Sunday, March 05, 2006

You may ask . . . WHY does BC wine cost so much compared to, say, Chile?

As an appetizer to the title subject, perhaps you'd like a little poll to wet your appetite.
Vote without looking down too much then scroll for the answer.


I recently heard a conversation between a grower and winery owner. Guess how much per ton the grower wanted for his average merlot for 2006?
$975 ?
$ 1075 ?
$1300 ?
$1800 ?
$2325 ?
$ 2500 ?
$ 3000 ?
$ 3500 ?
$ 3850 ?
$ 4200 ?
Free polls from Pollhost.com

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All right.

$4200 a ton.

I'm still trying to figure who is doing this. And why? What kind of freakville business plan is this?

We pay about $2000 /ton for Merlot.

Rule of thumb: Knock the last two digits off the ton price to approximate the retail value of a bottle on release. So $42 for a brand new winery with no track record? Over $85 on a restaurant list?

Those are big balls.

I guess everyone wants to be instantly rich. While in Chile and Argentina there are folks working the grapes for about $9.00 (US) a day. That'll keep your costs down.

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