One of the most difficult tasks of a wine writer is to tell readers how much a particular wine costs. As soon as you have published what seems like an accurate price, along comes a store that deeply discounts the wine or imposes a fretfully high markup on it. This is why savvy writers know to supply only a price range and do so with a healthy disclaimer about the variability of prices.
Why are prices from store to store so surprisingly varied? The usual reasons are at play, from the seller’s location (e.g., prime spot or edge of town), market power (capacity to buy and sell large lots), and labor costs (are they hiring knowledgeable wine specialists or interchangeable clerks?). It also depends on when you are seeking a particular wine, since one seller may have it on sale when another does not.
Until Wine-Searcher.com and other price comparison sites came on the scene, it was almost impossible to know if you were getting a good deal on a given wine. Now they give you an almost godlike view of the pricing landscape. All you need to do is enter in the producer, name, and year of a wine, and you receive links to wine shops around the world that stock the wine, listed by price. Wine-Searcher.com is so useful that its icon takes up residence on my smartphone’s front screen. You can even check it while you are shopping, comparing the price of a particular wine, or my benchmark-of-choice “Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label,” against other stores in the area or across the county.
Wine-Searcher.com is especially beneficial when you are looking to track down a sublime bottle you encountered at a restaurant or party. It is also a powerful tool when you are stalking the best price of a wine you want to buy in large quantities. Shipping costs and times vary, of course, as do a store’s storage conditions, so be careful when you are purchasing expensive wine from that random Winez-R-Us in eastern Kentucky.