Costco's High-End Wine Sets Are Shockingly Expensive
If you were to ask the average Costco member what inspired them to start shopping at the grocery giant, it's likely that saving money played a big part in their decision. After all, much of the appeal of buying in bulk is to get your money's worth. But just because most people flock to Costco for deals doesn't mean the store neglects those with luxurious tastes. From $800 cuts of Wagyu steak to enormous flat-screen TVs, Costco has plenty to splurge on. For the wine aficionados out there, you can even pick up a collector's pack of high-end wine — as long as you have an extra $30,000 or so burning a hole in your pocket.
Costco certainly has a vast selection of reasonably priced wine, but it also has multiple sets of shockingly expensive bottles. At just under $49,000, the most expensive of these listed online is a set of Château Haut-Brion, a historic French Bordeaux featuring a bottle for every year from 1970 to 2017. This collection and others like it are listed as "Pre-Sale" on Costco's website, so you will probably have to contact a manager if you're interested in purchasing. In the meantime, you may also want to consider shopping around at other Costco locations to save up money.
Wine for the price of a new car
The Haut-Brion may be Costco's priciest wine set, but crunching the numbers reveals that it equates to a little more than a thousand dollars a bottle. Believe it or not, this is a steal compared to some other wine sets. For example, a collection of Château Petrus is only $34,999, but with just six decanters totaling almost $6,000 each, it's technically the most expensive set per bottle. It's safe to say that walking out with one of these collections will definitely make the Costco employees double-check your receipt. Costco's website notes that Château Petrus can be stored for decades, so perhaps the main draw of these collections will be their value as investments.
If you don't feel like coughing up your retirement fund in favor of a few bottles of wine, the bulk retailer has a few cheaper collections in the $1,000 to $5,000 range. These sets also contain a wider variety of vintages, vineyards, and styles. Unfortunately, while Costco is expanding and making big changes in 2024, some of the perks are only available in California. Then again, when you're already spending tens of thousands of dollars on wine, an extra plane ticket shouldn't be too much of a dealbreaker between you and these opulent collections.