How expensive is too expensive?

Con J · Post by **Con J** » Sat May 21, 2016 4:55 pm

A while back one of the members in our wine group said he would not open some bottles because they are too expensive and would rather sell.

So is there a price point that a wine can reach before you say that’s too expensive to open?
If there is, how expensive is too expensive.

Cheers Con.

mychurch · Post by **mychurch** » Sat May 21, 2016 5:40 pm

Yes and no.

I posted a thread on a recent 50th birthday meal. I opened an 06 Ramonet Montrachet, which I presume would cost me well at least $1000 to replace. Stupid money, but I bought it for a lot less, when times were good and it was intended for a significant event. Same goes with a few others I have : 01 d'Yquem, 82 DRC, 03 La Turque, 96 Block 42

I also though have cases/bottles of other wines that were bought just because I fancied them. The few bottles of Rousseau Le Chambertin are worth 3 times the $400 I paid for them. They look great in the Eurocave and don't think there is any way I would drink them now. Same goes with full cases of 100pt Bordeaux. Yes it was great to get them at 'normal' prices, but it's not my favourite style of wine and if i sell a whole case I'll get enough money to buy a good alternative + a few cases of the stuff I currently like to drink.

Summary then: if the wine means something then it will be drunk, if not then anything that increases to the $400 mark will probably be sold.

Cactus · Post by **Cactus** » Sat May 21, 2016 5:50 pm

I have just started this journey. My cellar avg is 45 and max is 110 for a very few. I really struggle to buy anything over 100. In fact very few over 80. However they are now a sunk cost and i will just blindly drink them regardless of if some should appreciate in value. Not that wine is in my opinion likely to perform as an investment class.

Waiters Friend · Post by **Waiters Friend** » Sat May 21, 2016 7:20 pm

I buy to drink. There's nothing in the cellar I would sell, except in case of impending bankruptcy.

Ian S · Post by **Ian S** » Sat May 21, 2016 8:54 pm

That is a good question.
The only bottle I had that was worth serious money was a 1979 Giacomo Conterno Monfortino. Not a great year but this is a wine typically built to last forever. It did feel too expensive to have at home with just the two of us, and not all our friends appreciate aged wines. So it was saved up for a wine geek piemontese offline. As it turned out, it was tired though did gain more attraction with air, and was certainly enjoyable and interesting by the end. It made a good talking point, so that was a fitting place to drink it. FWIW I had picked it up at auction, paying ~130 gbp for a mixed lot of 9 bottles, so the cost of purchase was much more sensible.

On a related note, I've seen a few half bottles of Avignonesi vin santo over here, at c. 240 eur per half. Having tasted it once before, it horrifies me to say that the price is fair. Very expensive but fair.

Mike Hawkins · Post by **Mike Hawkins** » Sat May 21, 2016 8:59 pm

Once a bottle gets to $600, i rarely buy.... And i occassionally sell, using proceeds to buy a 6 pack of something else

Ian S · Post by **Ian S** » Sat May 21, 2016 9:05 pm

FWIW the Conterno above would be c. 600-700 aud.

Bobthebuilder · Post by **Bobthebuilder** » Sat May 21, 2016 10:10 pm

I have never bought a bottle of wine without intending to eventually drink it.
I hope I never do either to be honest
That doesn't include intended gifts, birth year wines for family, etc
I guess it's more accurate to say I have never bought a wine with the intention of selling it at a later date.

Con J · Post by **Con J** » Sat May 21, 2016 10:35 pm

Some interesting thoughts.

All the wine in my cellar is for drinking no matter what I could sell them for and will only sell if I don’t like them or the style.

Cheers Con.

Ian S · Post by **Ian S** » Sun May 22, 2016 5:18 am

Bob
I am firmly of the same mindset. I would rather give a wine away as a gift than sell it.
Regards
Ian

mjs · Post by **mjs** » Sun May 22, 2016 11:52 am

I am the same. Apart from gifts, I have never bought a wine that I didn't intend to drink, whether its something sub $20 or whether its 96 Penfolds Block 42, which seems to be at the other end of my scale atm.

ticklenow1 · Post by **ticklenow1** » Sun May 22, 2016 12:10 pm

Waiters Friend wrote:I buy to drink. There's nothing in the cellar I would sell, except in case of impending bankruptcy.

Same for me.

All my expensive bottles are bought for special occasions down the track. Plus when friends come over, I enjoy bringing the decent stuff out. The value in Australian wine has risen quite a bit, between say the $30-$50 range in my opinion. So with some age on them, a good $50 bottle makes me happy enough.

Cheers
Ian

mychurch · Post by **mychurch** » Sun May 22, 2016 6:17 pm

I think that 99.9% of us buy to drink and not to sell. I also know that a lot of us, and all of us if we had the money, buy more Wine than we actually need - it's an addiction that we can't shake off. I tried to limit myself buy giving one of my storage fridges away and very soon found out that I was buying wine in the UK where they have brilliant professional storage...I'd much rather keep the lot and drink it, but
- tastes change
- income can fluctuate
- space fills up

As a result I think selling wine that I don't need/want onto another collector is fine. Only done it a few times and the reasons vary

- market gone mad (400%) increases (Lafite and Pavie). Spent the money on other wine
- wine fully mature and there was no way I was going to drink 12 bottles (04 Silex last year)
- wine taste changed and I needed to make space (24 bottles of white Bordeaux this year). This paid for a Case of Sami-Odi and for sending 3 cases of Wendouree to Europe. Note the collector logic here: free up 24, get 48 back.

Rossco · Post by **Rossco** » Sun May 22, 2016 8:59 pm

Pretty sure this is too expensvie

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 39331.html

Why are 'rudi' alarm bells ringing in my head.

Eitherway im the same as a lot of others. I buy wines to drink & share.

Nothing pleases me more than sharing a bottle of great wine with someone that truely appreciates it.

JamieBahrain · Post by **JamieBahrain** » Sun May 22, 2016 9:59 pm

I was using a Grange/Hill of Grace yardstick a few years ago which was buying some amazing stuff. I think it was 2 Monfortinos per the asking price of Grange or 3 single vineyard Hermitages for the price of a HofG. So I was justifying my buying with consideration to local pricing for local icons.

Fakes and the alarming regularity of poor storage keeps me grounded when buying old bottles but I have no issues with opening expensive wines I have in my own cellar.

rooman · Post by **rooman** » Sun May 22, 2016 11:33 pm

Generally I'm with everyone else but in recent times I have started to pick up two cases of various benchmark wines from good vintages which I believe will also score well.

The aim has been to see if the ratings come in high enough so I can sell one case further down the track and get the second one close to free. So far it worked well with two cases of Pontet Canet 2009 which scored 100 from RP after which the price has nearly doubled. Ive also used the same strategy with the St Henri 2010 which DM was selling for under 70 but which now sells on Langtons for close to twice the original price.

In due course I expect I will sell one and use the proceeds to purchase new stock to drink.

Mark

dave vino · Post by **dave vino** » Mon May 23, 2016 7:59 am

Rossco wrote:Pretty sure this is too expensvie

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 39331.html

Why are 'rudi' alarm bells ringing in my head.

They should be... http://www.wineberserkers.com/forum/vie ... 1&t=128530

michel · Post by **michel** » Mon May 23, 2016 9:45 am

Rossco wrote:Pretty sure this is too expensvie

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 39331.html

Why are 'rudi' alarm bells ringing in my head.

Eitherway im the same as a lot of others. I buy wines to drink & share.

Nothing pleases me more than sharing a bottle of great wine with someone that truely appreciates it.

I agree
I dont trust the provenance

odyssey · Post by **odyssey** » Mon May 23, 2016 11:29 am

It's good to see the link from the latest posts in that thread meaning it gets a little bit of exposure.

For convenience:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 42336.html

It's a shame so few lots were pulled, just a token move on their part to provide the facade that they are doing something.

Ozzie W · Post by **Ozzie W** » Mon May 23, 2016 3:26 pm

This is a great question, Con. Not something I've ever had to think about before as I've only been cellaring wines for a couple of years. I certainly don't see my cellar as a financial investment. I see it as a vault of future drinking pleasures!

Polymer · Post by **Polymer** » Mon May 23, 2016 5:44 pm

Other than the obvious...You'd rather sell it than drink it...

I don't think of any wine in terms of what I could sell it for...even though it might justify a few extra buys in saying if I ever needed to get rid of it I could...the reality is I don't plan on selling anything...But if I put in my mind under what conditions would I sell a wine.

Something I've already tried.
Not a style I enjoy drinking.
Not a style my wine geek friends enjoy drinking or would be interested in trying.
Too expensive to be given as a normal gift.
Too expensive to bring to a BBQ.

So if a wine falls into all of the above, I'd consider selling it. I don't have anything that does currently.

I suppose it would be smarter to speculate a bit on wine I enjoy and find ways to support my hobby....but I know I'd end up drinking it instead....and I have no desire to speculate on wine I probably won't enjoy as much...

maybs · Post by **maybs** » Tue May 24, 2016 1:21 pm

If it wasn't too expensive for me to buy, then it isn't too expensive for me to drink. Price fluctuation is not relevant to me, only what I paid for it. Like a lot of people, The only reason I would sell is if I'm not going to drink it because of changed taste etc and even then I would mostly rather give it to, or share it with, someone who will enjoy it.

DJ1980 · Post by **DJ1980** » Tue May 24, 2016 2:20 pm

A great topic!

Oh how things have changed. Grange, 707, HoG and many more that were once "affordable" and now on my "will not consider" list.

I started collecting wine around the launch of the 1998 Grange and remember reading the hype and paying $400 a bottle (a tonne of money for a 20 year old) but seeing that creep to $800 is just silly. Same goes with 707. I think I paid around $110 for these back in the day and now... Forget it.

I guess for me, too expensive means paying MUCH more for wine that I got for a lot cheaper way back when.

I have only started dabbling into "old world" stuff, so I imagine things are once again going to get expensive.

JamieBahrain · Post by **JamieBahrain** » Tue May 24, 2016 3:07 pm

Are any of these these super expensive Aussie wines holding up on the secondary market? I mean pricing is an amazingly exaggerated retail!

phillisc · Post by **phillisc** » Tue May 24, 2016 5:04 pm

JamieBahrain wrote:Are any of these these super expensive Aussie wines holding up on the secondary market? I mean pricing is an amazingly exaggerated retail!

And even more amazingly at the Henschke CD, what $700+ for HOG :roll:

, you could buy one cheaper at the zoo or indeed the market :shock:

! You did well with your many visits 20+ years ago Jamie

Short answer is and there are others more versed than me...cue Mark Wickham, but early 90s Henschke's appears to be in the $400-$500 range.
Some of Uncle Dan's prices on 'lesser vintages of HOG are selling in the low $400, probably acquired from the secondary market too.
Really could be said, only the good Grange years, (and could also be said for Hill of Grace too), with bottles that have been verified and or in good nick, are the few examples that fetch a good price. What would that be in 4 decades or so: 71, 76, 78, 86, 90, 91, 96, 98?? and from then on pretty hard to make any real money.

I notice there appears to be a flurry of '71s out there, currently 15 examples across three auction houses all between S1350-1500+. I guess a $9 purchase in '76, 40 years storage costs, plus the 11-17% deduction for the sellers premium is worth a massive $35 a year ROI

Cheers
Craig

JamieBahrain · Post by **JamieBahrain** » Thu May 26, 2016 2:05 pm

It makes me cry when you see those older Henschkes at auction and the condition they are in. What were these clowns thinking? Buy an icon wine and just store in in the lounge room to show off to people always believing they are too good to drink?

I'd like more emphasis on cellaring provenance. There's a similarity in old Aussie wines I've been buying at auction and its a baked fruit note. I haven't enjoyed the experience and probably give up on the "unverified" secondary market.

That said, cracked 6 bottles of Giacomo Bologna's last vintage of Ai Suma last night ( 1990 Braida Ai Suma ). Levels varied though corks either completely sodden or half way, every bottle completely different. A real shame.

phillisc · Post by **phillisc** » Thu May 26, 2016 2:17 pm

Yes Jamie, I agree with you very much
I know personally of friends who are trying to offload HOG's with the view of cashing in, but have been seduced by thinking that they will make a bomb, and the bottles are on the merry go round, same stock, auction after auction after auction.
I think its fair enough to try and capitalise, we all like a bit of profit, but the strike rate for making a killing in the Aussie scene is getting less and less and less.
I will be dead, but know there will be punters out there that will pay between $700-to a grand for '12 Grange in the next 6-12 months, sit on it for 40 or so years expecting a realisation approaching $35-40g....never, ever, ever going to happen.

That said, I wonder what an unopened timber case of temperature controlled 1982 John Riddoch will bring in 2022??
I probably won't know, cause I'll drink 'em with the lads.

Cheers
Craig

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