Sure, I love to drink wine. It’s a well-documented fact. And I love learning about it… at one time I even considered enrolling in Argentina’s main sommelier school. But besides appreciation, the business of wine is also of interest, especially due to the boom in production & export over the last decade. Often along with tasting notes, I also catalog prices. This is the first time I’ve graphed some of the data, & there are a few surprises.
Wines chosen for the graph on the right are standards… nothing fancy, no alta gama here. Just your basic everyday wines. There are three chardonnays (Navarro Correas, Finca El Portillo & Latitud 33º) plus two malbecs (Quara & Septima). Prices were obtained in Jul-Aug 2005, 2010 & 2011. US dollar exchange rates used to convert prices were $2.90, $3.93 & $4.13, respectively–an average of the official exchange rate during those months.
Interesting results: inflation from last year ranged between 14-28% in pesos for the wines selected. That gives everyone a good idea of what the economy is doing. Septima seems to be more popular these days (I see it popping up in new places all the time), so that could account for some of their price increase. But the most interesting graph of the bunch is from Latitud 33º… pegging the value of their wine to the dollar and to inflation. The winery is run by Chandon, & they appear to keep tight control on pricing. Fascinating to discover.
But wait, there’s more…
While wandering through the Coto wine aisles, it’s hard to ignore the shocking disparity between their wine prices & what is available at the local minimarket run by Chinese immigrants… my friendly neighborhood chino. Just a couple comparisons. Familia Gascón, a mid-range line produced by Bodegas Escorihuela, goes for 27 pesos at the chino but Coto charges 41 pesos. That’s 52% more. Estiba I by Bodegas Esmeralda is 20 pesos at the chino while it costs $26 at Coto, or 30% more. In other words, I can’t remember the last time I bought a bottle of wine at Coto. Not worth it.
For a look at what the wine market is doing overseas, a Chicago-based friend [Waffleizer] sent me the following prices in February of this year… good to have handy when you go wine shopping in BA. These are all for malbec:
2009 Malma U$S 12 · 2009 Nieto Senetiner U$S 9 · 2010 Alamos U$S 9 · 2005 Weinart U$S 20 · 2008 Catena U$S 18
Surprisingly enough, I can get Alamos at the chino for exactly the same price as in Chicago.
Although wine pricing is all over the map, there are some good indicators from this data. Official stats for inflation are manipulated by the government, but these numbers are slightly lower than figures reported by private analysts. A good guess for yearly inflation between 2010 & 2011 would be 25%. Thankfully, wine is a bit behind the national average. Export volume must be incredibly high to bring the price down to local levels… or Argentine customers are being gouged. And remember: the selection at your local minimarket may be limited, but the price is right. ¡Salud!
Nice. Reminds me I should make a trip to the wineshop for some more, uh, research.
Definitely. See? I finally got around to writing the post :-)