Why 1.5 liters cost more than .75 liters?

Salut/Hi Leo Bueno,

le/on Mon, 31 May 2004 13:34:10 GMT, tu disais/you said:-

And what was the response?

Intuition is not necessarily the best guide in this, certainly not if it isn't well informed. Put simply, you are in a free market. Anyone can charge what they like, and it's up to you to decide whether to accept that price or not. The same arguments apply to halves as well. OK, that's no real answer.

Those friends of mine who are winemakers explain that the costings for them are not in proportion. (By which I mean that (wine apart) the costs of a half bottle (plus label, cork, capsule, different carton) are not half those of bottles. And by the same logic, the costs of a mag are not twice those of a bottle.

Anyway, an average small winemaker may well bottle 95% of his wine in bottles. His purchase of bottles, therefore, is far larger than that of halves or mags (hence his cost/bottle is lower). He may decide to have a larger label, this being vintage dependant will cost far more in small runs than bottle labels. When bottling in halves or mags, he'll need to adjust his bottling line - which costs time = money. And so on and so on.

A very large bottling plant may well get the same quantity reductions for mags as for bottles and if they're big enough, may even have permanent mag and half bottling lines. So they then may find economies of scale. And so on.

Anyway, the net result of this is that I feel it is reasonable to charge a moderate premium for mags. As for halves, although I'm sure the costs of shipping 24 1/2 bottles is more than that for 12 bottles (more glass, heavier cartons) and the costs of bottling are more too, I feel that tactically, to encourage more people to at least buy a half when in a restaurant, producers should absorb the extra costs and sell halves at half the price of bottles. So should restaurants.

Both perfectly reasonable premiums IMO.

Both unreasonable, IMO. I'd refuse to pay that premium for mags and I'd write to the wineries concerned.

Typically extreme mass-market wines have mags priced at a slight discount to 2

750s, while more "collectible" wines have a slight premium. W/o intricate knowledge of wine industry practices, I can at least offer the supply & demand reasons I've heard:

From the supply side: Big industrial wine concerns have a separate bottling line for mags. Cheaper to bottle 140,000 magnums than 280,000 750s. Most wines with smaller productions (Bordeaux chateaux, for instance) only have a 750 line, or don't have own bottling line at all, depending on mobile bottlers. Bottling 10,000 magnums is more expensive than 20,000 750s.

On the demand side, if a Chez Mediocre Fume Blanc 750ml is $5, consumers expect the 1.5L to less than $10. But as collectors and auction-buyers tend to prefer magnums (pretty strong case for large formats aging better), they demand a premium in wines that appeal to those with cellars.

HTH

Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

Dale, I tried Google and wine-searcher, but couldn't find a source for Ch. Mediocre! Please help this poor consumer locate some of that ambrosial liquid.

Frustratedly yours, Mark Lipton

Ian, I agree. When I read this I only scanned prices, the premium on the Lynch-Bages seemed about right, I didn't look closely at these two. While I find a small premium acceptable, this is ridiculous.

BTW, usually if buying Bordeaux futures a $25-50 /cs upcharge is standard for

375s or 750s (case being considered 24/375, 12/750, 5/1.5L). Dale

Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply

I don't know the specifics here, but often large-format bottles are filled by hand while the 'standard' 750ml bottles are machine-filled. That can means it's more expensive to handle the larger bottles. The same may be true of labeling.

Dana