I thought I would talk briefly about what is in the price of a wine.
Let's remember that at the end of the day we are talking about grapes that have been fermented turning it's sugar into alcohol. So why does some chardonnay for instance cost $14.95 and some sells for literally hundreds like a bottle of Montrachet from France?
No matter how you look at it, a winery won't survive if it doesn't have good business practices!
In my opinion there are a few factors that help shape the price of the wine. I like to think first how much does the land cost? If you want to buy land in Napa it's expensive as hell and practically already all used so that winery has to transfer the high cost of land into each bottle to turn a profit. If you were to head to say South America, land in the backroads of Argentina or Chile is much cheeper. This means right away it's easier to turn a profit because of the reduced cost of land.
There is more than just land that can affect the price of your wine, you need a team of people to help grow, harvest, ferment and bottle your wine. Would labor be expensive in France, you bet! In France from healthcare, holiday pay to taxes it's expensive to run a winery. This increases the cost per bottle of wine compared to say South Africa where workers may not have as many benefits or business taxes which help reduce the cost to the winemaker.
You can see that just like a business, winemaking is affected by these market conditions.
The weather can play a big part. Let's say there was an awful cool rainy start to the growing season with a hail storm (like there was in spring 2017) in Burgundy France and some vineyards had 40% to 60% of their vines destroyed. These winemakers still need to pay the bills so the smaller quantity of some burgundy from 2017 will be more expensive as a result. Now lets venture into the fact that there is now less wine for sale but the same amount of people want to buy it. This leads into the supply and demand situation....limited supply + high demand = price goes up.
Now if a Toyota and a Mercedes both take you from A to B why does one cost 5x more? Well it's not just about the simple A to B but the enjoyment along the way. The bell's and whistles, the leather, the speed, the feel, the soul of the car. The same philosophy goes into wine. Is the wine you are drinking a simple every day wine or one worth waiting to celebrate with due to how amazing it is? Do you get some simple citrus lemon and pear notes in your everyday Chardonnay or do you get stone, flint, an array of different fruits from citrus to tropical then ending with a slight nutty complex never ending finish? It all comes down to complexity! They may both be made from Chardonnay but one of these bottles is clearly not like the other. If the winemaker thinks they have made something special and they know it, they will charge appropriately. I am a firm believer in you get what you pay for and no $15 bottle of Pinot Noir will taste like a $150 one.
There is also the brand recognition. People like Starbucks or Nike because they are well known brand names that stand for quality and superiority. The same goes for wine. A wine from Chianti Classico or Montrachet are known for their higher standards of quality and as a result can charge more. Everyone has heard of Bordeaux or Napa, but have you heard of Torrontes, in Argentina? The point is if no one knows about Torrontes the winemakers have to price it lower to help encourage thrifty shoppers to give it a try based on the price point alone. You see the words Napa and people think " I've heard of that, I'll pick up this one" instead of where the heck is Maule Valley....no thanks. I personally love sipping wine from lesser known wine regions because the quality is usually good and the price is less than the more brand name regions can be. I love sparkling wine from Burgundy, Red wine from Chile, White wine from South Africa. I'm kind of generalizing but by stepping outside of the "mainstream" you can find serious value.
Sometimes you just want a screaming lamborghini to show off. The wine world really does have a wine for everyone from a simple table wine for those on a tight budget to literally thousands for one bottle alone. Some people want to show off their Chateau Margaux, Chateau Lafite or Domaine de la Romanee Conti, literally thousands of dollars. Now is a $5,000 bottle of wine worth $5,000? I don't think so but like art, the price is what people think its worth. I feel as soon as you get into the $50 range you are already sipping some very good quality wine. The step from $50 to $500 or to $5,000 I think the quality starts to plateau. I could probably tell a $10 bottle from a $100 one but I would probably struggle telling a $100 bottle from a $500 one.
My least favourite thing to note about wine is that I hate pizazz on a bottle. If I see cute penguins or a red bicycle or a huge description of how amazing the wine is on the back I'm usually turned off. I like simple, clean, factual and essential information. "The winemaker is a dreamer and they think you'll dream of this wine after you have tried it too" #Barf.
Take this Chablis Premier Cru I just purchased today. It's actually a special moment in my wine adventure because it is the first Premier Cru Chablis I have purchased.
Chablis is from Northern Burgundy, an excellent Chardonnay region that produces amazing crisp, mineral driven Chardonnay due to it's specific soil composition. Look at the back of the bottle.
No nonsense because the region Chablis and Premier Cru status say it all. It says "I'm fabulous and I know it. If you don't know who or what I am, I don't care because true wine lovers adore me and always will". If I want a fairy tale story I'll watch a Disney movie or read to a child....not when picking out wine. But hey if you like a bottle because of something cute on it my life's philosophy is to each their own.
Price does matter but it's not to say it's always better the more expensive a bottle may be. I've had some $20 red from Chile that has blown my mind and some red from the Rhone Valley for twice the price that left me going "Meh". That being said, I still believe a $50 bottle should probably be better than a $10 one but I'd skip the Italian sports car mortgage payment bottles. I would love to try some one day, but I can't see me being able to afford one anytime soon.
Sip whatever wine puts on smile on your face because life is too short to drink bad wine.
Happy Sipping
Ryan
No comments:
Post a Comment