Dan Murphy's and Other Wine Deals

Under Wraps currently has:
Thomas Hardy Cab 2013 $60 https://www.danmurphys.com.au/product/DM_576176/thomas-hardy-cabernet-sauvignon-2013
Craggy range le Sol $80 https://www.danmurphys.com.au/product/DM_MYSTERY411/under-wraps-hawkes-bay-syrah-2010
Austin & Co Delilah Pinot $25 https://www.danmurphys.com.au/product/DM_MYSTERY407/under-wraps-geelong-pinot-noir-2015

I currently have a Warrenmang 2013 Black Puma in my cart at $35. Can anyone recommend?
I had 2005 magnum Black Puma before, it was great! Again not quite sure about 2013. I have it in my cart as well.
 
Technically if they already agreed to price match the vintage makes no difference since the VC tag doesn’t mention specific vintage. From my experience so far some DM stores are easy while other wouldn’t match cellar release under any circumstances. It’s a hit and miss depends on which staff member works on the day.
One Dan's did say to me they wouldn't match a regular product with stock from their vintage releases. Ie, the 2016 St Peters with a 2008. Seemed fair to me as their current regular for that wine was a 2017 which was cheaper.
 
Under Wraps currently has:
Thomas Hardy Cab 2013 $60 https://www.danmurphys.com.au/product/DM_576176/thomas-hardy-cabernet-sauvignon-2013
Craggy range le Sol $80 https://www.danmurphys.com.au/product/DM_MYSTERY411/under-wraps-hawkes-bay-syrah-2010
Austin & Co Delilah Pinot $25 https://www.danmurphys.com.au/product/DM_MYSTERY407/under-wraps-geelong-pinot-noir-2015

I currently have a Warrenmang 2013 Black Puma in my cart at $35. Can anyone recommend?
I had 2005 magnum Black Puma before, it was great! Again not quite sure about 2013. I have it in my cart as well.

I have 6 in the cellar from last years purchase. I love the Black Puma, very big wines. I had a 2006 Magnum which was very nice, but not sure if the '13 matches it just yet, time will tell. If its anything to go on Langtons has the '13 valued at $55.00-65.00. It mght put a dampener of things, but I just checked back on my purchase history and I picked them up at Dans for $24.90 - $10 cashback, so $14.90 (it was 10% cashback on the RRP of $99.99) ........in hindsight I should have grabbed many more ;)
 
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I guess slightly related... But does anyone have a good recommendation for a red (Shiraz or cab) preferably between around $100 and $150 at dans. Won't be drunk immediately and held for a few years.
 
Under Wraps currently has:
Thomas Hardy Cab 2013 $60 https://www.danmurphys.com.au/product/DM_576176/thomas-hardy-cabernet-sauvignon-2013
Craggy range le Sol $80 https://www.danmurphys.com.au/product/DM_MYSTERY411/under-wraps-hawkes-bay-syrah-2010
Austin & Co Delilah Pinot $25 https://www.danmurphys.com.au/product/DM_MYSTERY407/under-wraps-geelong-pinot-noir-2015

I currently have a Warrenmang 2013 Black Puma in my cart at $35. Can anyone recommend?
What do we make of the Thomas Hardy price? Has it been cheaper? $130 currently at BWS, but that's just silly.
 
FC in camperdown in Sydney had one Sensi Barolo for $30 and a few WB platinum for either $80 or $90, I grabbed the barolo but left the WB P.
They had a good few cheap wines for $3 and $5 but I passed
 
Anyone been to a VC in Sydney in the last day or two? Do we know if they have been restocking the cellar sales or have they run dry?
 
As soon as a winey or wine seller starts telling me about scores I switch off. I literally had TWE call me a couple of hours ago telling me about some wine the Hooke and Halliday gave 97 points to. Also she mentioned it won a bronze medal at some wine show. So in a blind tasting it only scored a brone yet when it was known to the reviewers who are paid who knows how much by TWE it received a 97. Says it all really.

Halliday and Hooke and most other reviewers are not paid, do not charge for doing reviews. Sam Kim is about the only one that does charge a per sample fee, maybe Winestate too.

A wine show is not your typical blind tasting used by some reviewers, show results are a very poor indicator of the quality of a wine, particularly the fuller-bodied cellaring styles that are out of favour with chief judges these days. Some show classes are so big that 2-3 different panels are used and the results somehow claimed to be consistent.
 
One Dan's did say to me they wouldn't match a regular product with stock from their vintage releases. Ie, the 2016 St Peters with a 2008. Seemed fair to me as their current regular for that wine was a 2017 which was cheaper.

There is no logic in DM price match, it’s entirely up to the duty manager who can approve or deny anything. The range goes from “We don’t price match according to a photo on your mobile, we need to see the actual receipt” to “It doesn’t say the vintage on that photo so I’ll give you what we have in stock which is the 06”.
 
(And boring as scoring may be I'm very interested know what that wine was that got 97 from both Hooke and Halliday but showed poorly. Fascinating...)

Have a look through the National Wine Show results and note the number of high-priced and often well-reviewed elsewhere wines that scored a bronze or no medal at all. And to add to the elitist farce, many classes at the NWS require entries to have won a medal at "recognised" other wine shows and yet the medal allocation profile is about the same for other shows. Are NWS judges so much better and more discerning than at other shows? Not to that extent.

There have been (unpublished of course) studies of the correlation of any wine winning the same (or indeed any) medal across multiple shows entered in the same year. The correlation is very low.
 
There is no logic in DM price match, it’s entirely up to the duty manager who can approve or deny anything. The range goes from “We don’t price match according to a photo on your mobile, we need to see the actual receipt” to “It doesn’t say the vintage on that photo so I’ll give you what we have in stock which is the 06”.
im quite professionally chummy with a local DM store manager in VIC,
ive been trying to get the glenlivet 21 posted here for the past few days, called up general enquiries line twice but no success
but got told by my contact
"new head guy is really strict on price beat things, and has even said he is prepared to get bad online reviews over it,
best bet is to try a smaller store and you might get lucky"

I know you guys are talking about wine, and im talking about a bottle of scotch, so it might be a bit different
 
im quite professionally chummy with a local DM store manager in VIC,
ive been trying to get the glenlivet 21 posted here for the past few days, called up general enquiries line twice but no success
but got told by my contact
"new head guy is really strict on price beat things, and has even said he is prepared to get bad online reviews over it,
best bet is to try a smaller store and you might get lucky"

I know you guys are talking about wine, and im talking about a bottle of scotch, so it might be a bit different

Should not make any difference if it’s wine or scotch, policy is the same AFAIK. I would advise to try and price match in store rather than over the phone. When you call they must check the price online and more often than not will give you the “we don’t match clearance items” excuse.
 
Should not make any difference if it’s wine or scotch, policy is the same AFAIK. I would advise to try and price match in store rather than over the phone. When you call they must check the price online and more often than not will give you the “we don’t match clearance items” excuse.
yeah, next time I drive by a dans, Imight give it a try, but the scotch in this case is not on sale online :(
 
yeah, next time I drive by a dans, Imight give it a try, but the scotch in this case is not on sale online :(

That’s exactly why you need to try in store and hope they will be satisfied with photo of the price tag. DM sell Glenlivet 21 at $349 so you have good chance matching $216, will be harder with $149 as it’s less than half price but you never know...
 
Halliday and Hooke and most other reviewers are not paid, do not charge for doing reviews. Sam Kim is about the only one that does charge a per sample fee, maybe Winestate too.

A wine show is not your typical blind tasting used by some reviewers, show results are a very poor indicator of the quality of a wine, particularly the fuller-bodied cellaring styles that are out of favour with chief judges these days. Some show classes are so big that 2-3 different panels are used and the results somehow claimed to be consistent.

True. But (Halliday) at least does get paid (well his Wine Companion) if a winery wants to use his reviews. Now no winery is going to pay to use reviews that aren't favourable. So there is a financial incentive to be kind with reviews.
 
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True. But (Halliday) at least does get paid (well his Wine Companion) if a winery wants to use his reviews. Now no winery is going to pay to use reviews that aren't favourable. So there is a financial incentive to be kind with reviews.
At 82 and already wealthy and about to score big on the sale of his DRC stash, I don't think Halliday needs any more money. Whatever the reasons for the score creep over the past 5 or so years, financial greed would not play a significant part.

In the latest edition, the tasting load was shared by 6 others as well as Halliday.
 
I don't know about you guys, but there seems to be this sense of entitlement with DMs price match policy. Though we all like to try game the system, in this VC case, it should be with the expectation of failure. The policy requires a current advertisement, competitor stock availability, and location tests. While the latter two are rarely checked, a competent manager should at least require the former. And no, a price tag or receipt does not constitute an ad, it needs to be seen through another medium i.e. a catalogue or online website. So while there may be a few success stories this would often be attributed to managers discretion (to reach sales targets, clearing display space, etc). Just my 2 cents with dubious price matches: No expectations, No disappointment.
 

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