WineXpert Limited Edition Wines Announced

[cpfan]

Smurfe:

Been wondering where you have seen these marketing claims, "as good as an $xx bottle of wine". I have only seen that kind of thing on the forums, whereby somebody asks a question like "will this cheap kit make a wine as good as this $30 bottle of wine?"

It's all in YOUR tastes and where you live. US wine prices are much lower in general than Canadian wine prices. The kit manufacturers generally do not make that $ comparison because of that.

Steve

 

[smurfe]

Smurfe:

Been wondering where you have seen these marketing claims, "as good as an $xx bottle of wine". I have only seen that kind of thing on the forums, whereby somebody asks a question like "will this cheap kit make a wine as good as this $30 bottle of wine?"

It's all in YOUR tastes and where you live. US wine prices are much lower in general than Canadian wine prices. The kit manufacturers generally do not make that $ comparison because of that.

Steve

Mostly heard right out of the mouths of WE factory reps, their ditribution reps, and quite a few retailers. They all spout the same info so it has to come from a focal point or they just all read the same stuff we do and pass the same info. I was at a retailer once and a WE rep was there. Every kit I looked first thing told to me was that kit will make you a "x" dollar bottle of wine. I lost a lot of respect for the company and prodct that day. So if you ask, I heard it from the horses mouth.

 

[Wade E]

We can copmare these kits to many ranges of wine cause there are great $10 wines and there are terrible $80 wines. I was given a bottle of 65$ Amarone 3 years back when I wanted to make my firts Amarone kit and almost never did cause the bottle was horrible but them a friend gave me a bottle of the CC Amarone and it was great. I then made the RJS E.P. kit and IMO I think its even better so in my mind my kit produced at least a $66 bottle of wine and 30 of them for $118!

 

[rawlus]

Mostly heard right out of the mouths of WE factory reps, their ditribution reps, and quite a few retailers. They all spout the same info so it has to come from a focal point or they just all read the same stuff we do and pass the same info. I was at a retailer once and a WE rep was there. Every kit I looked first thing told to me was that kit will make you a "x" dollar bottle of wine. I lost a lot of respect for the company and prodct that day. So if you ask, I heard it from the horses mouth.

why would a remark describing the finished wine, make you lose respect for the company? price point is a common quantifier for wine quality, it is used frequently and prevalently in the industry. it is used on this forum continuously when people are comparing wines, asking about kits, etc. ("i opened this bottle up after two years and it was better than wines ive bought for $30")

im not saying it is necessarily right, but an awful lot of people assume a $50 bottles tastes better then a $10 bottle. and just about the only evident variable in two wines made from the same grapes is price (until you taste it). so i see absolutely nothing wrong with making a price association on a commercial bottle. for many home winemakers i am sure these rough and inexact guidelines help steer them to the right product.

if you have a company with 5 lines of product at different price points and you have common varietals in each line - how would YOU prefer they make a distinction between them without referencing commercial wines?

 

[cpfan]

if you have a company with 5 lines of product at different price points and you have common varietals in each line - how would YOU prefer they make a distinction between them without referencing commercial wines?

Discuss the quality of ingredients and differences between the kits. Not compare it to some mythical $xx bottle of wine.

When I had the store, my Vineco salesman would sometimes be there and talk to customers. I don't remember him EVER comparing on price. He would mention commercial wines that he felt the wine was close to. I remember him talking to one customer and asking what she usually drank and explaining that he felt that the kit in question was better than that wine but only after 6-9 months of aging. He also mentioned that he was waiting for his batch of that wine to reach 15 months old before sampling another bottle.

Steve

 

[parick]

I think I'll try making the Italian Brunello. First sample should be ready by Christmas 2010

 

[rawlus]

i try not to get too riled up about price claims/quotes/etc. i take it with a grain of salt. i find it neither reason to completely avoid a manufacturer nor a reason to consider them. it is what it is. i also draw a big distinction from the candid or casual remarks of a sales rep and something immortalized in national print advertising. everyone knows a sales person is going to tend to embellish or broaden the truth in the quest to make a sale. i don't get insulted by it, i take it for what it's worth.

discussing the quality and differences between the kits and discussing what the customer enjoys in commercial wines is a subtle way of also understanding their price tolerance for retail wine anyway in addition to the other factors that contribute to their buying decision.

i suspect the goal is to help avoid customers making wines that dont meet with their expectations. if i tell you i like chianti for instance that only gives you a glimpse of what my pallet likes and nothing as to what my wallet likes, there is commercial chianti from $10/magnum to $100+/bottle. should i make the $2/bottle chianti? or splurge for the all-juice super premium kit? or maybe something in-between? relating a comparison to commercially available wines is a valid methodology for prescribing the right kit for the right person provided you take into account other factors that help contribute to their preference.

the point is not so much that the $200 kit tastes like a $30 wine as much as if you enjoy $30+ bottles of commercial wine, then $70 kits may tend to disappoint you. what's so offensive about that?

 

[rawlus]

its not like we don't see posts nearly every day/week about someone complaining their less-expensive kit didn't meet their expectations. or that they did not plan on investing 2+ years of patience into their higher end kit, they wanted something to drink much earlier. so clearly something is missing in the majority of transactions/customer relationships.

 

[smurfe]

Discuss the quality of ingredients and differences between the kits. Not compare it to some mythical $xx bottle of wine.

When I had the store, my Vineco salesman would sometimes be there and talk to customers. I don't remember him EVER comparing on price. He would mention commercial wines that he felt the wine was close to. I remember him talking to one customer and asking what she usually drank and explaining that he felt that the kit in question was better than that wine but only after 6-9 months of aging. He also mentioned that he was waiting for his batch of that wine to reach 15 months old before sampling another bottle.

Steve

Bingo! I agree 100%. Tell me what is different with this kit than another. Tell me what your company does different than the others to manufacture your kits. Face it, you are buying a bag of juice. Why does this 16 liters cost so much more than that bag of juice. I want to know the source of the fruit. Of course with most brands this will be impossible to answer but if you knew the source, you can research and hopefully figure out what your end results may be and then be able to put a somewhat value on a bottle of wine. Remember, the value of wine of a particular winemaker fluctuates year to year directly based on the quality of the fruit harvested.

The "x" dollar value claim is of no value to me as your location, the Euro to dollar exchange in the US, Taxes in other countries, etc all fluctuate the dollar value of a particular bottle. Not to mention those folks up north in Canada's dollar is worth less than a US dollar for some reason I have never been able to figure out. I still wish they would take Canada, USA, and Mexico and merge them all into one large country called North America but that is a discussion for another forum.

 

[Mud]

Just started reading this thread as I was in the LHBS today and picked up a flyer. The clerk, who is usually almost silent, was very forthcoming about how I could make (30) $40 bottles of wine with any of these kits. That was his whole selling point. I asked for some comparisons but he didn't now any. I didn't push it as I'm not in the market right now.

-thankful for the comparisons Mud

 

[Wade E]

Im not a big commercial wine connisuer. but I have had a few commercial wines in the $25 range that were horrible and a few in the $8 range that were very good so yeah, the $ per bottle kit doesnt do it for me either.

 

[NSwiner]

Last month we went to a wine tasting where they bought commericial brands ( one kind they mixed two different wines to get one close enough for us to try ) close to the Wine expert LE kits so we could sample all 5 kits to see what we would like to preorder . Since we only drink white wines it narrowed it down but glad we sampled the reds . They had foods that went with them also so that was good .We only ordered the California Lake county Trio Blanc , I can't wait to get my hands on it lol .

 

[parick]

I wouldn't say any of these kits, but I have seen 750 ml bottles of Stags Leap Merlot for $45/bottle, Old Vine Zin for $25 and Italian Barolo for $54.95 at the store. I doubt if the kits are equal, but from the samples I have tried they are a really nice examples of those wines.

 

[wines just fine]

I recieved my 2-for-1 coupon that I won in the LE contest today.

I went in and picked up a Selection International Italian Amarone and Selection Estate Stags Leap Merlot. I started the Merlot as soon as I got it home.

I'm thinking I will be able to drink it while I wait for the 3 LE reds that I ordered mature.