Wine Pricing -- get it from your competitors!

[Rieslingfan]

LJC Posted on Nov 12 2003, 12:23 PM

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I have pretty much switched to Recoltant Manipulant Champagnes for my by the glass program. They are comparably priced, too.

He means Champagne produced by a grower of his or her own grapes, not purchased grapes. Well I hope that is what he means. Would not want to speak for Mark S out of turn.........

PS I am too restarded to quote more than 1 person at once sorry.....

Yes, Carema,

You got it right. A grower/producer in Champagne. These wines tend to be more "wine like". They are not all about bubbles and yeast. There is terroir, subtlety, grace, elegance. RM wines deliver more consistently than the large house crap.

The current release of Jean Milan Brut Speciale is quite nice & priced at or below VC Yellow.

Out latest favorite is the 1996 Chartogne-Taillet Brut. It's only $5 more than VC Yellow and from a fantastic vintage!

[Carema]

We pay extra for the extra sugar they add to the USA Veuve. The European  brut is much drier than the one they ship to the American market. And yes You can get it cheap in places. But that doesn't mean anyone is making a profit on it. Typically in retail, Veuve can be one of the prodcuts lowest in profit margin in a store. We make 6% on ours. That sucks. It is the one product you MUST have and cannot make any money on. What a racket!

Caro Carema,

Kind of like Kendall-Jackson Vintner's Reserve Chardonnay, right? Where are you ? Still at $9.99?

There's one (among others) I refuse to do. Most KJ drinkers do not realize they are secretly drinking off dry gewurtz anyway so they go straight to Alsace here!

[Varmint]

From the latest email by Carolina Wine Company:

Stalin & The Chicken

The story goes (sort of):  Stalin - after starving and purging over 30 million of his people - was asked by his general staff whether the people would still support him in a war.  He picked up a chicken which had been running around, and calmly began plucking his feathers as he answered them.  When he was through, he dropped the poor, terrified bird on the ground - and lo and behold, it cowered next to his leg.  It then followed him wherever he went.

Now I don't wish to imply that some people in this market have been acting like that chicken.  After all, the chicken didn't beg to be plucked, or say, "I don't mind you plucking me, so long as you pluck the other chickens, too."  But Stalin did have a point, it seems.

Earlier this week, we offered a (very popular) Champagne at the same price it sells in (competitive) markets all over the Country.  We sold about 4 cases.  (Hooray!)  But apparently, our doing so caused virtually every independent retailer, grocery store chain and even the heads of one of the Country's largest national wine retailers to call their poor supplier (who's actually on the up and up, and whose job I certainly don't envy) and complain to high heavens.  (And apparently NOT that they weren't able to offer this wine at a fair price, but that we were.  In fact, they can get it cheaper now, not that they care.)

Moreover, I was informed that a huge, multinational corporation (who ironically, does their own distribution worldwide, so who will get their several pounds of flesh regardless) has actually threatened to try to get the State Government to block our getting the wine by abusing their regulations in a way that (transparently) would put them and everyone involved in violation of some pretty important federal antitrust statutes.  (Something I'd certainly hate to see anybody do.)

Which brings me back to:  IT'S JUST FOUR CASES OF WINE - WHICH WE SOLD AT THE SAME PRICE AT LEAST 26 OTHER STORES IN FIVE OTHER STATES (that I know of).  What's the big deal?  Why are people so incensed, outraged, indignant and upset about our merely selling wines at a fair (and dare I say, "correct") price?  It seems to me - and please forgive any implication of smugness here, but this is pretty obvious stuff - if people in this business would just do their own jobs and stop worrying about how I do mine, they might not be so often plucked.

Just a suggestion.

[Dave the Cook]

Most KJ drinkers do not realize they are secretly drinking off dry gewurtz anyway so they go straight to Alsace here!

Not to go off-topic -- well, OK, it is off-topic, but Varmint will just have to get over it:

For the oblivious among us, or just for me, please explain this. (My sister-in-law loves this wine.)

[Carema]

Part of the'cuvee' of KJ Chardonnay, or at least was at the height of its popularity, was the addtion of off-dry Gewurtztraminer, meaning the Gew. was not fermented all the way to dry and therefore had left in it some residual sugar. It was this, along with full malolactic fermentation on the Chard that gave (or gives) KJ that dense rich mouth feel that everyone luuuuuuuuuuuuuvs so much.