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Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

If you’re a domestic US wine lover, now is a great time to be buying if you have the space to store it.

That said, American wine—and California wine in particular—has a bit of an IPA problem inasmuch as there is a lot of overpriced, overproduced swill being priced exceptionally high by international standards.

I get the swill at a discount :) "The best wine is the wine you like best." Best deal I recently got was a few hundred bottles for under $1k, <$5/bottle. Easier than the trek to a Trader Joe's or Costco, ymmv (and I don't feel bad throwing a bottle out if it isn't for me, versus a $100+ bottle).

Do you just buy barrels at that point?

Only one so far, I'm willing to take more but not a lot on offer. Maybe I'm talking to the wrong suppliers. There's a right price for everything, but I am looking for fire sale|"going out of business" prices. Replies with leads welcome!

Large-format bottles are criminally underappreciated this side of the Atlantic.

Sounds like a great deal, but that’s quite a lot of space required to store them, no?

Not really, takes up a large wall in a residential detached single family home basement somewhere in the Midwest. Everything is relative.

Don’t even need that. If they’re packed in wine boxes they take up hardly any space.

You allowed to do that? You'd at least have to tip the box on its side if storing for a long time now? I'm no sommelier but I hear the cork needs to stay wet or they'll spoil.

The bottles I've received are in large boxes that hold ~20 bottles each, delivered via Fedex. Each box goes in a spot on industrial shelving, and is cataloged into an inventory system when received.

Interesting. Never heard of someone using an inventory system for the wine.

You haven't addressed what I asked though. Are you sitting the boxes upright? Do they have corks or are these cheapo screw cap bottles?

'a lot' depends on how much you had to begin with.

Not just American wine... wines from any region have always been more expensive in the US.

Quick poking around Google... Italy, France, and Germany all have mid-tier bottles of their own domestic wine for far less than we (in the US) get any wine, domestic or import.

I spent a month in Italy and drank many fine wines. The most expensive sold at supermarket was 15 euo. Most were like 6.

Have you bought wine at Trader Joe's? It used to be famous for its "2 buck chuck" aka Charles Shaw. And many other well-regarded wines for under $10.

I have, and their prices have gone up. Their reserve wines are $20 now. Still a good buy for bottles that are usually very drinkable. Bit similar wine in Italy would still be about half that price.

It is incredibly difficult to sustainably run a winery in California. The margins are often negative without operating at a large scale, which is part of why the industry has consolidated heavily over the past few decades.

Often times, wealthy people buy wineries as a hobby to dabble in, but end up selling and calling it a day before it drains their cash. If you want to buy wine for cheap that is made in California, buy mass-market wine.

Smaller brands are generally expensive because that price is necessary to sustain operations, but most of the time that fails, and the owners end up selling.

I feel for the wine growers, but as an avid wine consumer I'm looking forward to better deals.

...and less variety. Growers are not going to stay in business by lowering their prices.

I haven't noticed any retail wine prices stabilizing or decreasing, at least in the Bay Area. Napa wines are still exorbitantly priced, and imports are way the fuck more expensive due to tariffs.

On a pure price-performance basis it is difficult to justify buying US domestic wine over French imports. The quality of the latter is consistently higher at reasonable price points. California wines haven’t justified their price tag for a long time on average.

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