00-3:45 Introduction: Wine Pricing
04:00 Drinking Trefethen Chardonnay, Au Bon Climat 2009 Pinot Noir
04:30 video “the most expensive bottle of wine ever sold”
06:20 What was the wine and how much did it sell for?
07:07 Do you think it was worth $123,000?
09:30 Is it different when you are buying for yourself vs. buying for customers?
11:00 What are your expectations when you are paying for a bottle?
13:30 What are some of the values you are finding?
17:00 Wine buying didn’t change after the dotcom boom. The prices people would pay went down.
19:50 Slide/discussion of raw cost of goods
24:18 How long does it take to grow the grape that goes in the bottle? How long does it have to age? How much do the barrels cost? New barrels vs old barrels?
25:45 Can you put a price on the passion component of wine making? How do you value sweat equity?
28:00 When you started your own winery was the cost even close to what you estimated?
28:50 Vitner’s Vault catalogue
29:40 What about the home winemaker? They have the ability to go out and do it, right?
30:15 To set up a winery to produce 5,000 cases of wine you need at least $1 million
32:20 What goes into the labor costs? Land costs?
34:15 How does 2 buck chuck get to the packaging alone at that price? How do they do it?
35:40 How much is an acre of vineyard in the central valley of CA vs Rutherford, Yountville (Napa)?
36:15 Take the value of the land, the maintenance involved, how is it harvested? How does that effect the cost per gallon? How many cases are they making? (2 buck chuck)
37:56 Is there any chance at all that he is getting juice practically for free?
40:20 It is hard to call it wine sometimes (based on how they get to the final product and what they label it)?
40:48 SLIDE showing cost of labor (not including cost of the grapes).
42:17 What is involved for a small operation wine maker?
45:30 Pricing at retail and sales/promotion….wholesaler/retailer pricing
48:00 How does the cost of making the wine then translate to the wholesaler and retailer?
51:30 What are the markups? Who gets a cut of what along the way?
51:35 SLIDE= wine pricing and mark ups by distribution channel.
55:00 Would Von’s be paying the same as a specialty wine shop?
56:00 SLIDE= wine pricing again…raw goods, labor etc.
57:00 Trefethen Chard for example, $22 per bottle which is insane when you think about that considering what went into making it.
58:00 How do you get to $500 per bottle? How much are you willing to spend on a bottle of wine?
1:05:00 Wrap up. Regardless of the insight on pricing bottom line is: If you like the wine, trust it and keep drinking it!