Re: Letter to the Wine Business Monthly
David Coffaro, January 13, 1999
I've never gone cover-to-cover through the Wine Spectators but I must
admit I've never seen ads for Diamond Creek Cabernets. But I think
Bob wanted to point out in jest that I did not mention the costs of promotion
and we all know that per bottle, that can't amount to too much. Since
we can't explain the difference between the costs of a Ferrari and a Chevy,
or a Charlie Trotter's and a good neighborhood restaurant, or Michael Jordan
versus any other sports figure, we cannot put a cost on the unique.
My point in a small way was to explain that neither Ferrari, Charlie Trotter's,
nor Michael Jordan ever justify why they are worth as much as they are.
They don't have to. What I do not like about, let's say Caymus Special
Selection, is that their reasoning for charging considerably more money
from one year to another is that they had to lock up contracts with their
growers at substantially higher prices. Since that amounted to probably
about one dollar more per bottle, why do they end up charging over $20
more?