# How much money is your wine worth?



## Juggernaut (Dec 12, 2012)

In other words, if you were to buy an equivalent bottle of wine at the liqueur store, how much would they charge?


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## JohnT (Dec 12, 2012)

My wine is worth exactly $0 since it is illegal to sell. 

If it WAS legal to sell, then I have well over 1 million (adjusting for the price of quality). 

(I'm not TOO arrogant, am I)


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## Tom_S (Dec 12, 2012)

I've been told that one of my wines was equivalent to a $12 bottle of commercial wine, but that was just one guy who sampled the batch I made for my wife's sister's wedding. But I'd hate to put a price tag on my bottles since it's a labor of love.


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## wood1954 (Dec 12, 2012)

tough question, i've made good fruit wines that would compare to local wineries at$15 a bottle. my grape wines probably about $3-$11 per bottle. i've only been doing this for 18 months tho. i' ve tasted other homemade wine that was way better than mine. i have some reds aging that will compare to godd $20 bottles i hope. whatever the value, i almost never buy wine anymore


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## Craiger (Dec 12, 2012)

If someone gave me a glass of my own wine (and I didn't know it was mine), and asked me, I would say it was probably a $9 - $10 bottle of wine. Not a great $9 - $10 bottle of wine, but an average $9 - $10 bottle of wine.

Having said that, if someone said that I could only drink one kind of wine for the rest of my life, I would absolutely pick my wine, even though I've tasted much better wines.


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## fivebk (Dec 12, 2012)

It is a tough question! I have had some commercial wines that cost $30 a bottle and some that were $10 and I liked the latter bottle alot better than the expensive one. With over 600 bottles in the cellar, It's kind of foolish for me to buy wine. That being said I still like to taste new wines and only buy if they knock me off my feet ( meaning VERY GOOD not high Alc ) LOL.

BOB


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## JohnT (Dec 12, 2012)

There have been times where I would go out and blow a lot of money on a "special occasion" wine. These were always expensive and were always varieties that I have made. Really, what I am doing is fining out "what is a good X"? 

For example, If I am making a pinot noir, then I want to know "what does a great pinot taste like?". I would go out and find the best, most expensive pinot at the gourmet wine shoppe. I would then sit down and taste it. I even go so far as compare it to the one I made. Surprisingly, they are very simular. 

If you guys did the same, I think you would be very SHOCKED at how close you can come, but I digress... 

I say that my pinot compares to an $80.00 French equivelent. My Brunello compares to a $60.00 Italian equivelent. Not that it matters, just so long as I like it!

I also have some wines that were left to me by my father in law. This is a mid-sixties French first growth. I was thinking of finding a way to auction it off and treat the family to a cruise.


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## wineon4 (Dec 12, 2012)

I visited 8 different winerys this September and sampled their Blueberry, Blackberry, Cherry/Chocolate, and Strawberry and felt that mine had a better taste for the most part. Theirs seamed to have an after taste like they used some artificial flavorings. I later found that 3 of them did in fact artifically enhance the flavor their wine. All 8 had the wines I sampled priced at around $20.00 to $24.00 per bottle. So using that price for mine and I have slightly over 350 bottles in my cellar that will equate to $7,700 average value. I give mine to Family and very special friends as gifts.


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## Tom_S (Dec 12, 2012)

I still buy wine on occasion, because there are a few that I like but haven't been able to make yet and it adds to my bottle supply.


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## wineon4 (Dec 12, 2012)

Having a wine party this holiday season when my son is home on leave from the Army and I will be buying some that I don't have in stock. Some people just prefer grape and I make mostly fruit wines. So I will be buying a few cases of different grape varieties.


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## JohnT (Dec 12, 2012)

There is a condition called "Cellar Pallet" in which you end up preferring the wine you make (no matter what the wine tastes like). The recomendation is that you try other wines (by other manufacturers) to keep your pallet working.


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## Midwest Vintner (Dec 12, 2012)

http://www.endlesssummerwinery.com/wineselections.html


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## Bartman (Dec 12, 2012)

My Dad has me make him a Cru Select Brunello kit at least 1-2 each year. He likes the other wines I make, but says the Brunello is as good or better than the $50-60 Brunellos he has previously bought. By having me make it, he "saves" about $1,400 - the difference between the cost of the kit (yielding 24 bottles to him) and $60 x 24 bottles of commercial bottles.


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## Rocky (Dec 12, 2012)

JohnT said:


> There is a condition called "Cellar Pallet" in which you end up preferring the wine you make (no matter what the wine tastes like). The recomendation is that you try other wines (by other manufacturers) to keep your pallet working.


 
Interesting, JohnT. I never heard the term but I think I have contracted the condition. I am to the point that I cannot enjoy a glass of commercial wine. All I taste is chemicals and harshness. Now I should say that the wines I used to buy and now buy when we are out to dinner are probably in the $10-20 retail price range, which means in a restaurant they would be in the $20-40 range.

We are going out with friends tonight and I will try a bottle again and see if the condition is really an addiction.


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## Runningwolf (Dec 12, 2012)

JohnT said:


> There is a condition called "Cellar Pallet" in which you end up preferring the wine you make (no matter what the wine tastes like). The recomendation is that you try other wines (by other manufacturers) to keep your pallet working.


 
John is absolutely right. Never stick to wine from one source. Go to different wineries and taste their wine or buy different bottles at the wine store. You will broaden your horizon and might decide to tweak your own wine. You might just come to the conclusion your wine is awesome compared to others. 

What is your wine worth? What did you pay for the fruit compared to others and how available is it? How much time passed before bottling compared to other wines you made. These are all factors to figure in.

It'll be a cold day in He!! before I spend over $20 for a bottle of wine. I cannot believe I wouldn't find a less expensive wine I would like just as much. This would exclude specialty wines such as ice wine or ports.


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## SpoiledRotten (Dec 12, 2012)

I haven't been doing this very long at all, but I've had some tasters that said they'd buy a wine like mine in the store in a heartbeat, so that was nice of them to say. I have almost got a "cellar pallet" but I do get some foreign wines tasted at my neighbor's house. He is in a wine club and gets a case a month from all over the world. We taste his wines against mine. You can certainly tell that his 2 and 3 year old wines have a bit of an edge on mine but them the significant key points is that they are aged where mine aren't. My wife and I pulled out a bottle of our "favorite" that we drank regularly, and we couldn't drink a glass full. We've gotten spoiled by my "custom" wine.


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## dralarms (Dec 12, 2012)

I've been offered 20 bucks a bottle and was told they would take all I had. Not going to happen but made me feel good.


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## bakervinyard (Dec 12, 2012)

I'll be honest, I still buy commercial wine some inexpensive some not so cheap. Most of the time I'll be drinking the commercial wine and think to myself my homemade wine is just as good. Only problem is I haven't been able to make enough for my own consumpsion. Hope to be at that stage this coming year.


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## pjd (Dec 12, 2012)

I have 1,200 plus bottles in my cellar and still buy at least 50% of the wine we consume. The reason? I want to age my homemade wines longer. My goal is to be on a 5 year cycle. My celler when finished will house around 3,500 bottles which will easily give me a 5 year aging cycle. The question though is what is it worth? I prefer my wine to most commercial wines and I typically buy wine in the $10 to $20 range. For insurance purposes, I would probably value it at $10 -$15 each.


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## Poormanfarm (Dec 12, 2012)

I have not bought a single bottle since i bottled my first 6 cases this past fall. I have bought a lot of wine in the past that I thought was terrible. Some of them I poured down the drain. At least with my wine, I have not poured any out. I don't give wine away because it is too hard to make and too expensive to give away. My wine is as good as most 7-10 dollar wines and a lot better than some.


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## joea132 (Dec 12, 2012)

In the past I have made what I would consider $12 bottles of wine. Last year's California I would consider about a $15-$20 bottle of wine. 

On a related topic I have been asked before and always say about $100 with the cost of equipment I have into the hobby!


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## docjavadude (Dec 12, 2012)

It's all priceless, of course!


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## Fabiola (Dec 12, 2012)

I valued my wine between $15 - $20 per bottle, after I asked some people who tried my wines how much will they be willing to pay if I sell it, which is pretty good if you figure out it takes less than $2 to make a bottle ...


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## wineon4 (Dec 13, 2012)

So it appears that a good wine made by a hobby winemaker will average between $15.00 to $20.00 per bottle. As I give a considerable amount as gifts I guess I give a nice gift LOL. A local guy is currently building a winery about 6 miles from me, it will be interested to see his prices in a few years, as he is moving from hobby to commercial.


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## ShelleyDickison (Dec 13, 2012)

There is a winery by me that sells wine made from kits for 10.45$ to 12.50$ a bottle. I guess that's an average price. These bottles he sells are the Breezin and mist kits. Not sure if that would be accurate or not. All I know is the surprise on my friends and families faces when they drink it and say "you made this" is priceless to me. So I guess it's all " For The Love of Wine " for me.


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## JohnT (Dec 13, 2012)

Runningwolf said:


> It'll be a cold day in He!! before I spend over $20 for a bottle of wine. I cannot believe I wouldn't find a less expensive wine I would like just as much. This would exclude specialty wines such as ice wine or ports.


 
I hear you RW. I used to feel the same way. One day, I was just thinking, "how good could a $100 bottle of wine be????

Having never tasted a first growth or any of the more celebrated wines, I just wanted to find out for myself. I figured that spending $100 would be a small price to pay to find out. After all, spending $100, in this hobby, is like breathing!. 

I do not make this a habbit. Who could possibly afford to? But, just once or twice I could stomach. 

So, when a group of us went out to dinner, I tipped the waiter to conduct a blind tasting. In one case, the expensive bottle of brunello was easy to spot (it has a more smokey flavor), but my brunello held up quite nicely! All of the flavor components were there. 

We did this a second time with Pinot Noir. This time it was not so easy to tell them appart. 4 out of 7 people actually chose my Pinot as the expensive one. This made the investment worth while. Any kind of confirmation is very hard to come by when making wine. I walked away knowing that not only did I make good wines, but great Pinot and Brunello!


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## Rocky (Dec 13, 2012)

Rocky said:


> Interesting, JohnT. I never heard the term but I think I have contracted the condition. I am to the point that I cannot enjoy a glass of commercial wine. All I taste is chemicals and harshness. Now I should say that the wines I used to buy and now buy when we are out to dinner are probably in the $10-20 retail price range, which means in a restaurant they would be in the $20-40 range.
> 
> We are going out with friends tonight and I will try a bottle again and see if the condition is really an addiction.


 
We went to a nice local sea food restaurant last night and I ordered a bottle of Pinot Grigio from Italy ($28). The wine itself was beautiful, clear and light colored. It had more of an acid taste than white wines I make but I have read that wines paired with fool should have more acid. Frankly, I am more comfortable with the reds I make than my whites. I feel I need to improve there. (Here comes the big BUT) The wine still have that chemical aftertaste that I seem to get in commercial wines.


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## olusteebus (Dec 13, 2012)

Yeah JohnT, that was really a small investment with a good return knowing you are making wines as good as the best.


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## wineon4 (Dec 13, 2012)

Rocky said:


> We went to a nice local sea food restaurant last night and I ordered a bottle of Pinot Grigio from Italy ($28). The wine itself was beautiful, clear and light colored. It had more of an acid taste than white wines I make but I have read that wines paired with fool should have more acid. Frankly, I am more comfortable with the reds I make than my whites. I feel I need to improve there. (Here comes the big BUT) The wine still have that chemical aftertaste that I seem to get in commercial wines.



I get that same after taste on many commercial wines I try. Been told by a AWS judge that is usually a result of artificial flavors and artificial enhancers being used in many commercial wines today.


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## Runningwolf (Dec 13, 2012)

John great post and well worth while investment.


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## tonyt (Dec 13, 2012)

At one year my wines remind me of $13 to $17. At two years i'd say up to $20. At three years plus I'd say even more. My three year plus Amarones I easily compare at over $50. In fact I think my three year Amarones are better than a fifty buck Amarone. BUT a ten year old fifty buck commercial Brunello or Amarone can be a humbling experience.


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## Boatboy24 (Dec 13, 2012)

tonyt said:


> BUT a ten year old fifty buck commercial Brunello or Amarone can be a humbling experience.



If you can find one at less than $50...

With kits; lets face it, even the really high end kits are only costing you 6-8 bucks a bottle. If you can make something that rivals a $20+ wine, you are winning.


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## Bartman (Dec 14, 2012)

Boatboy24 said:


> With kits; lets face it, even the really high end kits are only costing you 6-8 bucks a bottle. If you can make something that rivals a $20+ wine, you are winning.



Agreed, but can you possibly put a price on that homemade wine that is better than the $20 bottle? $40-$60-$80? I have had $40 wine that I thought was poor, and $7 wine that was great, as has most everyone. Once you get beyond the high-volume low-priced to mid-range wines, the prices become highly arbitrary, IMHO. A very expensive wine *can* be only so-so.


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## Midwest Vintner (Dec 15, 2012)

wineon4 said:


> I get that same after taste on many commercial wines I try. Been told by a AWS judge that is usually a result of artificial flavors and artificial enhancers being used in many commercial wines today.



I would imagine that SOME of the larger wineries MIGHT do this. From the bonded winery laws on labeling, it should have it posted on the label if they did. The only flavorings we use are FRUIT, unless you consider a jalapeno a vegetable, then both fruits and vegetables!!!  I guess we sell "healthy" choices of fruit and vegetables.  LOL


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## troutstix (Dec 15, 2012)

wineon4 said:


> I get that same after taste on many commercial wines I try. Been told by a AWS judge that is usually a result of artificial flavors and artificial enhancers being used in many commercial wines today.



It is called Mega Purple, used on a lot of <$20.00 bottles. Many of the respectable winemakers refuse to use it. Here is a good article on Mega Purple, you can also google to get more info.

ts


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## Rocky (Dec 15, 2012)

troutstix said:


> It is called Mega Purple, used on a lot of <$20.00 bottles. Many of the respectable winemakers refuse to use it. Here is a good article on Mega Purple, you can also google to get more info.
> 
> ts


 
Thanks, Troutstix. That is an interesting article. I had read that commercial winemakers use "food coloring" and other additives in their wines and this is perhaps what was meant by the article I read.


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## Geronimo (Dec 15, 2012)

It's tough to come up with a single number because it depends on the wine. The high end kits of certain varieties are just barely in parity with high end California vins, costing maybe $25 a bottle. For the Amarones and Barberas, a comparison to a much more expensive bottle is in order. For the whites I'd say 2 or 3 of the kits I've made compare to anything I've drank anywhere with rare exceptions. 

When I started this hobby I asked the same question, but now I think of it simply as drinking wine I made that's really good and I wouldn't be drinking anything that compares to it with the same frequency. A good wine was a treat and I wouldn't buy 3 buck Chuck or Franzia ever (yuck-o-rama). Last night we had a Malbec Shiraz that's coming along nicely. That's the other thing; I never got to experience the aging stages like we do now. Sometimes and infantile red wine has very interesting characteristics, but you'd never find a bottle like that in a store....


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