Someone once told me that determining the cost of a product is simply about charging what someone is willing to pay.
If we look back through history, especially in art, that idea feels a bit heavy. It’s said that Van Gogh only ever sold one painting in his lifetime, The Red Vineyard.
The new grower numbers for grapes came out recently and in one region a tonne of fruit has been valued at around $80 to $90. For context, that tonne would usually produce about 950 bottles of wine. At a retail price of $20 a bottle, that’s around $18,000 worth of finished product.
I’m no genius, but when a tonne of grapes is worth $80, that’s not a sustainable industry.
When I first started at Septimus and we did a pricing audit, my head was spinning. In wine, we talk in dollars per litre. It’s treated as a commodity. We’ve been trained to chase the bottom dollar and in doing so we’ve trained consumers to do the same.
I’ll never forget a blind tasting that had a 2010 Saint Émilion priced at $225 next to a 2017 Rosemount Shiraz priced at $17. My head was drawn to the Shiraz because it was fresh, punchy, plush and balanced. The Saint Émilion tasted like ponies and brined olives and sweaty saddle. I couldn’t get past it.
When I really delved into the story of Saint Émilion, I realised those vineyards were established long before modern marketing or brand building existed. The Romans had already planted vines there in the 2nd century, and a Breton monk named Émilion arrived centuries later to build a monastic community around them. It was never about chasing the bottom dollar. It was about faith, endurance, and devotion to something that took generations to perfect.
I didn’t realise it at the time but I was a product of fast consumerism. I’d lost sight of the history, the craft and the art. The art of waiting. We’ve been trained to reach for the cheapest bottle, the one that doesn’t sit in a cellar, the one that’s easy to open and post on Instagram. We’ve lost the patience to do our due diligence, to separate supermarket-owned brands from true winemaking.
We’ve become a society that buys the Van Gogh print instead of admiring the story behind the brushstrokes or the madness and beauty that come with a missing ear.
Technology has rewired us to take shortcuts. We buy convenience over craft. It doesn’t matter if it’s wine or mayonnaise, the goal now is to make something that’s ready to consume straight away, looks pretty, and can be shared online.
But in that we’ve lost sight of the story, of the risk, the waiting, the growers, the art. Because if you don’t have good fruit, you don’t have good wine.
At Septimus, as we build out our wine list, we’ve chosen to work directly with growers and winemakers. We’ve learned that navigating the distribution network can be tricky. There are appointments, allocations, and sometimes the stock simply runs out. But what we’ve also realised is that we’d rather be the ambassadors on behalf of the chain, the ones telling the story.
We hold back vintages so we can share the history behind each bottle. We adapt our list around experiences, connection and time, not trends.
And while I’ll happily enjoy a $20 Pinot by Busby and recognise it has its place, I also know where I’d rather see my four lots of twenty dollars go — straight into the hands of small, family-run businesses. The ones who aren’t in the business of printing money, but of love, experience and cultivating a sustainable industry.
So when you ask what you can buy for $80, the answer is simple.
You can buy a tonne of raw grapes.
That’s why it matters to support small, family-owned producers. The ones who are slowly being pushed out by $15 bottles on supermarket shelves. Because when you do, you might just be buying a Van Gogh instead of a reprint made to chase the bottom dollar.
Gracie