Winery let’s Customers decide how much wine is worth
May 22nd, 2008 by phil
Only in South Africa would you see this kind of innovative wine pricing strategy. Pieter Walser, owner/winemaker of BlankBottle has released a white blend called “Moment of Silence,” and sent out 20 cases of the wine to customers and asked them to evaluate the wine and pay what they thought it was worth. While the value got up to 90R or $11.75, the average price was around 50R or $6.50. Pieter is now selling “Moment of Silence” for 40R so that the wine delivers the goods. What do you think, is this purely a marketing gimmick or a genuine way to create fair pricing for a new wine?
Here’s a quote from one customer that speaks volumes, “With all that, we decided that if we buy the wine on the market in a retail shop, we will pay R65 a bottle. However (and I hope you don’t feel cheated here), since your motto is to over deliver on quality and want to keep prices affordable, buying from the winemaker direct, we settled on R55.”
I would love to see that happen with some of the California cult cab and pinot producers! Cheers to Pieter and BlankBottle.
Tags: , south africa, wine, Wine Industry
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May 28th, 2008 at 4:34 pm
This would be an awesome practice to see adopted for California wines. I really dont think that any of our larger wine producers would take such a risk, but it may be a good way for a smaller growing winery to establish loyal customers and a price point.