My favorite wine writer, Louisville Juice says it’s a good time to experiment:
The wine store owners I’ve talked to have adjusted their inventories, holding fewer trophy wines in inventory and putting more promotional emphasis on $10 – $20 wines. Distributors are bringing them targets of opportunity and promotional help that keeps margins up and traffic flowing.
That’s good, at least in the short term, for…wine drinkers. For now, we’re seeing more, different wines at prices that are nearly irresistible. That makes it a good time to move up from $8 brands to something a little more interesting.
If I understood the gist of the article right (which is doubtful, but let me try), there’s very little need to pay more than $15 or $20 for a bottle of wine these days.
Yeah, kind sorta. The larger point was that there are bargains at all price levels, but that one of the key dividing lines right now is $15. Wines above $15 a bottle are taking a beating, so prices are dropping. Wines that a year ago were selling for, say, $20 can now routinely be found at $15 or even less.
For reasons having to do with the fixed cost of wine production, bottling and distribution, going from a $10 bottle of wine to a $15 bottle of wine — a %50 price increase — means that the amount of money that went into the actual wine more than doubles. That’s pretty good ROI: a 100% return for a 50% investment. In any market, that’s a key break point. In a market like this, where wineries and distributors are lowering prices to try to get to the $15 price point, that means that adding a few bucks to your wine budget can get you much better and more interesting wines.
That said, there’s still a big difference between a $50 and $15 wine. The point is, they’re not $50 and $15 wines anymore. They’re $40 and $11 wines.
Also, people should buy their everyday wines by the case. It will save you time and trouble running to the store, and you get an additional 10% off. Plus, if you invite me over to help drink it I’ll bring pesto, because the herb garden is going absolutely berserk in this heat.
Thanks Not Tom. I knew I didn’t quite have it and I counted on someone knowledgeable like yourself to correct my take on what Tom wrote.
But if you buy by the case you WILL drink more.
Personally, I never spend less than $5.99 and never more than $599.
Vinum est veritas