This 1970s brand foreshadowed wine coolers and hard seltzers – complete with crummy advertising
One of the things about the wine business that makes me crazy is that there is nothing new – just the same stuff repackaged in a prettier label.
Case in point: This 1974 radio ad for a brand called Annie Green Springs, which was apparently a cross between Boone’s Farm and Thunderbird — aimed at both college students and urban audiences, neither of whom wanted to drink “real” wine. So fizzy, slightly sweet, and marketing-style fruity. How do Apricot Splash, Berry Frost, and Plum Hollow sound?
In other words, hard seltzer.
The ad, save for a few pictures that offer a sort of nostalgic pleasure for anyone who remembers those times (“Groovy!”), is terrible – corny and very dated, and the jingle is so awkward that Churro, the blog’s associate editor, could probably have written a better one.
The boom is off the spritz: Millions of cases of hard seltzer will join these cans on the junk heap.
This week’s wine news: Millions of cases of hard seltzer will be destroyed, as the boom fades. Plus, Ohio finally does something about its Prohibition-era shipping laws and wine doesn’t make a food trends list
• So much for hard seltzer? The company that owns Truly, the second best-selling hard seltzer in the U.S. after White Claw, will destroy millions of cases of the product. The reason? Hard seltzer goes off it sits too long, and millions of cases are doing just that on store shelves and in warehouses given hard seltzer’s stunning sales plateau this year. Hence, destroy the product rather than sell one that that isn’t fresh. The other thing worth noting here? Several wine companies jumped on the hard seltzer bandwagon; it will be worth watching to see what happens with them.
• Thank you, Ohio: Ohio, which has been almost Utah-like in restricting wine shipments into the state, has made it easier for consumers (and wine writers) to get wine from out of state producers. State law had forbidden wineries making more than 100,000 cases from shipping directly to consumers; it has lifted that restriction. That’s not a small winery, but it’s hardly big the way the wine business works these days.
• Absent wine? Wine used to make food trends prediction stories all the time; local wine was especially popular. But not any more, according to a list for 2022 from retailer Whole Foods. Instead, we will be drinking yuzu, a citrus fruit, as well as non-alcoholic cocktails. The big eating trend? Something called reducetarianism, in which we try to eat less meat, dairy, and eggs but eat high quality meat when we do splurge (which, not coincidentally, Whole Foods says it sells). The Wine Curmudgeon, who long ago cut his consumption of meat, eggs, and dairy, always thought he was following best medical practice. Who knew I was actually being super cool?
One trade editor even emailed me: Did you see this? Is there a story here?
So huge massive news, since hard seltzer’s growth over the past couple of years has often been cited as the reason younger consumers aren’t drinking wine. And, if true, raises another question: If hard seltzer has fizzed out, can the wine business relax? Does this mean younger consumers, bored with Truly and White Claw and all the rest, will reach for a bottle of wine?
The answer? No.
NO.
NONONONONO!!!!!!!!!
Hard seltzer, as noted here and elsewhere, was just one example of wine’s problems with younger consumers. It was everything that they think wine isn’t – cheap, low in calories, low in sugar, low in alcohol, low in carbs, and convenient. Pop a top, get just a little buzz, and smile. Anyone who thinks hard seltzer’s troubles mean they will move to a product that comes with an indecipherable label, requires a special tool to open, comes in mostly big bottles, and doesn’t disclose calories or ingredients is kidding themselves.
In other words, way too much of the wine business. Or as Wine Business Monthly columnist Jake Lorenzo put it recently, “A class system is developing, and the wine business is not only welcoming it, but we are driving it. In Wine Country things are not getting back to normal, they are wallowing in abnormal.”
Think of hard seltzer as a kind of fast fashion, cheap and interesting and then forgotten. So if it does wane (and the second link at the top isn’t quite so sure about that), younger consumers who see wine as bougie and old-fashioned will just find something else that isn’t wine.
Because that’s what has happened over the past decade. Yes, this month’s controversial Gallup poll may have had its flaws, but it didn’t miss the point. I talked to a leading European wine analyst for a trade story about something completely different; so, of course, we ended up talking about wine and younger consumers.
As we were looking at her numbers, I said, “These can’t be right. Your surveys show that wine has lost the two youngest generations in the U.S. and Britain.” And she nodded (it was a Zoom call), and said, “Yes, it has.”
