^

Wouldn't this apply to most "luxury" goods as well?

Ha, yea I guess so, although I would posit that there is actually more value in certain "luxury" goods than in "luxury" or even just "high end" wine.

beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

BTW, that will eliminate all Champagne since none of it is "mis en bouteille au chateau". Almost none of my friends in france pay any attention to that, although most foreigners do, and there's no doubt it does raise the price for them. In France drinking the house wines is almost always very good and much cheaper. 'Course if you want to spend the extra money, have at it!

Your experience in France differs greatly from mine. I know many French families, that as of last week, were looking at where the wine was bottled when making a decision.

Just noticed this thread. I live in Burgundy and can correct some of the perceptions here. First of all, many of the fine Burgundy wines are bottled on site. Especially the smaller producers. They have been doing it a very, very long time and do not see any reason to change. They may sell off some of the grapes to larger manufacturers, but they produce a lot of bottles on site.

There is also something called a Cave coop�rative in most areas where a bunch of producers team together to setup a large scale production facility. Here is one I visit from time to time http://merchant.ballsbrothers.co.uk/...ve_de_buxy.htm At these places you can choose to have your wine pumped into a large plastic jug from what exactly resembles a gasoline pump. It is very cheap and it is the same exact stuff that is put into the bottle.

And terroir IS very important. Anyone who hasn't had their tastebuds destroyed can easily tell the difference between a quality Chardonnay in one area of Burgundy from another. These things are actually far more important in France than for the export market. People here are deeply traditional and wouldn't think of drinking a wine that they were not absolutely sure of the origin and production.

Lastly this is kind of timely as I just read this article on the BBC website about a scandal involving EJ Gallo. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8520980.stm

Great info. My family sells to Gallo sometimes, but never drink their wine.

^ ^ Someone who knows what they are talking about!

Ummm... you obviously aren't familiar with wine auctions. Try to make a 1000% profit over ten years with a Prada bag or a pair of Jimmy Choos.

Or lose a 100% over a year.

In any event, I always heard the mis en bouteille au chateau advantage was that you would probably get what was described on the label in the bottle.

As all Pinot people know all too well since Pinotgate, this is not always true. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...BU0E1C3M81.DTL

because it is unavailable, or because you consider it to be inferior?

Wirelessly posted (Nokia N97 / Palm TX: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D050; Blazer/4.3) 16;320x448)

Like many other things in life... its all relative. I dont think a wine must be Estate Bottled to qualify as a great wine... but its also true that many great labels with very heavy pedigree are bred this way...

to many of us, both are 1000% overpriced to begin with. tough to go to 1000000% profit. those and like are just designer labels that are mass produced, frequently in third world countries.

i had a late 18th c irish linen press that had a 1000% increase. same with a 16c spanish chest.

but let's get serious about something mass produced by LVMH that takes 10 min to distinguish from the one sold in italy at a bazaar or open market.