- Publish Date: Jul 1, 2010
Are the French Just Greedy?
Bordeaux's top 2009 wines cost $1,000 a piece.
Imagine you visit a car dealer one day and the price is $20,000. You go back the next day, and the price is $60,000. You'd be pretty miffed, right? Now imagine if the can of Coke you buy for $1 from a vending machine, which costs 5 cents to make, were sold to you for $50.
Many Bordeaux wineries are pricing their 2009 bottles along the same lines. Among the chateaus that U.K. magazine Decanter is tracking, the average price increase on a bottle of wine from 2008 to the critically acclaimed 2009 is about 100%. The award for most egregious increase goes to Mission Haut Brion, with a 391% leap!
One could argue that all's fair in games of supply and demand. After all, some crazed fans probably paid $100 or more to be first to see Eclipse, right? But with wines, whether you're talking about Chateau Margaux or Uncle Ed's Cuvee, a bottle usually only costs about $10 to make. When you consider that some 2009 Bordeaux wines already cost $1,000 per bottle, is a $990 mark-up fair?
We'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Check out Decanter.com for more coverage, and click here to tell us what you think of Bordeaux's pricing practices.
