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March 21 2010

A Manifesto for Change in the Wine Industry Redux

One of the most powerful functions of a wine blog (or any blog for that matter), should the writer choose to accept a challenge bigger than themselves, is the ability to create positive change by shining a light on an issue(s) that might not otherwise attract the mainstream spotlight.

Advocacy of any sort starts as a solo from the voice of the lonely before turning into an A capella and then a choral piece before finally becoming majestically orchestral.

I find issue and policy work of any nature to be noble work done by noble men and women.

For this reason, I really admire Tom Wark from Fermentation for so consistently taking up the mantle of consumer and retailer choice in the wine shipping battle.  It is lonely work.  Many a man has taken up the cause in the wine business before turning to less Sisyphean tasks.

Nearly five years after the Granholm ruling, what many expected to be an epochal event, not enough has changed.  Tom presses on, logging miles to testify in courts hither and yon, while using his platform for something that serves the greater wine community.

The utter bullshit of our wine laws and the machinations of the three-tier hints at national partisan politics writ large.

Last week, in an ongoing salvo, Wark wrote one of the most lucid, cogent and compelling reads I’ve seen for why the three-tier system is irrevocably broken and unequivocally corrupt.  Tom published this screed, this manifesto, as a blog post – a 9,000 word blog post.

To me, Tom’s work deserves wider attention than what a 74-second attention span affords in a scan and flit from the page of the web browser.

With his permission from my request, I proactively formatted the piece into a white paper-like format and added a couple of flourishes for readability.  I touched nary a word of his otherwise dandy work.  Here, you can download, “A Manifesto for Change in the Wine Industry” by Tom Wark.

Forward to a friend, discuss it, talk about it, generally give this work life as a set of talking points for making wine shipping issues something more than an A capella, when the opportunity is orchestral.

August 6 2009

The Setting Sun on Luxury Wine

The wine sector “trading down” phenomenon has been much discussed.  While true and accurate, what hasn’t been discussed is the intangible and psychological aspect that may also be involved in a consumer flight to less expensive wine. Consumers might simply be tired of gilding somebody else’s lily.

In the dot-com era I worked for an Internet consultancy—the kind of place that charged a couple hundred of bucks an hour for consulting and projects under $150K were deemed too small to bother with.  We had dozens and dozens of Aeron chairs, a symbol of excess for that era.  And our offices … they were nice!  There was the requisite pool table, a de-commissioned race car hanging from the ceiling, and all of the accoutrements that said, “We’re important.”  The offices were too nice, in fact.

As a sales guy, inevitably, the first thing that would come up in a negotiation for a contract with a potential client would be the office space.  They would say, “Wow.  This is more expensive than I expected.  I guess you guys have to pay for that race car, huh?”  Annoyed sarcasm from clients aside, those were the good conversations, many were much worst.

The place really started to come undone when the CEO only started showing up 1/2 the time, driving his $80K car, while he managed a house remodel. Rumors ran rampant about the salary he was paying himself whilst the rest of us were underpaid to the market because, “it’s a start-up.”

The point is, internal to an organization, money is a fragile conversation.  Externally, people wanted the output of the project, but they didn’t want to pay for the trappings, real or perceived. 

Now, certainly, by way of analogy, I am not giving the bogeyman totem to luxury wine producers (those priced $25 and above), but I do want to point out, as a consumer, that there may be some rational avoidance of luxury wines that has nothing to do with saving ten dollars on a bottle.

We may just be tired of Aeron chairs that are expensive for the sake of being expensive and helping somebody else earn their next million. 

As the Wall Street Journal noted in a recent article on the luxury wine market (excerpted):

The slump continues as Americans continue to drink more wine overall.  Recession-weary consumers, however, are buying more mid-and low-priced wines, causing a sharp falloff in sales of wines priced at $25 a bottle and higher.

Total U.S. wine sales rose about 5% in terms of volume in the first quarter from a year earlier, but wines priced at $25 a bottle and up fell about 12%, estimates Jon Fredrikson, an industry consultant with Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates in Woodside, Calif.

So, we’re drinking more wine, but we’re buying less expensive wine.  Certainly the economic travails of our own pocket books are a prime suspect, but more importantly, is it safe to suggest that we don’t know what goes into wine pricing and, perhaps, many people, me included, don’t want to pay for somebody’s office space, or the wine equivalent – the luxurious trappings of the tasting room and/or the wine lifestyle?

As author and wine writer Thomas Pellechia noted to me, “Luxury wine pricing has always been and will always be based on what you can get away with charging.”  And therein lies the rub.

In a savvy consumer society when times are flush many of us will buy the more expensive bottle, even if it’s materially not worth the extra money.  I’ve never met anybody that could blind taste a wine and identify a price discrepancy in between a $25 and a $50 bottle, let alone the difference between a $40 and a $90 bottle.

Anything over $25 bucks is pricing for pricing sake.  To keep up with the neighbors, to get into a certain category at a restaurant, to justify yields and allocation, what have you …

Pellechia continues, “At $3000 a ton for grapes the raw material for a bottle of that wine will cost the winery $4. This is based on tonnage price alone, not on variety. If a variety costs as much as $9000 a ton, that’s $12 a bottle for the grapes (each ton gives about 150 gallons each; each 12 bottle case is about 2.38 gallons). Factor in the cost of bottles, labels, capsules, closure, and overhead, etc., it couldn’t possibly come out to $50 a bottle beyond the cost of grapes–could it?”

So, that’s the problem the wine industry is facing.  A thinner pocketbook, yes, but also the perception that what a consumer is paying for isn’t rationalized with a good reason for that cost.

I’ve done much research into wine pricing – academic textbooks and Internet research.  Nowhere, aside from a winery start-up spreadsheet, and a pithy graphic from wine negociant Cameron Hughes, is there any good information on how pricing is set for a luxury wine.

Circumstantially I know that wine pricing is more pig-in-a-poke than science, and by the facts this seems to be the case, as well.

According to a 1994 pricing strategy article in Wines & Vines magazine:

Ultimately, the pricing strategy used for marketing wines should be a function of the demand for wine.  Consumers are not directly concerned with the cost structure inherent in producing a commodity they are interested in purchasing.

Maybe 15 years ago “they” weren’t.  In 2009, I think “they” are.

Pellechia continued:

Of course, many wineries have to pay for that fabulous facility and their investor returns, and they have to also account for their volume – lower volume productions means having to charge higher prices in order to make a profit.

Luxury pricing is never, ever based on cost to produce …

In the aforementioned Wall Street Journal article it notes that many luxury producers are cutting prices, going on to say:

But such price cuts are taking a heavy toll on wineries’ cash flows, and could make it difficult for them to raise prices in the future.  “If you’re a $90 wine and all of a sudden you’re on the Internet at $50, how do you ever become a $90 wine again?” says Elliot Stern, Chief Operating Office of The Sorting Table, a Napa Valley-based wine distributor.

This certainly begs a couple of questions from a consumer perspective. If Fred Franzia is to be believed, that no wine is worth more than $10 a bottle, and demand for the high-end no longer outstrips supply, how DO you ever become a $90 wine again? 

The ultimate rhetorical question is: Do you have to be a $90 wine?

May 4 2009

It Seems to Me … 20 Thoughts …

Some days I feel like I’m in the belly of the beast and other days seem like I’m watching people enjoy life through the front window.  Either way, it seems to me these 20 thoughts are mostly true no matter whether you’re fighting the fight or living to see another day.

1) We are living in a GOLDEN AGE for wine.

Not enough people appreciate this notion …

2)  Drug addicts and wine enthusiasts ARE NOT too different. 

You know how they say that drug addicts live their life trying to relive their first hit?  That’s how I feel about opening every new bottle of wine as I try to recapture that moment when time, circumstance and setting collided into beautiful alchemy

3)  I AM NOT a critic

I am an analyst.  People, me, you, everybody wants help forming an opinion, and we all like arguing, but nobody likes a critic.

4) I AM NOT a journalist

Though, I have a journalism degree.  I write blog posts that are opinion-oriented with facts to support my opinion

5)  I AM an alpha consumer

And, as such, good marketing can sway me.

6)  For all the talk of TRANSPARENCY, not too many people talk about their weaknesses

Mine is French wine and understanding varietals to appropriate climatic conditions.  Cab Franc – warm climate or cool climate?  Who knows …? 

7)  Ethics are a compass for dealing with situations; integrity is a blanket for how you live your life.

8)  What separates good bloggers from GREAT bloggers is a clearly articulated point of view

I wish I had a POV that could be articulated ...

9)  In my MIND, I have never lost an argument

In reality, I come around to a differing point of view all the time

10) I am SUSPICIOUS of people who do not have books in their home

11)  I am EQUALLY suspicious of people who do not buy music

12)  There are more similarities between the music business and the wine business then there are differences

Indie band: looking for an audience.  Small winery: looking for an audience.  Wine as bottled poetry.  Poetry set to melody …

13)  13 years ago, hardly anybody had internet access at home or a cell phone

I am somewhat nervous about the year 2022

14) I live in a world that IS NOT black and white

15)  Robert Parker’s influence IS waning

However, the 100-point scale is his legacy

16)  People that CLING to power cast aspersions and throw out red herrings

Sometimes it works 

17) I HAVE reached my capacity to absorb information and make sense of it
 
18)  Post-recession we will live in a society that separates ASPIRATIONAL marketing from ESCAPISM and more than money will separate the two

19) I am SUSPICIOUS of smart people that dress horribly

20) I believe firmly, WITHOUT QUESTION, in the Law of 1/3’s

Everything takes 1/3 longer, costs 1/3 more and has 1/3 of the items unaccounted for.  Prepare accordingly.

April 26 2009

On Tradition and Champagne Cocktails

Tradition, whether mindfully created or observed over a period of years is important, and perhaps no more important than when carefully cultivated and observed in our own lives.

Simply, tradition is the glue, the tie that binds us.

In times of distress or uncertainty, our traditions act as a comfort, a point of solace.

How many people make a certain dish at Thanksgiving for no other reason than the fact that it has always been prepared?

For both host and guest, it is a comfort, and occasionally a memory.

Even more important, tradition is the fundamental bedrock for most every winery and the industry – a waypoint for their business and navigational aid for where they are going.

Consider, even the production of champagne is heavily governed by tradition with the méthode champenoise.

Several years back Indiana University’s football team willfully started several traditions, including a pre-game walk from the locker room to the stadium, a nickname for the stadium (The Rock) and a couple of other nuances that added to the tapestry of a program that has long been a doormat in college football.

Critics suggested at the time that this mindful creation of tradition was hackneyed and contrived.

Tradition is built, it is not created, said the chorus of naysayers.

I disagree.

Tradition is upheld and continually built upon—whether personal or for a business, a winery, for example.

My family and I have a lake cottage, actually more of a lake house, but we call it “the cottage,” because, well, that observes tradition.  The cottage was inherited from my Grandparents and my Mom.  I grew up going to the previous incarnation of the lake cottage, a time marked by so many fond memories that I cannot count them, and a fair share of traditions, as well.

Last year, we re-built a lake house on the same ground of the previous cottage.

In the process of doing so, we were careful to pay considerable homage to the traditions of the lake.

We did not buy much that is new for the cottage; instead, it was an assemblage and pastiche from here and there, with much held over from the previous cottage.  I am certain when I have toast on a Sunday morning in July, using the same toaster my grandfather used 30 years ago, before he went fishing, he is smiling somewhere down on me.  Ditto when I use a plate earned by my grandmother from collecting supermarket stamps, a set of plates that served dozens of fried chicken, coleslaw, corn on the cob and sliced tomato Sunday lunch.

This honoring of tradition does not stop with my childhood memories though; I want to create new traditions.  Simple things that I uphold that create fond memories of the lake.

To me, this is not a contrivance, it is a respectful act that continues to build upon the foundation of tradition laid for me – and it can act as a comfort and a memory for those that we entertain.

Amongst many ideas, but given that we host friends quite a bit, the nearest thing that I have come to that combines wine is a celebratory sparkling wine toast for every new visitor.

Given that, here is my new tradition – a choice of 12 sparkling wine cocktails that every friend can choose from to kick-off everyday celebrations at the cottage.

1) Death in the Afternoon (Sparkling wine and Absinthe)

2) Savoir Faire (Sparkling wine and St. Germaine)

3) Bellini (Sparkling wine and peach puree, garnish with maraschino cherry)

4) Undertaker (Sparkling wine and Jagermeister)

5) Black Velvet (Sparkling wine and Guinness)

6) Nelson’s Blood (Sparkling wine and Port)

7) Goodnight Kiss (Sparkling wine, bitters, Campari, and a pinch of sugar)

8) Green Dragon (Sparkling wine and Midori)

9) Mimosa (Sparkling wine and Orange juice)

10) Morning Glory (Sparkling wine, Orange juice, triple sec)

11) Lake Webster (Sparkling wine, triple sec and cranberry)

12) Kir Royale (Sparkling wine and crème de cassis)

Tradition, unfortunately, in our go-go world, is oft neglected or overlooked, despite the fact that it gives us comfort. 

We often look back at fond memories with nostalgia, the traditions creating a fondness for days gone by, while, unfortunately, not paying heed to creating an opportunity for those same traditions to develop over time for a point in time in the future.

My challenge to each wine enthusiast, young and old, is to create some level of wine tradition in their life and carry that through with friends and family.