Knowing this mailer was coming out soon, I have been pondering if I still wanted to play at $350. They have made my decision very easy. Bwaahaahaahaaa! (I mean I pass).

WIML

Harlan has obviously made the transparent decision to turn over their entire customer list so that the only people on it are people who have been buying at secondary market prices in the past.  I am sure they made a decent dent in their effort last year when they jumped to $350, and no doubt will complete the task this year.Â

And $150/bottle for the maiden, which is more than you can find in the aftermarket. $450 for the estate is basically the same as auction prices. Not exactly sure what their game plan is, but I will no longer play.

$150 for maiden is easy pass for me...but estate is another story
not sure what i am going to do just yet but if 05' is in line with many of the 05' i tried and gets huge score (98-100) secondary market price for the 05' will be way above $500 imo
what is 97', 01' and 02' going for?

The good news is that if the 2005 gets a 100 point score they will cut your allocation down to 1 bottle.  If you want a case, you need to hope for a 92 pt 2006.Â

Intriguing to see where this goes, given our SQN discussion. I think JimmyV hit it dead on; Harlan has been leaving money on the table (although not all that much) for a while.

I dropped off when they went to $350. Only on the list for the 2000 and beyond. Only got one of the 2001 and 2002. Dave's post was right on.

So, what do you think? If you owned the winery, whould you have done the same?

I think that Bressler Winery shouldn't get any bright ideasÂ

Bob - speaking personally, I would not have raised the price. I would be doing it for the pleasure of it, wanting people to enjoy the wines. But that's just me, and I've figured out that I do not have the kind of personality that gets wealthy.

Harlan is in a different league than me. He wants to build a multi-generation family dynasty.

Of course, I wouldn't build a 132,000 square foot italian villa overlooking the valley either. Apparently I don't belong up there... :-)

If I owned the winery and wanted to maximize profit in a humane way, I would cut everyone's allocation back to 3 bottles and sell those at $250 per bottle. I would take the rest of the inventory and sell it at auctions to the highest bidders, or to retailers at $500 per bottle.  This would stem the flood of mailing list bottles that hit the secondary market and would allow me to occupy that field myself. Some mailing list bottles would still get through, but not enough to matter.  This way, I could still "reward" my loyal customers who helped me build the brand from the beginning, while at the same time allowing people with the desire to pay secondary prices to still get the wine.  As it is now, Harlan is basically telling his loyal fan base: "Thanks for making me what I am today. But I have no further use for you. Since most of my wine seems to end up in Las Vegas restaurants at $2,000 per bottle, or in Hong Kong, I may as well place it there myself."  I just don't think this is the right way to treat the foundation of what used to be your business model.  I can see why he must be frustrated by people who are "drinking for free" by selling half at 100% mark-up, or selling one-third at 200% mark-up, but I don't think the solution is to raise the price such that this can't be done. Because by doing so, he risks people buying no bottles. Let them have a few bottles at a decent price, but not so many as to allow them to become de facto distributors.

Well to steal a line from anthonyiezzi "I haven't bought from these guys for the past two vintages and they still keep spamming my mail box". Got the offer today. Snowballs chance.

Bob:

If I owned the winery (and, gee, for $140,000 I could own a chunk of Private Reserve) I would raise the price. Just not so much, so fast. We are seeing an acceleration of price increases in the market at a time when many thought "well, they can't go any higher than this!". I believe in any business it is valuable to build a base of loyal customers. If wineries take t he attitude that buying their wine is a privilege, and customers can easily be replaced by new ones with deeper pockets - well, I would like to think the next time a "challenging" vintage like 2000 comes along the new customers would pass at the chance to buy a 90 point wine for $500. A big dip in the stock market, a Laube TCH detection - there are business setbacks that can occur. $400 for the '05 and I probably wouldn't be giving it this much thought.

Seems to be somewhat of a consensus here (not too surprising). One of the things that makes this a little more complicated is that I see certain similarities between the 01/02 vintages and the 05/06 vintages. Specifically, I think the 06 might offer more opportunities for extraction (as did 02). Since I love the 01 Harlan (not that it is really ready yet), I might very well love the 05. Truly a dilemma.

Does anyone think Harlan (or Don Weaver in this case) should of at least mentioned a reason or justification for a $100 / bottle price hike in the mailer? Like "by the way, you may of noticed an increase in the bottle cost.....".

I passed on the last Estate offer and still got this one. I thought that Harlan Estate strictly enforced the "one pass and you're off" rule. Guess not.

Dropped when the price hit $350.00. I've had the Maiden going back to 97 vintage. And, $150 is a joke @ this point. I am happy to pass, the bank acc is happy to pass.

At these prices, I couldn't agree more. There is a lot of good juice out there for a lot less!!!