TWS Rhône 19 offer

GuyD'nis said:
I can see the wines allocated in my account, but am I the only person who hasn't received the official allocation email yet? Wondering if there's an issue with my account (I also never receive any emailed wine offers)?
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Check your Junk/Spam. My white email got through but the red was in spam for some reason.

No Gonon this year for me despite getting carried away and buying more widely than usual. Last year was my first TWS Rhone EP and I was lucky, must admit I am more excited by winning the Burlottory than anything else...
 
kevin heatherington said:
Given how many people just on here seemed to have put in for Gonon...
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Don't get me wrong, I love the fact that every one of the large EP's at TWS has this lottery/gamification element. It helps me justify my spend in that I might 'win' something. Even having never tasted Gonon previously I must admit I was slightly peeved I didn't get some this time even though I got everything I actually wanted!
 
The thing with the Gonon thing, is has the price now reached the quality, and it’s not the bargain it was?
When I first drunk it in the 2009 vintage it was a bargain for the price, even if it was one of the more expensive St Joseph at £110? but now at £200+ IB has the value gonon?
still went in for it and got 3 but ..
 
GuyD'nis said:
I can see the wines allocated in my account, but am I the only person who hasn't received the official allocation email yet? Wondering if there's an issue with my account (I also never receive any emailed wine offers)?
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I had some weird things going on with my White Rhone order too Guy. It disappeared and I had to phone and check to see if it was in the system (it wasn’t and I had too redo it).
 
Hard to know what the true value of Gonon is (well that could be said for all wine, but you get my drift). It’s arguably the best St Joseph out there and certainly totally authentic wine with a good long track record of successful cellaring.

Recent vintages are listed at around £100 a bottle all-in on the secondary market (I’ve no idea if they actually sell at that price) at which £35-£45 on release looks pretty attractive. Such a price differential is going to attract a lot of interest from people with no real knowledge or interest in Northern Rhone wines in addition to the cognoscenti and the plain curious. I’d have to wonder how many would be queuing to buy if the differential were removed and it was priced at £100 per bottle on release.

Much as I like the wines I’d definitely be out at that price, as I am with a number of other “icon” wines which have reached what I would think of as stratospheric prices relative to the quality. A lot of these wines just don’t justify the massive differential to other wines. That is not to say that they are not better, just not that much better.
 
Thom Blach said:
Presumably if it weren't £100 on the secondary market it wouldn't sell so quickly at £35.
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Interesting question isn’t it? Chicken or egg?

I‘m guessing it’s one of those market distortion things where in a relatively small market a little noise in the form of a few committed buyers drive the price upwards very quickly and sets an inflated secondary market price. Before too long that becomes the price and there is suddenly a large differential between the release price and the “market price” which then in turn attracts a lot more interest from speculators and those fearful that they might miss out on a wine that looks to suddenly be going stratospheric.

Of course raising the release price would probably only cement the market price further......

I suppose that the good news to come out of all of this is that if a wine from the “old school” can become iconic it might just encourage others to try and follow in the footsteps and the recipe of “old hillside vines, careful vineyard work, little or no destemming and older larger barrels” might well be copied in the hope of doing well rather than the more specious wines made in the cellar that have been a la mode for so long.
 
Thom Blach said:
Presumably if it weren't £100 on the secondary market it wouldn't sell so quickly at £35.
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When buying the 2010 red and white, my request to Vine Trail that (as UK importer) they might possibly source some VV Gonon was met with the typical derision as most of my requests to VT were met with over the years: "Who will buy a £40 St Joseph?". To which I replied, that I would buy every case they couldn't sell at that price. They were clearly not bothered.

Also curious to see that regular Trollat St Joseph almost approaches £1000 a bottle these days, and the Trollat VV is invisible. A good wine, but even the VV no better than a Clape Cornas of the same period.

Btw, I actually still remember the occasion on which I tasted my first Gonon - the 1992 white at a picnic in Oxford 1994, which established it instantly as my favourite StJ white.
 
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Yes I should feel ashamed to mention value when buying something for £45 which might be valued at twice that in the market.However, there is a limit on price to subjective value, but like every fine wine there's diminishing returns as you pay more. Where you see value is always very subjective as I alluded to.
A St. Joseph offline perhaps?
 
Mark raises a good point, and a question which I've asked in relation to CNDP, where the geography is presumably more amenable: why can't more winemakers do what Rayas does? Or for Cote Rotie, Jamet? Etc.
 
Russ Sainty said:
The thing with the Gonon thing, is has the price now reached the quality, and it’s not the bargain it was?
When I first drunk it in the 2009 vintage it was a bargain for the price, even if it was one of the more expensive St Joseph at £110? but now at £200+ IB has the value gonon?
still went in for it and got 3 but ..
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Gonon 2018 still less than 60€ vat included in local shops in France... but they will only sell you 1 bottle... and hardly more (not the 2018) on the wine list of a Moustiers restaurant (Alain Ducasse) drunk for our 14th wedding anniversary.
 
Paul Day said:
When buying the 2010 red and white, my request to Vine Trail that (as UK importer) they might possibly source some VV Gonon was met with the typical derision as most of my requests to VT were met with over the years: "Who will buy a £40 St Joseph?". To which I replied, that I would buy every case they couldn't sell at that price. They were clearly not bothered.

Also curious to see that regular Trollat St Joseph almost approaches £1000 a bottle these days, and the Trollat VV is invisible. A good wine, but even the VV no better than a Clape Cornas of the same period.

Btw, I actually still remember the occasion on which I tasted my first Gonon - the 1992 white at a picnic in Oxford 1994, which established it instantly as my favourite StJ White
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The Trollat is all being bought and consumed by a few blokes in LA I think (based on their Instagram posts). Based on their regular consumption I get the impression that money is not something they need to worry about so whether it's 100 or 1000USD is probably pretty irrelevant.

I had the 1997 in 2010 and it was lovely (my then girlfriend's father opened it to accompany spaghetti bolognese). In my world I cannot conceive of paying the above sort of sum though.
 
Not all Trollat is going to the US.

Some idiot opened a Trollat 1995 VV at a StJ offline in Noize not so long ago.

Also quite a bit in Spain, also on instagram of a certain writer for TWA.

Recently someone else bid very highly for a magnum of Leleksoglu StJ 1991 at Idealwine: Trollat VV in disguise ... so they must have known what it was ... but I wonder if they knew that bottling was sans souffre and now a very risky prospect.
 
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Paul Day said:
Not all Trollat is going to the US.

Some idiot opened a Trollat 1995 VV at a StJ offline in Noize not so long ago.

Also quite a bit in Spain, also on instagram of a certain writer for TWA.

Recently someone else bid very highly for a magnum of Leleksoglu StJ 1991 at Idealwine: Trollat VV in disguise ... so they must have known what it was ... but I wonder if they knew that bottling was sans souffre and now a very risky prospect.
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I stand corrected.
 
I noticed that you could buy Faurie’s 2019 Hermitage from Justerinis for little more than TWS are charging (without buying any myself).
 
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Good point Simon

our local wine shop and local wine bar were both selling Gonon St Jo last year, around £60 retail IIRC which doesn’t sound crazy for retail/on sales and also means that it’s not quite as tricky to find that you need to pay full secondary prices, although as Mark says earlier, we don’t know if people are buying at that price
 
Bought quite a bit of Gouye from Blast (no connection). I missed out on Gonon in recent TWS for the third year in a row. As it is worked out by an algorithm some got it first time of asking, which is fair play to them, but annoying for me.

I find the whole ‘will I won’t I’ procedure so frustrating that I have decided not to buy en primeur from them anymore.
 
Mark N Wright said:
Bought quite a bit of Gouye from Blast (no connection). I missed out on Gonon in recent TWS for the third year in a row. As it is worked out by an algorithm some got it first time of asking, which is fair play to them, but annoying for me.

I find the whole ‘will I won’t I’ procedure so frustrating that I have decided not to buy en primeur from them anymore.
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Please stop mentioning Gouye now.
 
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