There has been plenty of buzz about the recent death of high end wine sales.
Here is an article that says high end wines will bounce back.
This recent story plays it safe about whether high wine will return to its former glory days.
But today's article from Wines & Vines is my pick of the lot because it includes an actual survey based on consumer feedback , from Wine Opinions.
Wine consumers were relatively neutral about some of the statements, as is normal for surveys.
But consumers were crystal clear about two issues.
1. They are not buying expensive wine and have no plans to return to the category anytime soon.
2. Wine consumers remain very interested in organic and sustainable wine.
There are a few issues at hand here.
One is the economic 'adjustment' we have all experienced this past year which has slowed our spending in every sector.
The wine collectors who purchase high end Napa Cabs tend to be older and probably have wine cellars. So first of all, they can sit tight through this recession and just drink their cellared wine. Secondly, most people agree that the older generation was hit hardest by the stock crash and tightened their belts even more than their younger counterparts.
But the other issue is a shift in consumer knowledge and purchasing patterns. Common practice for older wine consumers has long been to impress their friends and associates with a wine's pricetag (i.e. their income).
Millennial and Gen X wine consumers want to impress their friends and associates with the wine's story (i.e. their knowledge). All the better if the wine is from a small family farm in Sicily that nobody has heard of and costs $16.
These generations demand authenticity and celebrate the 'small guy' producer. And as a result, I think they will be willing to spend substantially more per bottle when the story and the quality is there.
But I do believe it will become much more difficult for high end California wines that do not warrant their pricetag. Sure their real estate was expensive and so was all that new oak for the big Napa Cabernet they made. That does not mean you can arbitrarily slap a $75 pricetag on the bottle.
I sense that the strong and unflagging consumer interest in organic wines and 'real story' wines will push CA winemakers out of their comfort zones.
Perhaps we will enter a new phase of wonderment at all of the vast differences in CA terroir that up until now have oftentimes been masked by new oak abuse and over-ripe fruit.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
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6 comments:
A couple of thoughts, Amy. You mentioned the serious collectors simply tapping into their collection until the recession passes. I think that people who are serious collectors aren't much affected by the recession...they continue to spend because they weren't part of a corporate downsizing or such :)
Also, you mention certain wines not meriting their price tag. I agree, and tend to be of the belief that the quality difference between a $45 and $450 bottle of Napa cab doesn't exist....the taste simply isn't 10X better. All this compounded by the fact that oftentimes, these collectors have no intention of drinking the blasted wine. The conversation almost always begins with “Oh, come here, you’ve gotta see what I picked up at the auction last week.” And you unavoidably get dragged down to the cellar where they dance over to a case of Cult Wine ABC, pull out a bottle and present it to you as if you were laying eyes on the Holy Grail for the first time. “Awesome! When will that be peaking?” you ask. “Peaking? I don’t know man, I’m never going to drink this! This is the find of finds…you know how much I paid for this?!? I want this to be around for my grandkids to inherit one day.” And you think, once they’re six feet under, you know damned well that one of those unknowing grandkids is going to stuff their “inheritance” in the trunk of their car on a hot July day and forget to bring it into the house for two weeks.
I think both are true. There are certainly serious collectors who have not felt much pain during this recession. But I know some collectors who have sizable cellars who have told me they have stopped buying for the moment and are drinking their cellars instead.
And yes, we have all met the 'Trophy Hunter' wine collector you so vividly portray. My reaction to them is....yawn.
Thanks Katie.
I love this post. After experience an earlier downsizing called single income parenting, I discovered the "love of the hunt" wine search works just as well for the under $20 wines (or better under $12) than the over $40 crowd. With some many négociants emerging it is an excited pirce segment to hunt and share with others
Amy - I like what you are calling Real Story wines! I think more than ever before Americans are searching for Meaning in their food and wine - they want to know Who, Where, Why, and How the food was made - the people and places and storeiss behind the wine.
Agreed Richard. Americans are searching for authentic stories or meaning in their food and wine.
We are maturing as a nation in regards to our culinary desires and knowledge.
We no longer have to go to Italy or France to find a tiny place in the country that has amazing local food and wine...we can find that in CA, OR, NY, WA, TX, etc
You make a couple of really good points here, Amy -- particularly about the wines that don't warrant their price tag.
I've been thinking about exploring a notion that I call "balance sheet marketing" which essentially means that wines will have to justify their cost to consumers above and beyond a normal margin.
good stuff.
Jeff
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