How much do you spend on a bottle?

Do you have a cap?

Does the decision rely on available funds?

When is too much.....too much?

I know there is no definitive answer. I ask because I recently just consumed the best Napa Cabernet I have ever tasted. My brother in law is moving to San Diego, so we had a little going away dinner for him. I figured, why not open one of my Napa wines that I purchased from our March 2009 trip. I decided to go with the 2002 Jarvis 100% Cabernet Sauvignon. I only have one bottle of this, and I cannot recall how much I paid for it. I know I purchased (3) bottles at the Winery, The Cab, a Chardonnay and the Lake William. Well, I poured 5 glasses (emptied the bottle), and we were all impressed....my brother in law and myself MORE than impressed...we were in LOVE...30 minutes later...it's all gone.

So I look on the Jarvis web site...$95 per bottle. I imagine I could have spent that much in March 2009, but I was at the winery with friends, taking a tour, doing a tasting, and the cost was not as much an issue. Now, I have a tough time justifying spending over $100 with shipping for a single bottle.

What would you do? If you found that ONE wine that knocked your socks off....would money be an issue? I am torn here.....

-Mike

[James Roscoe]

When buying our weekly wine we keep it at around $10. When buying for the cellar or weekends it can go higher.

Don't know where you live in CT, but WineSearcher shows it available for $49.99 at Mt. Carmel Wine and Spirits in Hamden. So, you save $45 right there.

If you really liked it that much, sure, you should try another.

Depends on funds available or how much I am suffering from poor impulse control at the moment.

Hard to justify paying over $50 for most wine these days, but I have. There are many many good Chiantis and Rhones for under $20.

Don't know where you live in CT, but WineSearcher shows it available for $49.99 at Mt. Carmel Wine and Spirits in Hamden. So, you save $45 right there.

Thanks...but that's for the "Lake William".......you had me excited there for a second!

Don't know where you live in CT, but WineSearcher shows it available for $49.99 at Mt. Carmel Wine and Spirits in Hamden. So, you save $45 right there.

Thanks...but that's for the "Lake William".......you had me excited there for a second!

Maybe this place in NJ?? http://www.budgetbottle.com/product.aspx?Item=1385 or this one? http://www.hopsandgrapesonline.com/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=2841 I can't read the label on the first one....

[David M. Bueker]

Since I have little need for volume anymore (the cellar is full to bursting) I no longer focus on value wines except to the extent they are good QPR in their respective price ranges. I have stolen an idea from a friend of mine that I will not buy anything that does not have significant cellaring stamina/potential. That has raised the minimum price point a good bit, and put me in the $40 minimum range for the most part (some exceptions of course) with a sadly high upper limit.

Now I have to figure out how to keep myself from buying lots of those $40+ bottles.

I look at it a bit differently. I have a monthly budget. I spend the budget. Sometimes that gets me 24 bottles, sometimes 12 and sometimes it gets me just 2-3 bottles.

Don't know where you live in CT, but WineSearcher shows it available for $49.99 at Mt. Carmel Wine and Spirits in Hamden. So, you save $45 right there.

Thanks...but that's for the "Lake William".......you had me excited there for a second!

Maybe this place in NJ?? http://www.budgetbottle.com/product.aspx?Item=1385 or this one? http://www.hopsandgrapesonline.com/index.php?_a=viewProd&productId=2841 I can't read the label on the first one....

wow.....that's amazing....I thought perhaps it was a .375 bottle.....but nope.

To my knowledge, Jarvis only sells out of their winery....so how would a place like this acquire this wine? I looked briefly through the site, and several wines are priced well below what I usually pay....red flags? Anyone purchase from here before?

Given how many places on Wine-Searcher list the Jarvis wines, I think they have pretty wide retail distribution.

And given the `shelf talkers' they post on their own web-site is a pretty good indication that they have retail distribution http://www.jarviswines.com/assets/upload/files/Shelf_Talkers/cs02_st.jpg

We normally try to keep it under $20. If you look at our top ten of the year you will see that they are all over $20 except the Riesling. In the case of Easton and Tobin James they were case samplers or wine club shipments and the RRV Cab was a gift. If we ever hit the lottery we would still not spend more than $50.

Well, I just called budgetbottle.com, I asked how they can offer that wine at about 1/2 of the price the winery sells it at, and his reply was "that's my business"....

I don't know....didn't get that warm fuzzy feeling inside......

Lots of wineries are discounting wines right now, particularly those in CA. So a good price shouldn't necessarily be a red flag these days. I know absolutely nothing about that particular retail store, though. Hell, I don't even live in the US!

Well, I just called budgetbottle.com, I asked how they can offer that wine at about 1/2 of the price the winery sells it at, and his reply was "that's my business"....

I don't know....didn't get that warm fuzzy feeling inside......

Well.. it's quite common, really. Which is why I don't buy directly from wineries unless that is the cheapest option, which it is only for wines that good high scores and are in limited production and usually can only be bought from a mailing list or on an inflated secondary (auction) market (e.g., Saxum, SQN, Alban, etc., just to pick some from CA).

On the other hand, if I wanted to buy the 2005 Montelena Estate Cab, their website lists it for $135. I see from Wine-Searcher that I can get it for the mid-$90s at a couple of shops here in CA. Would I buy it from the winery? uh uh. Plenty of examples like this. For many many CA wines, maybe most, you can find a retail outlet that can undersell the winery. The wineries discount their wines to the retailers at about 45% of the retail... so.. you won't know about that shop til you try or you get some feedback from someone (or do a Google search on them to see if anything turns up... ). But there are tons of great online retailers that can stretch your dollar.

During the week wines...under $20... usually under $15.
Weekend wines .... can go to mid $30's or so for Saturday night dinner although weekend afternoon wines on the deck in summer are usually under $15.
Special occaisions: Good friends coming to dinner.... up to $50 or so ... depends how much we like them LOL!
Anniversaries, New Years' Eve, etc... Break out the good stuff... $60-$80 (Although we have had a bottle of vintage bubbly for the last couple of New Year's Eve's.)
Once in a Lifetime events.... the best I've got.

I don't think I've ever paid more than $150 for a bottle of wine. None of those pricy First Growths for me. The rare tastes of the cult and insanely famous and incredibly expensive wines I have had in my life have been on some else's dime.

Glenn

My average bottle cost this year was a hair over $16. The most expensive bottle I purchased was a 2004 Leoville Las Cases for $89. Other than that I had very few purchases over $30. Both my average and most expensive bottles are down in cost from previous years. My wine buying habits have definitely been effected by the economic uncertainty. I can't complain since there is so much value at the low end of the price curve.

[Jenise]

Mike, everyone's giving you good advice: wineries sell their wines out the cellar door at high MSRP because of what you said about being on vacation and all that. They don't have to be competitive at that point of sale. The wider retail market is another issue, especially in this market. I'm buying killer wines these days for, usually, close to half retail.

Which has affected how I answer your question in a lot of ways. I'm typically spending $10-$30 for what we drink, but usually the wines have higher retail than that. I also own some wines I pay regular retail for and bloody high prices at that because I just have to have them. But I am not a trophy-wine purchaser, I just buy what I like and need to serve with the foods I make, and like David B I don't numerically-speaking need any more wine so what I'm buying is mainly to fulfill our desire to drink aged wines in the future. And what Brian Miller said also applies to me: $20-40 buys some killer wines from Italy and the Southern Rhone these days. It's hard to justify the higher cost of most American wines.

No absolute limit - more a sliding scale

Buying a £7 wine I either know I'll like or really fancy trying... well that's easy
At £15 I'm starting to seek justifications, but on the whole there's no great barrier if the wine has strong appeal
For £25+ serious justification is needed. Is it Barolo? It is? That's alright then
At £50+ I'm going to need a lot of convincing. Maybe for an interesting birth year wine, or something that's a great price on a wine normally out of my (financial) comfort zone... well we'll see. These are pretty rare occurances for me

At each level, perceived value and desire to either stretch my vinous experience, or stock up on an old favourite, come into play.

There is a quandary though, if (say) you bought the wine at $50 a bottle, and it's now ~ $400 a bottle. A friend in the wine biz gives (IMO) good advice: either commit to selling it, or drink it 'at the price you paid' i.e. don't think about current retail value when drinking it, just what you paid at the time. You never paid the current retail price.

regards

Ian

I end up having to take the "higher average cost, greater enjoyment but at lesser frequency" mentality to my wine passion because that passion is 95% champagne! If I just blindly enjoyed any or all random wines in the same way, I could surely do so at a much more lower, practical and adventurous cost per bottle. It's the unfortunate but acknowledged downside to being a champagne lover. Is paying $120 or more to get a Comtes de champagne a wise purchase? No, it's really not. NO bottle of wine, in and of itself, is practical to buy at such ridiculous prices. And I don't ALWAYS buy them at such a price. At least not as many of them as I'd like to if only money grew off trees! But I haven't found anyplace that will sell them for $20 or less So if you like champagne more than just for random take it or leave it purposes, what choice does one have? You either are willing to pay the admittedly costly prices they ask or you don't get a Comtes de champagne (or name your favorite overly-costly but quality champagne of choice).

Of course that doesn't mean there's not SOME great champagnes at more normal wine-like prices, particularly the smaller grower ones! It's an area I need to explore and take some more chances on I think. I also prefer, when I can help it, to buy bottles in halves in which case my cost per bottle is indeed lower. But unfortunately most champagnes HAVE to be bought by the full bottle.

So I guess the broad answer to the question is that I can spend anywhere from $10 to $300 on any given half or full bottle of any given champagne. The answer in more practical and average terms is that I likely spend around $40 - $100 per any given bottle.

But it's not as absurd as it may sound since I sacrifice some QUANTITY to have the luxury (or excuse) to rationalize splurging on such a wine. I might even argue that I likely spend LESS (in total terms) than most the fellow wine lovers here (from what I read). I do have a modest "champagne cellar" but is continually stocked and replenished over time and in fairly sporadic purchases. It's not like I have prestige cuvees coming into it every week or anything. So the "too high" prices that I likely pay are actually not as much or frequent as it may seem. And I obviously don't (or couldn't) splurge on such wines with "necessity money" or anything. I'm definitely a "more quality at the sacrifice of some quantity" type of person. If I could either have the truly great wines I really love but more infrequently due to the crazy cost or have less of the great wines I really love but have a more endless supply of just any and every other wine under the sun, I still am one who will take the first option. But I don't think I'm in the majority on that probably. That's likely because I love the "romance" of wine but I don't necessarily breathe it 24 hours a day and 365 days a year. Sure, I know I get overly-seduced sounding with champagne alone but I'm content with just keeping wine a sincere but ocassional "hobby". For me it is still just ONE of the great pleasures on earth. But there are so many similar and special ones in the short time we're here on this planet as well...

Jeff

Well, I just called budgetbottle.com, I asked how they can offer that wine at about 1/2 of the price the winery sells it at, and his reply was "that's my business"....

I don't know....didn't get that warm fuzzy feeling inside......

Well.. it's quite common, really. Which is why I don't buy directly from wineries unless that is the cheapest option, which it is only for wines that good high scores and are in limited production and usually can only be bought from a mailing list or on an inflated secondary (auction) market (e.g., Saxum, SQN, Alban, etc., just to pick some from CA).

On the other hand, if I wanted to buy the 2005 Montelena Estate Cab, their website lists it for $135. I see from Wine-Searcher that I can get it for the mid-$90s at a couple of shops here in CA. Would I buy it from the winery? uh uh. Plenty of examples like this. For many many CA wines, maybe most, you can find a retail outlet that can undersell the winery. The wineries discount their wines to the retailers at about 45% of the retail... so.. you won't know about that shop til you try or you get some feedback from someone (or do a Google search on them to see if anything turns up... ). But there are tons of great online retailers that can stretch your dollar.

I will probably give them a try with a few bottles of the 2005 Hall Cabernet Sauvignon. It usually goes for $35-$40, but they are selling it for $23.99 (plus shipping). It's a wine I enjoy, so what the heck..

I rubbed the lamp and asked the spreadsheet genie --
Reds in my cellar today: Average $25.81; Max $195 (that's a Bordeaux); Min 0 (gift) - actually bought, $5.02 (sale at BevMo)
Reds no longer in my cellar: Average $18.67. I don't keep high and low on that page. The difference is that the spreadsheet goes back to the early 90s.

Whites in my cellar today: Average $15.24; Max $34.20 (Swan estate Chard '07) Min $5.52
Whites no longer in my cellar: Average $16.02.

I'm about 90% a reds man.

I feel comfortable at $10 - $15 for whites and $15 - $25 for reds, these days. Sometimes I'll splurge, and occasionally I'll find a "deal" which isn't always such a deal when I open the bottle.
I like to buy something I never heard of, and that's often in the lower price range. Once every 4 or 5 of those I'll hit something I like enough to want to remember it, but very often I don't remember.

Jon

Currently, it would be something like this.

Weeknight "at home" wines (mostly white): $14 - $24
Sparkling reds: $22 - $35
Wines meant for dinner parties, "better" meals, and stimulating conversations with good friends (mostly red): $20 - $50
Each year I buy a few special favourites (mostly red) with the intention of keeping them a few years, eg St Henri, John Riddoch, Dead Arm, Fox Creek Reserve reds: these can be quite hefty prices, eg $60 - $100, but I don't buy many.

Prices in Australian dollars.

When I worked at a small winery in the mid-west, every wine had an MSRP and it was policy that the winery would never sell below the MSRP. The wholesale price was something in the range of 35% below the MSRP and retail outlets could choose to sell at whatever price point they wanted. Most choose to sell 5%-10% below the MSRP thus underselling the winery price yet still keeping a 25%-30% markup over wholesale. It would have been very bad for our wholesale sales to undersell our retail outlets and thus it was never done. While we never had to dump excess supply, I would imagine that we would not have done so by blowing it out at a lower price at the winery but instead would have moved it by lowering the wholesale price and letting the retailers blow it out while the winery held the line on the MSRP pricing. This sounds like exactly what is happening with the Jarvis.

When you are buy a wine that is new to you and you won't, or might not get, a chance to buy again you really should buy at least 3 bottles. You will learn from the first one and then hopefully get to enjoy the last two at their finest. Adopting that philosophy, that makes a $30 wine cost $90. Or a $50 wine cost $150. Enough to give one a second thought. I guess for that reason alone I rarely by wines that cost over $40. And I get excited about wines that I find reduced (or on close-out) in the $20 - $30 range, and if you wait, they will come. For example, I just bought a case (to split with 2 others) of '05 La Tour Carnet for $20. You might get a chance to taste one bottle, but you run the risk of going back and it's all gone. Here I rely on cellartracker.com for valuable notes. For wines under $20 (makes up the lions share of my purchases) I usually by a mixed case of $8-$20 wines and go back and get either 1/2 case or case of favorites. You would be (or maybe not) surprised with the 88-90 point wines you can find for under $20. Usually requires a case discount, but then that goes without saying.