I was listening to a podcast on persuasion the other day and was struck by one of the first elements in persuading someone to buy something: the principle of scarcity.

If you have used Amazon before and noticed that an item has “only three left” or if a store salesman said “this is the last one left,” you know the power of scarcity. Numerous tests have shown that people are driven to buy something if they feel it may not be available if they think about it overnight.

It’s a principle that works in the wine industry just as well.

Screaming Eagle is the poster child, but there are hundreds of wine producers who drive up prices and sales by limiting production. In many cases, there is a waiting period just to lay your hands on a wine that can cost more than $300 a bottle. If they increased production, there would be no scarcity and thus no stampede to their door.

That was the case with iconic wines like Silver Oak, Caymus and even Dom Perignon whose productions are significantly larger than that of Screaming Eagle, Schafer, Opus One and others.

I got an offer from de Negoce, a reseller of wine owned by Cameron Hughes. The Napa Valley cabernet sauvignon was available from the producer for $195. Hughes was selling it for $27 — he gets the same wine from the producer with the understanding he won’t identify the source.

He wrote, “The winery bottled their portion and sold us the rest of the blend out of the tank so we have the exact same 100% Cabernet Sauvignon blend as the original bottling.”

In short, the original producer didn’t want to increase production and reduce the notion of scarcity.