Can anyone tell me why.....

[Botafogo]

>>As for price-quality ratio, that is an area I think NY has a distinct disadvantage. It is costly to produce here, and although the quality can be great, the price for vinifera-based products is often problematic when you consider what is out there from the world over.<<

Foodie (or anyone else), name me another product where the inablilty to produce at market levels of quality and within some semblance of market prices would not be a no-brainer deal breaker as to whether to produce at all. This is the BIGGEST problem with California wines: people who evidently have too much money to throw down the rathole of another trendy restaurant or nightclub instead overbuild a vanity winery on expensive land that could be used to house DotCom billionaires and want $40 a bottle net wholesale for their fist vintage of boring Chardonnay. Then they stand in my store and actually say (when presented with competing wines of equal or higher quality at one third or less the price of theirs) "But, you can't compare the costs of production here in California with that in Italy (or Argentina or Hungary or whereever), that's not fair". QUE?!?!?!?!? Do they buy tractors and farm supplies like that (come to think of it, probably)???? Shoes???? Cars???? Me thinks not, bottom line is they have a winery because the WANT to have one, not because it is an economically sustainable proposition.

Roberto

[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 10-01-2000).]

[This message has been edited by Botafogo (edited 10-01-2000).]