winegeist

99¢. It’s the original deception in American marketing. Retail’s original sin. It’s the little white lie at the slipperiest pinnacle of the main slope of modern commerce. Perhaps deception is too deliberate a word, maybe it’s more accurate to call it low level trickery, but that doesn’t roll of the tongue as readily. That a majority of all retail products in this country end in .99 has always bothered me. It’s true that there is stalwart psychological principle behind it, and anecdotally, the first six months our little shop was open, I didn’t think that anyone would every spend over $19 on a bottle of wine. But one of the first things I decided we would do differently than most other shops is to have all of our products priced in whole dollars. I’d rather charge 99¢ less for every product (or occasionally round up), rather than insulting and lying to every customer for a buck (literally). It’s far from a revolutionary idea, it just seems more honest this way. If I’m going to be selling legal poison (beautiful as they may be), I feel like we should be straight about every aspect of it. So much of our daily discourse rests on a foundation of fundamental deception, and I’d rather not throw barrel proof bourbon on that particular dumpster fire. It’s a waste of good bourbon. Trust a $1 Store. The 99¢ Store has something to hide.

Everybody seems to be churning out their fall themed marketing already. How many e-mails can I be expected to read about the end of summer, while it remains 85 degrees outside, and our cooling bill is still approaching 4 figures this month? And now, the weather report: you’ve got a window? Open it.

As most of you know, the way we are often able to offer our deeper discounts is by taking advantage of high quantity pricing. Sometimes we get such a good value that even what we consider full mark-up puts our retail price below what the producer considers minimum public pricing for the bottle in question, and many smaller producers (and their distributors) actively police this (which we respect). Last week, we were asked to raise our online price for Rivetto Barolo Serralunga 2016, one of the best deals in Barolo (where the nebbiolo is wonderful, but can get quite expensive), from a superior vintage. Not only are Rivetto’s wines dry and delicious, and quite a bit less expensive than comparable labels, but they are certified biodynamic, in a region not always synonymous with clean practices. $59.99 is the lowest retail price allowed, but we don’t do 99¢, so we raised our online retail price from $55 to $59, making our (slightly higher) price still the very best advertised price on this vintage of this wine in the country. But since a private e-mail blast isn’t a publicly published offer, we can do pretty much whatever we want, so who wants a lovely bottle of $59(.99) Barolo for $49 per bottle?! If you’d like to go for a very reduced price mixed 6-pack of 3 bottles each Rivetto Barolo ’16 and Rivetto Langhe Nebbiolo ’17, I’ll throw in a FREE bonus bottle from my personal collection (which could be literally anything)!

(!) CLICK HERE to access the hidden sale page (!)

Rivetto Barolo Serralunga ’16
sale: $49            retail: $59

Mixed 6-pack: (3 x Rivetto Barolo ‘16, 3 x Rivetto Langhe Nebbiolo ’17) + FREE BOTTLE from my personal collection (+ free wine tote)!
sale: $199                        retail: $246

*** This week only, as supplies last! ***
* No other discounts apply.

Cheers,

Jack
Proprietor
Free Range Wine & Spirits