Wine Drinkers - How did you get into wine?

[Piobaire]

Did not get into wines until I turned about 30. Just started eating at places, and with people, that were all about good wine, so it was sort of by osmosis. "The Bottle" was a Sea Smoke Ten.

 

[indesertum]

Originally Posted by GrillinFool

Price does not dictate taste.

what dictates the price

 

[Piobaire]

Originally Posted by indesertum

what dictates the price

I'll take a flyer here, and say the two major variables on price would be:

1) Demand
2) Supply

 

[gomestar]

yep, that's most of it.

There are other factors to consider: shipping, customs, taxes, vineyard management ($200K a year for the best contractors in Napa), costs of having and owning an estate, paying the staff and winemaker, etc.

As far as I understand, opening a winery is not a way to make good money, quite the contrary.

 

[audiophilia]

You know the old chesnut.

How do you make a small fortune in wine? Start with a large fortune!

 

[GrillinFool]

Originally Posted by audiophilia

You know the old chesnut.

How do you make a small fortune in wine? Start with a large fortune!

A lot of wineries intentionally restrict the amount of wine they make to create a low supply situation. Paoletti winery does a a lot of limited case productions of wines. 10K cases of this, or only 3K cases of that. A few years ago they had a boat load of extra grapes so instead of letting them go to waste they turned them into wine and made a few thousand cases of wine they labeled Piccolo Cru. They didn't even put a vintage on the bottle because it was supposed to be a one time thing. It was so friggin good that they now produce it yearly that sells for about $15/bottle. None have recreated the magic of that first year but are still very good.

They had plenty of grapes to produce more of their high end stuff, but they wanted to limit production to increase demand for it. They will say that they used just the best grapes and then stopped making their limited production stuff and just threw the lesser grapes together for the P. Cru. There is some truth to that but not a lot.

Think of it this way. What are the factors that make gems so valuable? Cut, clarity, size, and rarity. Diamonds are expensive. Not because they are rare. Quite the contrary. Because the DeBeers company has a strangle hold on the supply. They have mountains of diamonds in warehouses in South Africa. They sit on them keeping the price artificially high. Wine makers do the same thing with their wines.

 

[Piobaire]

Another two important issues, with wine, are vintage and cost of inventory.

Vintages are variable in quality, of course, so often there is variable demand per vintage.

Cost of inventory, involves the time it takes to go from picked grape to the bottle being sold. The producer has to carry these costs, so being well capitalized is an issue.

The concepts of futures, was of course invented to help smooth things out for the wine maker, in both categories.

 

[Histrion]

I just picked it up from home. My parents always had wine two or three times a week at dinner.

 

[audiophilia]

Many wineries are vanity wineries. And, why not? If I had the scratch, I'd be living in Napa right now. That some produce excellent wine is a nice thing.

 

[Mr T]

One question for those who collect, do you assume that you will not need to relocate in the upcoming years? I ask because I move every few years for work and I don't imagine moving wine across country that has already been put down would be a good thing.

 

[Oligarch]

I first began to really like wine on a trip to Romanian Moldova. We stayed at an Orthodox monastery and were invited to dinner by the abbot, who served us one of the wines the monastery produced -- the best white wine I'd ever tasted. After that I tried to learn more about wine, but was confronted by a lot of intimidating jargon and snobishness. Things changed once I got hold of "Oldman's Guide to Wine" and moved to a job that involved a lot of client entertaining, which allowed me to experiment using other people's money

 

[Jbreen1]

There are many, many things that go into the cost of wine. (I currently work at a winery) One thing that is really driving up prices in quality wines, especially from bordeaux, is reverse osmosis of the wine. This is an argued method of making wine, but it is expensive.

 

[cuffthis]

20 years of public accounting drove me to drink.

 

[kwilkinson]

I never really drank until I was 21. I got turned onto wine, though, when I was 18 and spent a week in Nice, France. The way that wine and food played such an important role in their culture really got my juices flowing. I started to appreciate wine, and read a little about it, etc. When I turned 21, I started to drink it. I started off with big, fruity, cab sauvs from CA that would knock ********* in the dirt. I thought that was the "manly" stuff, while my mom drank that girly Riesling and Sauv Blanc. I had no idea I was incredibly stupid. I never even bothered trying the stuff. Then when I came to culinary school, I started looking at wine as part of a meal instead of just a drink. For that purpose, I began appreciating other varietals for their nuances and pairing possibilities. I was still drinking mainly the same big, fruity, cab sauvs for personal pleasure. Then, as part of my schooling, I took a wine course that was 50% lecture, 50% tasting. I absolutely fell in love with every aspect of it--- the growing of the grapes, the picking, the crushing, the maceration and manipulation of color, the fermentation, storage, taste, culture-- just everything. Since then I have been learning more and more and it has been an incredibly pleasurable ride, which I hope doesn't end soon.

 

[Jbreen1]

Originally Posted by audiophilia

Many wineries are vanity wineries. And, why not? If I had the scratch, I'd be living in Napa right now. That some produce excellent wine is a nice thing.

Yea starting a winery definitely is not something you do for the money.