Allocation of "hot" wines

Leo Bueno wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com:

Even a hot wine has a limit on its price, but to move inventory is big. Allocated usually allows (at least in N Fl) the retailer to set the price. "I have some but it is allocated so I can't discount it you understand?" Or the faux discount "I got some severely allocated Blah de Blah, which I can let you, becasue you are a good client, have for only $$$"

Remember there is a lot of profit in cleaning out the inventory and in selling the inventory so it really helps the wholesaler make room for profit items to move stuff like this.

Wine allocation is a common practice by wineries and distributors. There is only so much wine made, and a winery has to satisfy their existing customers before it can take on new ones. It makes no difference how big a store or how much sales volume you do, if you are not on a wineries allocation list, you get no wine.

The best example I can offer is Silver Oak Alexander. When I brought Liquorama to the internet in 2001, our allocation was 5 cases of S Oak Alex. It is currently 75 cases. Now someone in the allocation chain must have lost their share.

Also, it is common for a store trying to get an allocated wine, to have to buy the less popular varietals from that winery, or to support the not so collectible wine to get some collectible wine. My example here is Duckhorn. We were never on the Duckhorn list, but after asking a few times, they offered us Sauvignon Blanc 2 years ago with the assurance that in the future we would get some cabernet. Now we get some Cab, Merlot, Estate Cab, Estate Merlot, Paraduxx, Migration and so on....

Another very common practice is making a wine available to the market, and then deeming it as allocated for Restaurant ONLY distribution. To us, being a retail off sale license, that means wines readily available in your favorite restaurant and maybe once on our shelf, no longer accessible.

In answering the "Raise the Price" issue, in theory that works, but how about a group like this that knows pricing. Initially, we can't be higher than the market bears or we will be known as gaugers. AS time passes and supplies are being depleted, of course, it becomes a supply and demand so prices rise.

Or maybe they just increased production. In the 80s Silver Oak was actually pretty limited production. By '93 they were 40,000 cases of Alexander (12K of Napa), by '99 55,000 cases of Alexander, 20K of Napa.I get about an offer a week in the $50-60 range for the 2000.

The wildest example of an actual tie-in I know of was after the '97 Antinori PdV Brunello got a whopping WS score. Local merchant was told to get more, he had to buy a case of the '96 for every bottle of '97 he got.

I think Tom Reddick has plenty of tales of tie-ins between GC burgs and village and regional level wines. Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

And then there is the auction market for the most desired wines. Many who obtain very scarce and desired wines turn them over to an auction house to obtain what the market will bear. You often can even buy DRC's Romanee-Conti and Montrachet from the best years at auction a few years after the vintage. If a very rich banker from the Far East decides he must have the wine, you will pay very dearly indeed to win the auction. However auctions often are the only way you can obtain rare wines without having to buy less desirable ones in many areas. In some cases you can even find a bargin. The important thing is to decide on your top price before the auction begins. There will be more auctions for most wines.

My mailbox is always full to avoid spam. To contact me, erase snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net from my email address. Then add snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com . I do not check this box every day, so post if you need a quick response.

I have also seen this sort of 'tying' in the case of Chave, where I was asked to buy one bottle of white Hermitage for every bottle of red they would 'let me have' (at over $100 a bottle)!

I declined, and in that case found another source

At least in that case, the wine you were coerced into buying is also very good, although I rebel at the thought of being 'forced' to buy anything...

Mark Lipton

"Dale Williams" in news: snipped-for-privacy@mb-m25.aol.com...

Here Dale (in case this was not explained to the unfamiliar) refers to people who subscribe to "mailing-list" wine allocations, for the purpose of re-selling the wines immediately at a market price well above their "loyal customer" mailing-list price.

I did not have cult-mailing-list systems in mind in my previous posting on this thread. They are a distinct sector of the allocation world and, at least in my native California, a relatively new one. Nobody I knew or read mentioned "mailing-list" California wines, to speak of, as recently as 10 years ago or later. They do seem to be the passion of consumers now on some US HTML discussion boards that (like some of the wines themselves, whose names are cited reverently) did not exist 10, or five, years ago. Whether these wines will still be made 10, or five, years from now either, who can say?

I've subscribed to a few California wines by the slightly risky practice of pre-release order (such as Ridge's Cabernet since 1980), which offers a deep discount in exchange for buying the wine long before it is finished. But these programs, though allocated in quantity, are open to the general public and do not seem to stir frenzy on Web sites.

-- Max

Dale Williams states: "I think the assortment is 1 Romanee Conti, two of the La Tache, La Romanee, Romanee St Vivant, Grand Echezeaux and Echezeaux. Nope, must be 3 of one of them?"

I believe the composition of the DRC assorted case has varied a bit over the years, depending on the production for each wine in a year. The only DRC mixed case I ever bought was the 1990. The composition is:

Romanee-Conti 1; La Tache 3; Richebourg 2; Romanee-Saint-Vivant 3; Grands-Echezeaux 1; Echezeaux 2;

I have never seen the DRC Le Montrachet offered in one of the assorted cases, although I have not been following DRC assorted cases in recent years.. Some stores might offer to sell you one bottle of it if you buy a case or two of the assorted. Otherwise, you probably will have to find it at auction.

My mailbox is always full to avoid spam. To contact me, erase snipped-for-privacy@webtv.net from my email address. Then add snipped-for-privacy@yahoo.com . I do not check this box every day, so post if you need a quick response.

You're correct. Here's the available data:

1973 - 5 LT, 5 RSV, 2 RC 1982 - 3 LT, 2 RSV, 2 E, 2 GE, 2 R, 1 RC 1983 - 2 LT, 3 RSV, 3 E, 2 GE, 1 R, 1 RC 1988 - 3 LT, 3 RSV, 2 E, 1 GE, 2 R, 1 RC 1998 - 3 LT, 3 RSV, 2 E, 1 GE, 2 R, 1 RC 2000 - 3 LT, 3 RSV, 2 E, 1 GE, 2 R, 1 RC

It appears that the "formula" has been reasonably constant since the mid-'80s, but there may have been some years where it varied.

Mark Lipton

"Mark Lipton"

Mark, you may recall when we were wandering through the cellars of Scenic Cellars in Taupo - they had several of the assorted boxes from DRC - I don't recall the vintage.

However, the eagle eye of the (immediately salivating) M. Hoare spied Le Montrachet prominent.

Absotootally, milud! I actually had visual recall of that cellar and was (vainly) trying to recall where I'd seen it. Thanks for the memory!

Mark Lipton