How to Buy Wine Like Warren Buffett Buys Stocks
Thursday, May 14, 2009
"I call investing the greatest business in the world because you never have to swing. You stand at the plate, the pitcher throws you General Motors at 47! U.S. Steel at 39! and nobody calls a strike on you. There's no penalty except opportunity lost. All day you wait for the pitch you like; then when the fielders are asleep, you step up and hit it." -Warren Buffett
Earlier this week, I published the wwpQPR- a formula for defining wine value. Today, I'd like to show an example of how the wwpQPR can be useful. I'll be applying it to the top value wines we've talked about lately here on the site in order to find the *top* of the top values.
Here are some of the wines I've highlighted as being extraordinary values. Let's plug each of these into the wwpQPR Calculator (a widget on the right hand side of the site) and see what we find. To use the wwpQRP in its simplest way, enter the numerical rating for "Quality" and the release price for "Price". If you do that while keeping the Baseline Quality and Baseline Price fields at their defaults of 90/$20 you should see the values in parenthesis for each of these wines. I've re-ordered them highest wwpQPR to lowest:
- 96 Point/$29 California Sauvignon Blanc (2.76: Very good)
- 92 Point/$12 Italian Red (2.65: Very good)
- 95 Point/$27 Washington Cab (2.35: Very good)
- 93 Point/$24 California Zinfandel (1.67 good)
- 88 Point/$8 California Pinot Noir (1.57: Good)
- 91 Point/$19 New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc (1.33 Above avg)
- 92 Point/$9.60 Italian Red (3.31: Very good)
- 95 Point/$23.99 Washington Cab (2.65: Very good)
- 96 Point/$33.75 California Sauvignon Blanc (2.37: Very good)
- 93 Point/$16.99 California Zinfandel (2.35 Very good)
- 91 Point/$12.99 New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc (1.94 Good)
- 88 Point/$8 California Pinot Noir (1.57: Good)
- 90 Point/$9.60 Italian Red (2.08: Very good)
- 90 Point/$12.99 New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc (1.94 Good)
- 92 Point/$23.99 Washington Cab (1.35: Above avg)
- 90 Point/$16.99 California Zinfandel (1.18 Above avg)
- 92 Point/$33.75 California Sauvignon Blanc (0.94: Below avg)
- 85 Point/$8 California Pinot Noir (0.75: Below avg)
- 90 Point/$9.60 Italian Red $38 (3.96: Very good)
- 92 Point/$23.99 Washington Cab $33 (2.18: Very good)
- 90 Point/$16.99 California Zinfandel $35 (2.06 Very good)
- 85 Point/$8 California Pinot Noir $43 (1.69: Good)
- 90 Point/$12.99 New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc $19 (1.46 Good)
- 92 Point/$33.75 California Sauvignon Blanc $26 (1.22: Above avg)

- Outstanding Pinot Noir is expensive. Here are some of my favorites under or around $20: The Hunt for $20 Pinot Noir
- Malbec is a source of value. Here's one that was highly rated by the WSJ that Wine Spectator thought was pretty good too: WSJ Best Buy $10 Malbec 90 points for me- a wwpQPR of 2: Very good.
- I don't think it's been rated by any of the major magazines yet, but this sub-$10 domestic Riesling is delicious and affordable. I gave it 93 points for a wwpQPR of 4.44: Outstanding.
- Value wines aren't always cheap. I love the 2005 Cakebread Cabernet Sauvignon. I'd score it 93 points, and at around $65 a bottle, it's actually a good value if you consider $50 a baseline for outstanding Napa Cab. This wine would score 1.54: Good on the wwpQPR Calculator. You can read more about why I love Cakebread so much here.