And people bitch about Kermit Lynch mark ups. . .

S

SteveTimko

Steve Timko
I was looking in a wine shop on Vancouver's Granville Island today for wine not available in the United States. I saw a Cru Beaujolais for $80. I should have remembered the name but it's the first time I've seen a Cru Beaujolais for that much.
Needless to say, pricewise Canada has nothing on the U.S., at least in that shop and the one government shop I checked out. And selection isn't all that great.
 
Canadians have it worse than us. That shop is in the center of a high rent tourist area, so may be worse then others.

While you're there, it may be worthwhile to check out the Okanagan wines. I haven't found too many reds to recommend, but the whites are pretty good. Some of the Pinot Gris is interesting, they give it extra skin contact and the color is more of a blush.

Richmond is a great detour for excellent Asian food, especially Dim Sum. Kirin on #3 Road and Westminster highway has great Cantonese style seafood.

And a big welcome back to Kay Bixler. Woooot!
 
I liked the Joie Noble wine, an Alsace-style blend of white grapes. It was $27 at the shop on Granville Island and I didn't buy it, which I guess means I didn't like it that much.
 
originally posted by Marc D:
While you're there, it may be worthwhile to check out the Okanagan wines.
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Yes. If Jackson-Triggs still makes a Okanagan Valley sparkling Riesling Icewine it would be worth trying. The 2002 (I think) was extraordinary.

The Granville Island Public Market has a great tea shop, too.
 
Regarding the title of this thread, it's amazing how everyone dumps on Lynch, who sometimes does indeed take high markups (but also sometimes takes low markups), but overlooks many of his competitors who often outdo him in the frequency and amount of their above-average markups.

One member of this board used to work in a San Francisco wine shop in the mid-1980s and one day, as we were chatting, he was telling me how high Kermit's markups were. I looked over at some pricey bottles of Philippe Leclerc Gevrey-Chambertins that the store had imported (and about which Parker at the time was raving as though these were the greatest Burgundies around). I asked him if he knew how much those bottles sold for at Leclerc's tasting room in Gevrey. He said he didn't, and then was flabbergasted when I told him. Lynch's markups no longer looked so high.
 
I'm a Kermit fan; I've read his book about eight times (four in French). I admire the effort he's obviously made to maintain a portfolio in the (formerly) $12-$16 range. His name on the back of a bottle is a distinct plus.

I don't know if it's due to mark-ups, domaine pricing, or the dollar, but the Burgundy and Alsace pricings - at least - in his mailers this year have seemed strikingly high.
 
originally posted by SteveTimko:
And people bitch about Kermit Lynch mark ups. . .I was looking in a wine shop on Vancouver's Granville Island today for wine not available in the United States. I saw a Cru Beaujolais for $80. I should have remembered the name but it's the first time I've seen a Cru Beaujolais for that much.
Needless to say, pricewise Canada has nothing on the U.S., at least in that shop and the one government shop I checked out. And selection isn't all that great.
Click to expand...
You want to hear about gouge mark-ups on top of high taxes, supported by arbitrary policy and double-dealing by the provincial monopolies in Canada. Do you want to hear about selection? In Ontario the nomenklatura for purchasing is an alumnus of Gallo International. Pull up a chair, lend me an ear.
 
originally posted by Bob Semon:
originally posted by Marc D:
While you're there, it may be worthwhile to check out the Okanagan wines.
Click to expand...

Yes. If Jackson-Triggs still makes a Okanagan Valley sparkling Riesling Icewine it would be worth trying. The 2002 (I think) was extraordinary.

The Granville Island Public Market has a great tea shop, too.
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That is my first stop when I go to Granville Island. Those guys are tea fanatics.
BC has much better quality and selection when it comes to tea than here in WA. Retail wine, not as much.

I'm not totally convinced by the Canadian Icewine yet. I had one from Cab Franc that was just nasty, but a Vidal was pretty good.
 
originally posted by Claude Kolm:
Regarding the title of this thread, it's amazing how everyone dumps on Lynch, who sometimes does indeed take high markups (but also sometimes takes low markups), but overlooks many of his competitors who often outdo him in the frequency and amount of their above-average markups.
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I work for one of the KL distributors in OR, so will stay quiet on this issue except for this: When everyone else was having trouble getting wines from France this year because of strikes, every single one of our containers arrived on time. If you've ever had to deal with other importers (ahem, Robert Kacher) who have no clue when things will arrive, who send wrong vintages, and who are generally unreliable, it's nice to have an organization like KLWM that is professional, timely and incredibly accurate considering the amount of wine they ship. You may pay a little extra for it, but when it's your business, it's worth it.
 
originally posted by Putnam Weekley:
Speaking of KLWM, what do people think of the 2006 Terrebrun VdP "Terre d'Ombre"?

Is it young vines or what?
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Never heard of it, but I'll put it to my friends in Bandol and see what they know.

Mark Lipton
 
I'm not saying Kermit Lynch's prices are unfair. He seems to be No. 1 when people bitch about mark ups. What's the joke? How do you sell a $5 wine for $15? Have Kermit Lynch sell it.
I think Kermit Lynch is largely targeted because of his success. I made a point on the Squires board when people were pointing out all the complaints about Premier Cru. BevMo might be a worse store, but it doesn't have near the volume of business from winos that Premier Cru does so the chances for complaints is greatly reduced.
 
originally posted by Putnam Weekley:
Speaking of KLWM, what do people think of the 2006 Terrebrun VdP "Terre d'Ombre"?

Is it young vines or what?
Click to expand...

I haven't had this one, Putnam, but two to look out for are the 2006 Faury Syrah VdP des Collines Rhodaniennes and the 2007 Lapierre VdP des Gaules. The Faury is Syrah from outside St-Joseph, and the Lapierre is all young vine (under 20 years) Morgon made to be a cafe-style Beaujolais.
 
For a while Premier Cru was selling Kermit Lynch-imported wines at a deep discount (e.g. a Cote Rotie that was $40 at KLWM was $20 at Premier Cru). The folks at KLWM claimed that Premier Cru wasn't even making profit and was just trying to undercut them, while others said it was evidence of the extreme markups at KLWM.

Whatever the truth, it contributed to the image of high markups.

That said, I have always had great experiences at KLWM in terms of customer service and never had a noticeably damaged wine.
 
As Claude has pointed out on Therapy, KL is constrained in his store to not undersell the people he wholesales to. In a sense, it's a difficult business model for him to be both importer and retailer. Some manage this by exclusively selling their imports to themselves, but I doubt that KL would want to limit his business that much (heck, I even see a few KL imports here in flyover country).

Mark Lipton
 
Mark has it pretty much correct, although because of different freight costs and different margins by the various distributors & retailers around the country, the Berkeley store often has wines cheaper than they sell for at retail in other states. They actually have a retail division for the store and a wholesale division (Bruce Neyers is the National Sales Manager) that gets the wine to distributors around the country.

I thought people were talking about the price of KLWM imports for similar wines from other importers. If they are complaining about the prices at the retail store versus places like Premier Cru, the only ways that Premier Cru would have something at half the price is if 1) they were indeed trying to make KLWM look bad and not taking much/any profit on the items, 2) they bought the wines at a discount/closeout from a distributor, or 3) it might be the same producer as the KLWM wines, but one that was brought in gray market and is not an official Kermit Lynch import.
 
originally posted by Marshall Manning:
it might be the same producer as the KLWM wines, but one that was brought in gray market and is not an official Kermit Lynch import.
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Gray market wines at PC?? *cough* *wheeze* Say it ain't so, Joe!

Mark Lipton
 
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