottle equivalent, and I would guess the average price for a Barossa shiraz was about $20-25 dollars.

That makes the cost of the grapes for the Masterson about $21 versus just over $3 for a standard shiraz- a not inconsiderable difference. However, the price of the Masterson is not 7x the average Shiraz. In fact is over 40x the average, meaning you pay 48x the actual cost of the fruit versus perhaps 7x in the average Shiraz.

Cheeky buggers pretending this is the explanation.

[tarija]

The cost of grape comparison is indeed interesting...

"Nigel Westblade valued the Masterson grapes at AUD $15,000 a tonne.

That makes the cost of the grapes for the Masterson about $21 versus just over $3 for a standard shiraz-

The Masterson grapes usually go into Stonewell, a $70-80 wine.

Seems very very unlikely that Casella would pay $21 per bottle for Masterson grapes when Stonewell only retails for $70-80. Surely more BS wine spin from marketing execs.

[Mahmoud Ali]

The vineyard concerned is a grower vineyard and Lehmann has been buying the fruit from the vineyard, including the "Masterton" parcel, and it has been going into the Stonewell for quite some time. The idea that the "Masterton" parcel is worth more implies that the grower has decided to separate this individual parcel, arbitrarily charge a whole lot more, and therby force the hand of the buyer, Lehmann wines, to make a $1,000 wine. It sounds pretty unlikely to me. Methinks they saw what Yalumba did with The Caley and decided to one up them.

Egregious wine pricing indeed.

[Rocky]

Would have to be the Pennies Special Bin 111A Shiraz 2016. Be quick as it won’t last long at $1,500 bottle.

[sjw_11]

Would have to be the Pennies Special Bin 111A Shiraz 2016. Be quick as it won’t last long at $1,500 bottle.

But the Wine Advocate gave it 100 pts ... cheap at any price?

I particularly like the Penfolds tasting notes of "bitter chocolate dust and wet bitumen..." ... mmm dust and bitumen, delicious.

Interestingly, the last special bin (Bin 620 2008) was released in 2011 and had an RRP of $1,000 so that's only a 5% per annum inflation rate...

So I might have to disqualify this one on the technicality of perhaps being one of the least egregious Penfolds price increases! (I think most of the other bins are running at least +7% per annum over many years).

[phillisc]

Well this will certainly give them and others the green light to release $1000 Shiraz's for the 2016 vintage. The best Clare Shiraz, which Penfolds would offer $50 million for to get the vineyards, is an absolute bargain at $65.
Cheers Craig