After last week's class I've been fascinated with pricing in wine. Far Niente is able to price at up to $180 per bottle for its cab sav. Furthermore, it's able to price its associated branded wines at a premium price point purely because of the legacy and powerful brand of Far Niente. The Chardonnay at $60 per bottle was excellent but I wonder whether the taste and quality is really >3x Charles Krug's Chardonnay priced at ~$20 per bottle. Peter Modavi mentioned that Charles Krug was a essentially a price taker in the mid market $20-40 segment.
This reminds of two publicly listed wine companies in Australia. One is called Treasury Wine Estates (TWE), owner of Australian's best known premium wine brand "Penfolds" and many others. The other is called Australian Vintage (AVG). For some context, TWE is ~ 10x larger than AVG with AUD2.7 bn in revenue vs AUD 275 million for AVG but trading at almost twice the valuation based on LTM TEV/EBITDA and P/ LTM earnings. A material amount of the difference is likely due to economies of scale e.g., fixed costs spread over greater sales units, and TWE has greater negotiating power over grape suppliers, distributors, and other customers. Another explanation for the value premium is that TWE's gross margins are around 43% vs AVG's of 26%. Some of TWE's brands such as Penfolds play in the ultra premium segment and they have been able to scale this. A lot of TWE's brands will be found at prominent business dinners in China. I doubt you would find many or any of AVG's there.
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