- Location
- London, Europe
For those who have read Catch 22, it is almost redolent of a Milo Minderbender quote.Presumably the society becomes wealthier.
For those who have read Catch 22, it is almost redolent of a Milo Minderbender quote.Presumably the society becomes wealthier.
My wife suggested that the best solution would have been to auction the wines with the proceeds going to charity.I haven‘t got a problem with this. Given they find themselves with presumably relatively small numbers of bottles of relatively old and valuable wines, the society will be damned whatever they do…
That's not unreasonable.It seems to me that selling the wines in a restaurant so that they are consumed on the premises as per their original purpose is a pretty good solution all round, particularly if prices are fair.
This was on my short list for celebratory lunch with Mrs C, next year. Duly removed.. in times when La Tour d'Argent now only opens bottles at buyer's risk.
Equally it is more than possible both that they would go for more than Noble Rot prices and that they would be flipped. Not worth worrying about at all either way, I would suggest, it's only wine!Yep - just auction them directly to members. A price will then likely be found that works for TWS and the members and the wines will likely get drunk.
I'd hope they would entirely ignore them. After all any member can make a proposal at the AGM or even call an emergency meeting if they think something is going really wrong. Overall they do a very good job and I don't think anyone can much complain.They can't win. Whatever they do a portion of members will moan. My gripe is the amount of management time that must be spent trying to work out how to appease the hugely vocal but tiny minority of members who are interested.
If what they say is true, these wines were previously offered and had mouldered unsold. It's not clear that anyone who's moaning about this initiative would actually buy these wines from TWS at the prices they've been listed at.TWS, who seem attentive to such complaints, doesn’t then know how best to offer out rare and low stock wine
Paul's link didn't work for me, so hopefully this one will, for others who encountered the same issue. Thanks for highlighting, Paul.Those who subscribe to jancisrobinson.com might like to see her 13 Sep 2007 notes still online of "an extraordinary two-day tasting of the Wine Society’s stocks of the grander wines of three great Burgundy domaines Dujac, Roumier and Rousseau".
I’m one of the whingers and I certainly wouldn’t buy at those prices. To use a Yorkshire expression, I couldn’t thoil it, i.e. I could afford it but I couldn’t justify it.If what they say is true, these wines were previously offered and had mouldered unsold. It's not clear that anyone who's moaning about this initiative would actually buy these wines from TWS at the prices they've been listed at.
If TWS strictly limited the number of bottles of such wines that could be purchased per member while still selling the wines at a price closer to what they cost to acquire, that would surely stop flipping being particularly lucrative? And I expect that for every flipped bottle there would be many happy members who actually bought and drunk their bottles!For me, the question is whether an organisation like TWS should be offering such wines to its members at prices that are so massively above the price at which TWS will have acquired them. As ever, of course, the problem is the inflated current market prices and the propensity of greedy buggers to flip them. Surely a way could be found of enabling “ordinary” members to experience these wines.
I think this is a lovely idea, and I've also been really happy to enjoy some surprisingly cheap fine wine from TWS, but I think they've now decided they need to take a more commercial approach with the posh stuff to help them hold prices for the cheaper wines. The average TWS sale price per bottle is below £10 iirc...I’m one of the whingers and I certainly wouldn’t buy at those prices. To use a Yorkshire expression, I couldn’t thoil it, i.e. I could afford it but I couldn’t justify it.
For me, the question is whether an organisation like TWS should be offering such wines to its members at prices that are so massively above the price at which TWS will have acquired them. As ever, of course, the problem is the inflated current market prices and the propensity of greedy buggers to flip them. Surely a way could be found of enabling “ordinary” members to experience these wines. For example, one of the best wine experiences I have had was a vertical of Ch Palmer - including the 1961 - held by TWS at a sit-down dinner in Harrogate, where the Society took over the restaurant for the event. For a modest charge, a significant number of members drank wines to which they might otherwise never have had access. I would far rather that members of the Society could drink these wines rather than customers of a commercial restaurant.
TWS bangs on incessantly (in a way that it used not to do) about being a not-for-profit members’ organisation but it seems that it doesn’t always “walk the walk”.
What is the point of TWS having precious allocations of Rousseau Chambertin if the members aren’t going to be able to enjoy them. There must be large numbers of passionate but relatively impecunious wine-lovers who are members, and who would give their eye-teeth to experience such a wine. Doesn’t the Society exist to enable that to happen (without the loss of teeth)?
I think the problem with this, Nick, is that in relation to TWS’s current turnover the revenue generated by selling off the unicorn wines will be so small as not to contribute significantly to the price-lowering endeavour.I think this is a lovely idea, and I've also been really happy to enjoy some surprisingly cheap fine wine from TWS, but I think they've now decided they need to take a more commercial approach with the posh stuff to help them hold prices for the cheaper wines. The average TWS sale price per bottle is below £10 iirc...