Let’s Go Swimming or Can All That Wine Be Sold?

     A long time ago a friend asked me if I wanted to buy some incredibly expensive Red Mountain Merlot for $18 per gallon. I told him (back then) I couldn’t get $18 per bottle for the wine. He immediately questioned my math, but the math holds as true today as it did back then.

As with most ‘rules of thumb’ there are distortions at both ends. Packaging costs remain fixed as only the price of wine changes. Of course, on a wine you paid $40 per gallon, you may want to up your packaging costs by buying Parker-approved three-pound bottles and two-inch corks and on the low end, if you are a large bulk producer, you can probably get better prices on container loads of Chinese glass and cheap agglomerated corks.

This chart should make it as clear the rain in the Tri-cities.

$/gal. bulk	$10.00	$20.00	$30.00
corks	$0.11	$0.40	$0.80
foils	$0.08	$0.08	$0.12
bottles	$0.60	$1.00	$2.00
labels	$0.40	$0.40	$0.40
Wine per bottle	$2.00	$4.00	$6.00
tax	$0.20	$0.20	$0.20
cost to winery	$3.39	$6.08	$9.52
sell wholesale	$6.78	$12.16	$19.04
shelf price	$9.70	$17.39	$27.23

I was perusing the bulk wine/shiners for sale on the Wine Business Monthly web site. The most expensive wine I could find was for sale at the asking price of $40 per gallon. That must be some phenomenal shit! The least expensive was only $2.16 per gallon. Can you say oxidized? Sure you can. I like the way you say oxidized.  Most wines ranged from $5 to $15 per gallon.

At this time there are over 365,000 gallons of bulk wine for sale in the state of Washington. We could sell it to California to fill their swimming pools during the drought, but there is even more wine for sale in California, so they can fill their own swimming pools.

Riesling seems to be the biggest drag on the market with over 146,000 gallons sitting in tanks. The average price is $9.88 per gallon, but some dreamer wants $25 for his.

Chardonnay is number two with over 102,000 gallons on the market at an average price of $12.00, but a lot can be had for only $7.00.

Cabernet Sauvignon seems to be in balanced supply. There are only 7,743 gallons available at an average price of $20.17 per gallon. One guy thinks his is worth $28.00 per gallon.

You might want to pick up some good Merlot for $17 per gallon. There are 33,649 gallons available.

I’m sure glad I don’t have to sell bulk wine this year! Small, high-quality crop and it’s all spoken for.