Thursday, April 4, 2013

The marketplace value of Jancis, Galloni, Asimov, McInerney and Matthews

Dinner with Galloni: more valuable than dinner with Jancis?
There's a charity auction for victims of Hurricane Sandy going on right now through Sunday afternoon, and that's a good deed and you should consider buying some wine. But what's really interesting is the price of dinner.

Four wine writers -- Jancis Robinson, Antonio Galloni, Eric Asimov and Thomas Matthews -- volunteered to have dinner with guests for the highest bidder.

In a different category ("The Good Life"), there's also a dinner with Jay McInerney.

This is a marketplace decision on which critic is what, most interesting? Most influential? Has the best table manners?

There is only a little variation in the offers. All five meals are at Danny Meyer restaurants, and I'm not a New Yorker so I don't have an opinion on which is best. With Robinson you get a bonus wine writer, Nick Lander.

You're allowed to bring five guests with Robinson, Matthews or Galloni; three guests with McInerney; but only one with Asimov. That's a big difference but I'm not sure the impact on pricing is predictable: fewer guests will depress group bids, but the dinner with Asimov will be the most intimate.

So who do you think will attract the highest bid?


When I first looked on Thursday morning, the bid for Galloni was $3,500 -- and the combined price of dinner with Asimov, Matthews (from Wine Spectator) and Robinson was $3,400. McInerney was in a solid second place to Galloni at $2,700.

Bidding ends Sunday night. Follow the action (or bid yourself, there are some nice wines on auction) here.

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5 comments:

David White said...

I wonder if bidders are factoring in the wine they'll likely drink -- I'd guess that the NY-based writers could dip into their collections and bring some interesting wines to explore. And I'd guess that a guy like McInerney has trophies, while a guy like Asimov probably has super interesting, esoteric wines.
(When Parker donates dinners to charity, he apparently always rolls into dinner with a solid case of crazy wines.)

W. Blake Gray said...

David: That's a very good point. In his book, Asimov says he doesn't have a cellar.

I'd be terrified to think what people would bid for dinner with me. They might not even pay for dinner.

Robert said...

Well Asimov better stop by the local Bev'Mo and pick something up! Would be intersting if Gary Vaynerchuk was included. I know he doesn't have the clout, but certainly would be entertaining.

W. Blake Gray said...

What's Gary up to these days, since he stopped the videocast? I know he still owns a wine shop, but I think he's a social media consultant now.

Anonymous said...

This is really fascinating. We all spend a lot of time discussing the subjective value of wine, but I've never had occasion to consider the subjective value of wine WRITERS.
I'd give a great deal to have dinner with Eric Asimov - I'd even bring the wine myself. ;)