Bordeaux Prices So High It's Immoral?

by Rigel Celeste (RSS feed)
Feb 12th 2008 at 9:02AM

There's been a controversy brewing over the prices of Bordeaux, and it doesn't appear to be settling down anytime soon. Recently in an article in a French magazine the former head of Richemont, Alain-Dominique Perrin, said that prices as high as €500 a bottle ($725) are "immoral."

The argument stems from estimates that production only costs about €12 per bottle (which would make €500 a markup of about 80 times) and that price tags should come down to about €100/$145 to be reasonable. The other sides says that costs aren't that low in many cases, and that most importantly they aren't able to give details and "don't want to get in an argument" over pricing.

Wow, what do you think?

Tags: Bordeaux, immoral, spirits, wine

Filed under: Wine

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

just me Feb 12th 2008 11:34AM

There is a point at which the price is not about cost of production, it's about supply and demand. The value of something is whatever you can get someone to pay for it. In the case of wine, the demand is very high for top producers, the supply is relatively low, too many people have too much money, therefore retailers charge beaucoup bucks for the top wine. During Christmas I was in charge of purchasing wine gifts for clients, and spent $500.00 on a bottle of wine, times 8 clients--a lot of money. And there were more expensive wine which I did not choose. It's a case of simple economics.

Nancy Feb 12th 2008 4:31PM

Everything is not about the "cost" to make. Thats a poor mans mental . In the world of luxury its more about the "why not" than the why? If people are willing to pay $500 then they will sell it for $500 simple as that !

John C. Randolph Feb 14th 2008 6:28AM

Mr. Perrin is clearly ignorant of basic economics. A winery has every right to offer their product at whatever price people are willing to pay. This is not a moral issue in any way.

-jcr