No, Vintner Project, $30 wine will not bring Bud Light drinkers to wine
by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On
Why doesn’t anyone in wine – even those with the best of intentions – understand that price matters?
I am sure The Vintner Project is a fine organization with the best of intentions; I know several people listed on its members’ page, and they’re top-notch.
But how in the world did anyone there think this story has any relationship with reality? We’re going to convert Bud Light drinkers to wine by suggesting they buy a $40 Nebiollo sparkling? Which, by the way, has one listing in Wine-Searcher.
Is it any wonder I worry about the future of the wine business?
But there it is, a 2,000-word story with 15 wine suggestions to help beer drinkers discover wine, and yes, the mystical term “gateway wine” appears. But know that none of the wines cost less than $10, only five cost less than $20, and one goes for $90. And no, the “budget” wine club suggestions don’t count. How many people are going to send away for wine, sight unseen – especially when they aren’t wine drinkers?
And, lest we forget, a 12-pack of Bud Light – which is the equivalent of two-plus bottles of wine – costs $14.
This story, despite its best intentions, is everything that’s wrong with the wine business. It’s myopic, self-important, borders on patronizing, and is totally lacking in any idea about how most of us buy wine – and especially people who don’t drink wine regularly.
No, they don’t search the Internet for suggestions about wine to drink instead of 100-calorie beer. They go to the supermarket and stand in front of the The Great Wall of Wine, look for something cheap that has the word smooth on the label, and hope for the best. Even one of the beer drinkers quoted in the story admitted as much: “I’m happy to try a bottle of wine I know nothing about at home for a reasonable price.”
How does the writer not see that a $32 white blend that no one but she and her friends know about is not a reasonable price?
What else doesn’t the writer understand about the way the wine business works?
• The list is almost all “artisan” wines, no doubt because of the current assumption that anything else is evil. This is just wrong-headed; there are thousands of producers who aren’t Big Wine who make quality, affordable bottles. Charles Bieler’s Provencal rose, which costs $12 to $15, is just one of them. And Charles is hardly evil.
• When wine isn’t about price, it’s about availability. It doesn’t matter how super cool a wine is if no one can buy it. This is a lesson that the blog’s readers have hammered home to me almost every day for the past 17 years. Wine drinkers – and especially inexperienced wine drinkers – don’t want to go to some winery website to buy one bottle of something they’ve never heard of – and pay a shipping charge and wait a week for it to show up.
• Geekiness is not a selling point. I love the wines from the Txakoli region in Spain’s Basque country, and one is on the list. But they’re expensive, difficult to find, and not for all tastes. It’s the car analogy again – do we learn to drive on a Ferrari or the family SUV?
Finally, one more word about price. I love wine, write about wine, and have been drinking wine almost all my adult life. But I almost never buy wines that cost as much as the most expensive wines in the article. And if I don’t do that, and I know what I’m doing, how can anyone expect a beer drinker to do so?