Fun With Numbers; Finding Wine Value
For numbers people, buying wine is simple; buy the ones that rate well by critics, at the most affordable price, for the best value. Neil Monnens decided to take some of the legwork out of it for these people when he launched his website in 2004, QPRWines.com. The QPR (or Quality Price Ratio) index comes to your email inbox 18 times a year for a $35 annual fee. In the free issue on Pinot Noir on the website, Neil explains that although this is a good way to gauge the overall value of a wine, this is just a guide, personal taste is just as important.
QPRwines is a wine buying guide that groups wines by the major critics’ average wine scores, then lists them by price and ranks them by value. QPRwines published 18 times a year (delivered via email) and answers the question “Is a 90 rated 2000 Bordeaux a good value for $18?” Each issue profiles a different wine and two recent vintages.
Finding the QPR of a wine is simple: group the wines with the same score, take a wines low retail price and divide by the average retail price of all the wines with that score. The lower the number below 100% the better. Check out the free issue from November 2004 to see how it works, it’s pretty straightforward.
With about 400 subscribers already, this side project is working out quite nicely for this 40-year-old San Francisco resident, whose day job is with an ad company that works with Microsoft. He claims that this project has opened his eyes to outstanding wine values from around the world. He hopes his subscribers share that same attitude.
Check out the website.[QPRWines.com]
Thanks Gregory for the tip!
