I have always been intrigued by math, evaluation, and objective optimized processes. Wine pricing in the industry is done in so many ways based on bottling, labelling, cooperage, length on barrels and obviously on the retail side there needs to be adjustments for wholesale distribution, marketing, advertising, and an extra tier of transportation. So, I started paying even more attention lately to the market price on Nakedwines (NW). Besides, the NW being sold, there are three other wines listed typically from the same region but not the same vintage as in this case with a 4 year differential in vintage which seems a big delta, i.e. why wouldn't you want to compare same region and vintage for a better comparison? Anyway...if you take the average of the other three wines listed, then the NW retail market price is usually within 1 dollar of that average; yet, the standard deviation of the four wines is upwards of $9 between the wines making the wine variance (standard deviation squared) price approaching upwards of $80 that is a LARGE variance, which is no surprise since the three wines chosen as a comparison typically have the higher priced wine listed at double the lower priced wine. How is this a reasonable comparison? Hence, with all the wines in the industry, there would seem to be a tighter grouping of price. Is there a group of people that blind taste all the four wines listed and determine how comparable they are and what method process are they using during this process? My hunch is there is not a tasting and comparison but what is driving the comparison is the wine region because the same vintages are not being used as with this wine. Then NW seems to take that average retail/market price of the three other wines listed and then discount the price by about 50%, presuming that is accounting for the retail margin markup due to marketing and advertising as indicated above. Yet, is this approach indicative of what the actual quality of the wine is in the bottle. My experience says no. Why am I bringing this up on this rating? Because the wine attributes of the ROX Andes Cabernet Sauvignon were very consistent showing brilliant limpidity; impressive color uniformity, bouquet and an overall mouthfeel development of 12 seconds, just at the threshold of an exceptional wine and the taste exhibited fleshy, silky body throughout all taste phases. WASM gave a 92.17 rating making the bottle worth $45.08, even above the highest market price wine provided in the comparable list. So this QV ratio is 200% in quality above the Angel Price. Am I complaining that I am getting a $45 bottle of wine for $14.99? No that is what NW is all about Quality and Value. However, not all the wines score above the highest comparable wine in the market price and sometimes the NW doesn't make it to the Angel Price. So what does this all mean to me? Without tasting the wines in the comparable market retail list in a blind tasting and comparing at the same time, I don't know how this is a reasonable comparison especially in this case comparing a 2016 vintage to a 2020 vintage, which is why there is such a hugh variance in the wine pricing on the market comparison, which induces major issues like with this wine that the quality is 200% more than the angel price, but on the other hand, you have the less favorable situation when a NW doesn't obtain the Angel Price when using an objective approach and wine price point method, like WASM. It seems to me, a group of experienced wine tasters familiar with WASM could get wines from the same vintage and region and blind taste the wines and score them with intent on coming up with better comparables that don't have such a large variance in pricing. That way, the market and retail prices would be more accurate, and, in every case, the wines that Angels receive would be justified to be 50% discounted from retail price. Scott, what a WINE! The epitome of quality and value as not many wines make it to the 200% QV level. Thanks again for all your efforts in the Andes. Paul
