Cheapest wine ever

S

Sharon Bowman

Sharon Bowman
In France, wine can be cheap. I mean cheap. Dirt cheap. Today I went to a grocery store in a street I don't usually go to; I was picking up black peppercorns. And as I waited in linethis is, I guess, a less-expensive grocery store, and there was, at 11 in the morning, more than one bedraggled-looking type with alcohol-stink on his breath buying a large can of beer with a handful of changeI looked at the shelves of wine with their prices on stickers on the edge of the shelf in front of them. 2.49. 2.19. 3.70.

I picked up a bottle of Coteaux du Tricastin that was selling for 2.49 and looked at the top of the capsule: RECOLTANT, it said, in all letters. It wasn't some industrial Vieux Papes made in tankers and shipped out in liter plastic bottles or something. It was apparently the work of a small grower. But I was called to the register and explored no further.

The thing is, how are such wines possible? How much does the wine in the bottle cost? I mean, I assume a glass bottle, a cork (plastic or cheap cork), and a label already cost over half the final bottle price.

At the same time, the fact that wine is in no sense, still in no senseespecially on the rue Lepic in Montmartrea luxury good, is cheerful.

I was having a conversation with a young caviste the other day, and he said, "You know, I just can't enjoy really inexpensive wines, even if nowadays, they're 'correct.' Wines costing 4 to 10... they just don't have anything interesting going on."

He said his sweet spot was now wines at 14 to 19. I agree. They get good, there. There's stuff going on.

You wouldn't serve them to the Kapon crowd, of course. But then, I still have training wheels on.
 
Tricastin had measurable ground and water pollution from the nuclear plant there a couple of summers ago. That may have affected prices, there. Your more general point remains, though.
 
I know. But that's not why, I think. Perhaps my exemplary case should have been the Cabernet d'Anjou next to it.

I remember being in the Atlantic coastal resort town of La Baule a few summers ago and taking a brief road trip with relatives of a friend to see the Lac de Grandlieu. They were enthusiastic about stopping at a Muscadet Ctes-de-Grandlieu producer, but we hadn't looked anything up beforehand. So we went "au pif" (follow your nose, it always knows). The wines were surprisingly honorable, though there was a hierarchy, rising from Gros-Plant to Muscadet gnrique to Muscadet Sur Lie to Chardonnay! And then we looked at the tarif. The winemaker, very kind and generous, shook his head at the costliness of the chardonnay. The Muscadet was 2.18 a bottle, the chardonnay 2.78.
 
A little drifty, but I think I read recently that Tricastin just received permission to change its AOC name.

Isn't the cost of land a big part of total wine input cost for fancy wines, then labor?
 
originally posted by Sharon Bowman:

The thing is, how are such wines possible? How much does the wine in the bottle cost? I mean, I assume a glass bottle, a cork (plastic or cheap cork), and a label already cost over half the final bottle price.
Click to expand...

If the winemaker overcrops and doesn't use oak cooperage, the costs of production of the bottle aren't that great. Even in the US of A, where few winemakers own their own vineyards, we've had the long-standing tradition of "jug" wines selling for a few bucks (and now we've got 2BC to lower the bar further). For a cost breakdown of "fine wine" here, see David Coffaro's interesting page. The really confounding question is what someone can do to a bottle of wine to incur costs requiring that one sell that bottle for $100 or more.

Mark Lipton
 
originally posted by MLipton:
The really confounding question is what someone can do to a bottle of wine to incur costs requiring that one sell that bottle for $100 or more.
Click to expand...
Buy land in the last few years in Napa or Burgundy.
 
originally posted by SFJoe:
originally posted by MLipton:
The really confounding question is what someone can do to a bottle of wine to incur costs requiring that one sell that bottle for $100 or more.
Click to expand...
Buy land in the last few years in Napa or Burgundy.
Click to expand...
Or, buy fruit from someone who has bought land in Napa or Burgundy
 
The other issue is that non prestigious wines are so depressed in price in France that people are tearing out the vineyards because it doesn't pay them to work them. This isn't true for any wine anyone here has heard of, I think. But the coops around me are paying something like 80 centimes a litre, I think my neighbor told me.
 
But how long has it been true that wines are depressed, because you could buy a decent bottle for next to nothing for as long as I've been going to France.

I remember in the early '90s asking to buy a bottle from the guy at the local co-op at the March d'Arles, and he traded me up to the luxe bottling, which cost about a buck. It was pretty good too.
 
I think there are subsidies, though interestingly enough, I remember hearing (this was about ten years ago, when I would spend time in the Berry) that they used to pay people in the 1970s to pull up their vines and plant other things.
 
I have had some enjoyable wines purchased from peasants in the Italian countryside for 1.5 euro per liter. You go to the farm and they fill up the bottles for you.

In fact it was these wines, always that years' and fresh and made for the farmer's own consumption plus small-time local sales, that made me interested in learning more about wine in the first place.
 
originally posted by Steven Spielmann:
I have had some enjoyable wines purchased from peasants in the Italian countryside for 1.5 euro per liter. You go to the farm and they fill up the bottles for you.

In fact it was these wines, always that years' and fresh and made for the farmer's own consumption plus small-time local sales, that made me interested in learning more about wine in the first place.
Click to expand...

You can get these in Rhone domaines. They are sold en vrac and you can buy them at even the priciest CdP places for very reasonable amounts. There was once a guy from England who used to come in July, who had a truck rigged up with internal tanks. He would fill it with en vrac wine and go back to England to bottle it. Big spender that I am, I'm happy to plump down the 5-10 Euros for the CdRs higher up the food chain.
 
A little drifty, but I think I read recently that Tricastin just received permission to change its AOC name.
Click to expand...
Yes, to Grignan-Les Adhemar, which will guarantee shelf-flying-off-of due to the brilliant simplicity of the name.
 
that was selling for 2.49 and looked at the top of the capsule: RECOLTANT, it said, in all letters...The thing is, how are such wines possible? How much does the wine in the bottle cost? I mean, I assume a glass bottle, a cork (plastic or cheap cork), and a label already cost over half the final bottle price.
Click to expand...
It is possible to produce wine for about $1-1.50/bottle in California, using the cheapest grapes (or better grapes bought on the spot market during a down cycle) if you have enough volume to buy other inputs (packaging etc) in quantity and use your equipment very efficiently. No architectural masterpieces or fancypants consultants allowed. Can't be done by small producers unless they are buying bulk wine dumped on the market. Doesn't mean the wine has to be bad. Pleasant if not very interesting cool fermented unoaked early picked, early-bottled whites (Chenin, Colombard, Muscat, Verdelho) and heat tolerant reds (Grenache, Zin, Barbera, Petit Sirah) are feasible.

I was having a conversation with a young caviste the other day, and he said, "You know, I just can't enjoy really inexpensive wines, even if nowadays, they're 'correct.' Wines costing 4 to 10... they just don't have anything interesting going on."
Click to expand...
Glad I don't have that problem. Some varieties are very enjoyable in their $5-10 simple but "correct" (there's that word again) form. Your basic fresh Riesling with trout, Sauvignon Blanc with asparagus or green bean salad, etc. Not much going on, but it sure tastes good.

He said his sweet spot was now wines at 14 to 19...They get good, there. There's stuff going on.
Click to expand...
But yes, I agree that somewhere around 12 or $15 things really pick up. I suspect it has a lot to do with that being the price at which smaller, interesting producers can start to make a living.
 
originally posted by John Ritchie:
originally posted by SteveTimko:
Isn't some wine in France heavily subsidized? I'm thinking of the Langueedoc in particular.
Click to expand...

I was thinking the same thing but don't have any facts.
Click to expand...

There are subsidies and other subsidies and yet other kinds of subsidies. For a while there were incentives to pull up vines in the heaviest producing vineyards which produced the cheapest wines. Then there were other subsidies to convert varieties in weak demand to varieties with supposedly greater market potential. There was also purchasing of bulk wine for distillation into industrial alcohol or other applications. I don't know the times and details for these things, but they were generally targeted at the lowest priced vins de table from the poorest producing regions.

There are also export subsidies and matching programs similar to equivalent programs in the U.S., although probably more substantial. These tend to go to the better organized and more ambitious appellations.
 
On my first trip to Europe in 1971, in Sept I bought from Nicolas (drinkable) wine at 0.69 FF, which included a 0.35 FF bottle return. At that time, the FF was 4+/- to the dollar, IRRC. No way I could have bought wine at the equivalent price in the US.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top