Producers' prices: R U 4 real?

So I too am on the Italian wine trail, this time in the sunny (but chilly) south, Puglia to be followed by Campania), and I'm tasting vino and comparing this Primitivo with that one and so forth, and what I'm tasting is surprisingly evolved, elegant, balanced - as well as raw, uncouth - frankly unpleasant wines, of which we have an abundance at home, thank you veddy much.  No need to flood out poor suffering land with more of those.

Sure, naturally, that's to be expected.  What I find so weird, and so hilarious, is the notional, aspirational pricing that producers attach to the wines. 

Example:  last night I tasted some really elegant, let's go along with the producer and say "hand-made" Primitivos.  The price out of the cellar was about 12€. Not cheap, even after the customary USA-only discounts, but understandable. 

Today: a gigantic cooperative dealing in millions of bottles a year, not 100,000, where some simply OK Primitivo (cut with plenty of Montepulciano d'Abruzzo, which is usually the case here, no matter what the label says) -- and they're asking as much or more.  The guy says, "They love this in Albania and Russia," etc., etc. 

Two thoughts spring to mind:

1. The Albanians and Russians will buy anything if you charge enough for it.

2. They don't know shit from Shinola about wine to pay (as the very nice gentleman explained) up to $200 a bottle for the stuff in Tirana. 

My response has to be, "Nobody is America would pay anything like that much for such a wine.  For one thing it isn't from Tuscany or Piemonte, and it isn't an Amarone.  Charge $12 and you'll sell some."

This is a common occurrence in Italy.  All too often there is simply no rational correlation between the price asked and the realities of the market. Of the American market if not the Albanian (!). 

As Gabrio once commented here, there IS generally the listino pressi America, which is the lowest of the low, because we have, in most states, a cut-throat pricing environment. (It's nearly enough to make you long for the old old days of Fair Trade pricing, ie, fixed by common agreement, such as is still often the case in Europe.)

Regardless of which, the food in the Mezzogiorno is always superb and there's a friggin' banquet at every meal.  I think it was Hugh Johnson who first wrote, "The great genius is Italy is in spreading a feast'" or something close to that.  How true, and therein lies the true beauty of the country's wines.

More about that later too, when I can lift my bulk up from the table long enough not to collapse...

Comments

[Richard]

Terry,

Does the cost of the land have anything to do with it? I don't know about land prices in Italy and France, etc., but I know that land price in Napa & Sonoma is about as expensive as it gets and must have something to do with it, when you have lower grape yields on better wine.

Richard

[Marco]

The Russians also pay very well for vinyl records from the 60's and 70's. At least you can listen to these records more than once, even if they are mediocre. Not so with shitty overpriced wines.

[Terry Hughes]

@RL: I think the cost of land has something tyo do with it...in Tuscany. In Puglia, no. You have 2 producers a few miles frome ach other with wines of vastly different quality charging virtually the same amount for their wine. One is smoking something and the other has his eye on the ball.

@MR: I agree...hey, they lived under dreaded KOMMUNIZM for decades, they're still catching up! Soon they will have graduated beyond the Neil Sedaka level of wines...

[Judith in Umbria]

I think you are wrong if you are talking about DOP/DOC coops. They have a lot to lose if they screw their wine up. Same for oil. I have no experience of buying wine in NY (it is bought for me there) or Croatia or Albania, but I drink around Italy constantly. If it ain't good, it doesn't sell except to bulk wine makers or cheap restaurants. Even a cheap restaurant has to suit his customers if he wants them back. The house red is usually suited to the food and worth the price they get for it.
You'd better believe if I am going to pay many euro for a bottle I will rely on advice from a sommelier friend or my trustworthy enoteca owner.

[Terry Hughes]

Most coops do price their wines reasonably, and very much in tune with their good old rapporto qualita'/prezzo in line. This particular one struck me as being out to lunch, to use an expression from my youth.