WineInk: The conversation

I stepped into a local wine shop/liquor store in the mid-valley this past week to pick up a bottle of rosé and overheard an interesting conversation that made me think a bit about the business of wine and the state of the industry. I thought I’d share.

The owner of the shop was standing behind a desk/table upon which sat three bottles of open, uncorked wine. Across from him was a wine representative who had brought the wines with him in a backpack. Each was holding a glass with a little red wine, and the body language of both indicated that they were friends who had spent many afternoons in this exact situation in the past as they met to do business. I had selected my bottle of rosé from the cooler (a pithy but pretty bottle of Charles Smith Wines “Band of Roses” from Washington State) but stuck aroundm so I could eavesdrop on the conversation behind me.

“This is great,” said the shopkeeper as he swirled the wine in his glass and tasted what I saw from the label on the bottle was a Sonoma Coast pinot noir made by a producer I had not heard of. “But I just don’t have the shelf space for another California pinot in the $40 range that I have to hand-sell because people don’t know what it is.”

The rep explained that the winemaker was a young buck who had worked previously for a pedigreed producer and that the wine had gotten a 94-point review from such and such, but it was clear he had heard this before from other accounts and knew that he would likely not make a sale on this wine.

As I looked around at the shelves in the shop, I saw maybe 15 wines that mirrored the description of the wine the rep was trying to introduce, and some had been marked down in price. The majority of the store was packed with stacked wines that were familiar to most, and the differentiation of this shop from others up and down the valley was the price points offered. Most shops carry, for the most part, the same stuff.

I left with my bottle of $15 rosé and, as I headed home, I thought about how much the business of wine has changed over the last few years. For one thing, from craft beers to craft gins, craft vodkas, craft tequilas, to craft crafts, there is just so much more competition in the marketplace these days for the shelf space in the average liquor store. Where there used to be room for shops to experiment in their wine selections and take a chance on a cool, new producer with a cool-climate pinot noir from a cool vineyard, there is just less room.

And then there is the glut of wines currently on the market. There are so many wines that meet the same description available from both large, consolidated wine companies as well as mom-and-pop producers that it is hard to keep track of what is what on the shelves. Competition and confusion can make for a difficult sales environment.

Add to that the changing habits of the current Gen Z and the young consumers who have been eschewing wine and spirits for their weekend repasts. And the concerns consumers have about the health implications of alcohol are also making an impression.

All of this impacts those who make their living in wine.  

That wine rep who was trying to sell that bottle of pinot noir and the shop keeper are just the final players in a process that began years before, when a vineyard was planted on a rugged hillside to grow pinot noir grapes. It is amazing to stop and consider how many people played a part in making that bottle of limited-production craft pinot noir on that table and the number of people who had a thumb in the process of getting it there.

Between the time that vineyard matured and the wine was bottled, there were lawyers reviewing contracts for grapes, laborers tending the vines, coopers selling barrels, glass being purchased, marketing people creating labels and packaging, winemakers making decisions, bottlers filling the bottles, distributors distributing, wine reps trying to get the wines into the shops, and retailers selling the final product to consumers. It takes an army to produce a bottle of wine and eventually get it to into your glass. When business is bad, it affects each and every member of that collection of people who make their living in the wine industry.

The good news is that this is the time of year when hope springs eternal in wine country, as the harvest season is underway. For most of the West Coast wine regions, the prospects seem to be pretty good as the growing seasons were, if not uniformly favorable, largely so.

You may have heard about the fire near Calistoga on the northeast edge of the Napa Valley that started last weekend and was dubbed the Pickett Fire. Thanks to heroic work by the fire officials and kind winds, that fire moved up and out of the valley to the east. Though there were vineyards on Howell Mountain and in the Pope Valley that were shrouded by smoke, the vines on the Napa Valley floor have, as of this writing, been spared the effects of the fire. Let’s hope the optimism and the reality remain fruitful.

In the meantime, as a wine lover, you can do your part by continuing to buy wine.

Be a part of the conversation.