Tag Archives: podcasts

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Winecast 75: Paul Tincknell — once more unto the wine crisis breach

Paul Tincknell
Paul Tincknell: “We’re buying and drinking less wine, and we’re continuing to do so.”

“Some of the glimmers of hope … really aren’t glimmers of hope.”

Paul Tincknell, the blog’s official wine marketer, is even more pessimistic about wine’s current crisis than I am. Which, as regular readers here know, is saying something. Our discussion about how to solve these problems included spot-on takes about the dilemma of alternative packaging like boxes and cans as well as the conundrum of natural wine.

Along the way, we also analyzed the crisis and ways out of it:

• There’s a cultural shift about what younger consumers are looking for. Call it better quality or more authenticity or whatever, and it’s something wine quite hasn’t figured out.

• Yes, prices are too high. “No industry has ever expanded with higher prices. … Unless the industry is going to tackle this head on, we’re going to see shrinking volume.”

•  The split between Big Wine and the rest of the industry. Paul says it’s too much to ask a 1,000 case winery to solve wine’s various problems, and the biggest producers — who seem reluctant to do so — must take the lead.

• Wine marketing needs to improve — quickly. “There needs to be a consistent message,” says Paul, about what wine is and why people should drink it. Maybe: Wine is something to drink every day. It’s worked for coffee, he says.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 24 minutes long and takes up 16 megabytes. Quality is excellent (save for a short false start). Yes, this is longer than usual, but it’s not boring and I throw in a teaching anecdote.

More wine podcasts:
• Winecast 74: Dave McIntyre and what’s coming for wine in 2023
• Winecast 73: Randall Grahm and ingredient labels for wine
• Winecast 72: Denise Clarke and the progress — and challenges — for Drink Local

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Winecast 74: Dave McIntyre and what’s coming for wine in 2023

Dave McIntyre
Dave McIntyre: The beginning of the end for bottles?

Don’t necessarily expect good news about pricing, availability, and smaller producers in this year, both here and in Europe

There’s a bit of light at the end of the wine tunnel, but we still have a ways to go before it gets actually light. That’s the forecast for 2023 from Washington Post wine columnist Dave McIntyre, whose measured analysis facing wine this year was quite impressive.

Dave and I have known each other since the before Drink Local Wine, which means we’ve seen a lot of wine trends come and go. In this podcast, we talk about what wine is facing in 2023, That includes:

• Expect higher prices for a variety of wines, including those from areas where the 2021 harvests were poor. That includes several popular regions in Europe.

• Also pressuring prices higher: Increased costs for glass bottles, as well as continued high-ish shipping costs. Dave says he has been told the pandemic’s supply chain shipping woes are starting to ease, but we’re not quite there yet.

•  The biggest losers in all of this? Perhaps the smaller, more interesting producers, wholesalers, and importers. who don’t have the margins or the economies of scale to adapt to this changing marketplace as well as the biggest wine companies. Dave says he would not be surprised to see some close this year.

• One piece of good news in all of this? Dave says higher glass prices could hasten the move from glass bottles to other, more environmentally friendly packaging — and that it’s past time for the chance to start. He says he has seen some fine examples of quality box wine.

• And Dave — because he is my friend — added his plug for putting ingredient and nutritional labels for wine. Conumers want to know, he said.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 15 minutes long and takes up 10 megabytes. Quality is good to excellent. And there is even a grimace from Dave, which I describe because no one can see it.

More wine podcasts:
• Winecast 73: Randall Grahm and ingredient labels for wine
• Winecast 72: Denise Clarke and the progress — and challenges — for Drink Local
• Winecast 71: Paul Tincknell and solving all of wine’s problems

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Winecast 73: Randall Grahm and ingredient labels for wine

Randall Grahm
Randall Grahm: Labels will force winemakers to do a better job of making wine.

“The consumer has a right to know what’s in their wine”

Few people have worked harder or longer for ingredient labels on wine than Randall Grahm, who was using them on his Boony Doon wines at least a decade ago. So who better to talk to about the latest developments in adding ingredients and nutrition fact boxes?

We recorded this podcast a week ago Sunday, a couple of days before the federal government announced it would start the rulemaking process to add the labels to wine, beer, and spirits. Not surprisingly, Randall — whom I’ve known for longer than both of us would care to admit — predicted we’d get the labels sooner rather than later.

Know, too, that Randall was on his best behavior — so no name calling or punny insults. Rather, just solid, sensible reasons and analysis about ingredient and nutrition labels and how to make them work:

• One of the reasons that labels have become more accepted- — the rise of the natural wine movement, which makes a point to talk about what’s not in the wines.

• Why so much resistance still? Additives are a crutch to make wine easier to make, he said — “artificial fixes. … If you had to put everything on the label that you put in the wine, you’d have to be a much more fastidious winemaker.”

• Wine remains confusing to most consumers; labels will help make it less confusing.

• There is room for discussion about what needs to be included.  Randall suggests ingredients that remain in the wine should be listed, so yes to sulfites and grape juice additives like MegaPurple.

• Most of the objections the wine business makes to labels aren’t necessarily obstacles. It’s possible to add the information to back labels without a crisis, he said, and this comes from someone whose labels were artistic. Most big producers can afford to add the labels; perhaps there can be an exemption for smaller producers.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 15 minutes long and takes up 10 1/2 megabytes. Quality is good to excellent.

More wine podcasts:
• Winecast 72: Denise Clarke and the progress — and challenges — for Drink Local
• Winecast 71: Paul Tincknell and solving all of wine’s problems
• Winecast 70: Ray DelMuro of Refresh Glass and recycling wine bottles

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Winecast 72: Denise Clarke and the progress — and challenges — for Drink Local

Photo od Densie Clarke
Denise Clarke

“You’re making a commitment to s special product”

Denise Clarke is one of the pioneers of the regional wine movement. She was there when we held the first Drink Local Wine conference in Dallas, worked with us for the Colorado event, and has been spreading the gospel ever since as a wine marketer and wine educator.

So who better to talk to about Drink Local, as much of the country celebrates its local wine month in October? We talked about the progress regtional wine has made, as well as the challenges that remain. Included in our discussion:

• Yes, quality continues to  improve, and those of you who haven’t tried a regional in a while should try again. Denise says she hears that a lot, and wishes wine drinkers would be more open minded.

• Hybrid grapes, which traditionally have been spurned by many winemakers and most wine drinkers, have come into their own thanks to the regional wine movement. We discussed chambourcin, which makes terrific varietal wine, but there are many others.

• Regional wine must do a better job marketing its product, focusing on what sets it apart from mainstream wine — that it’s less traditional, less formal, and more fun.

• One surprising challenge: That there are fewer wine writers interested in Drink Local — not because they aren’t interested, but that there are fewer media outlets that run regional wine writing.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 14 minutes long and takes up almost 9 megabytes. Unfortunately, the quality is not what it should be, and especially for the first minute. But bear with it..

More wine podcasts:
• Winecast 71: Paul Tincknell and solving all of wine’s problems
• Winecast 70: Ray DelMuro of Refresh Glass and recycling wine bottles
• Winecast 69: Nick Vorpagel and the dilemma of the independent wine retailer

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Winecast 71: Paul Tincknell and solving all of wine’s problems

Paul Tincknell
Paul Tincknell: We can’t buy ourselves out of wine’s problems.

The blog’s wine marketing guru solves wine’s generation gap and offers insight on making wine popular again

Paul Tincknell, a partner in the Napa marketing consultancy of Tincknell & Tincknell, is one of the really smart people in the wine business. And I would say that even if he wasn’t a long-time friend of the blog.

He and I have discussed wine’s problems many times — the generation gap, abstinence, premiumization, its reliance on the aging Baby Boomers, and so on and so forth. So I asked him to do this podcast to offer his perspective and his solutions, and they make very good sense.

Included in our discussion:

• Wine is not like beef or milk, where a one size fits all marketing approach — “Got Milk?” — could be effective. The industry is fragmented and splintered, and not just between big and small producers, but because of pricing. Milk and beef inhabit a narrow price range; wine’s is enormous, and high-end producers have little in common with those on the lower end.

• Wine spends very little marketing, anyway, and especially compared to beer and spirits. And no, we’re not quite sure why that is.

• Wine’s approach to its customers is wrong-headed. It sells them wine to drink for special occasions, and not wine to drink because wine is enjoyable. Paul describes this as “celebratory” vs. “cultural;” that is, no one sees wine as something to drink with dinner unless dinner is a big deal — a holiday, date night, or a dinner party. So why can’t we have a bottle of $10 supermarket wine on Wednesday night to drink with sheet pan chicken? Because the industry doesn’t encourage that. It wants us to buy a $25 or $30 bottle for a dinner that takes four hours to cook and requires expensive and hard to find ingredients.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 22 minutes long and takes up 15 megabytes. Quality is excellent. Even better, I hardly interrupted, save for one rant about too complicated recipes.

More wine podcasts:
• Winecast 70: Ray DelMuro of Refresh Glass and recycling wine bottles
• Winecast 69: Nick Vorpagel and the dilemma of the independent wine retailer
• Winecast 68: Clara Klein and restaurant wine after the pandemic

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Winecast 70: Ray DelMuro of Refresh Glass and recycling wine bottles

Ray DelMuro of Refresh Glass
Ray DelMuro: It’s all about rescuing bottles.

“People tell me they recycle wine bottles because of the way it makes them feel, but they ignore the economic realities of recycling.”

Ray DelMuro of Refresh Glass in the Phoenix area may know as much abut wine bottle recycling as anyone. His company has been doing it for 15 years, works with hundreds of thousands of bottles a year (soon to become millions), and keeps expanding. Currently, his company takes in glass from across the west coast.

So believe DelMuro when he says that glass recycling rates are so poor (less than one-third) because it’s an expensive, bulky, and awkward business, especially when compared to other recyclables. Paper and aluminum can be bundled and are relatively light and easy to load and transport, for instance; glass is none of those.

In fact, we had a fine discussion talking about why recycling economics are so crucial to the process, as well what wine drinkers can do to help:

• If you want to do more than leave your bottles on the curb, find a glass recycler in your area. Put the bottles in a box (preferably the one they came in), and make sure to remove the cork or screwcap.

• One key to expanded wine bottle recycling is finding new uses for recycled glass. These include fiberglass home siding, road building materials, and other construction uses.

• There is an urgency in the industry to improve that recycling rate, and more money is available for research and new technologies.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 17 1/2 minutes long and takes up 12 megabytes. Sound quality is very good to excellent.

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Winecast 69: Nick Vorpagel and the dilemma of the independent wine retailer

Nick Vorpagel headshot
Nick Vorpagel: $15 may well be the new $10 wine.

Nick Vorpagel: “We don’t carry Mark West pinor noir. I suppose there’s a place for that, but it’s not us.”

The pandemic’s supply chain problems don’t seem to be going away, and especially for small retailers. Throw in inflation and higher prices, and it’s not easy out there.

That’s the assessment of Nick Vorpagel of Wisconsin’s Lake Geneva Country Meats, the blog’s unofficial independent wine retailer. He says shipping woes have continued and it’s still difficult getting imported wine. Sometimes, European wine is in short supply and sometimes it’s Australia and New Zealand. Nick calls those rolling supply chain outages — “something is going to be short for a while, and you just don’t know what it is.”

Among the subjects we discussed:

• There seems to be little hope that wine prices moderate any time soon. This is from a combination of supply bottlenecks and large retailers gobbling up the wine that is available so that they don’t run out, further cutting supply.

• In addition, producers and retailers seem to be taking price hikes whether they’re warranted or not, just to be on the safe side. And discounts and wine on sale? Not anytime soon.

• All of which means it’s time to start worrying about what to drink during the holidays, says Nick. He says he has been told to order for Christmas this summer, a couple of months earlier than usual.

• Some values do remain, including South Africa, Spain, and Portugal (vinho verde!). South America? Not so much. And be wary if you see a fancy bottle selling for $15 with a 2020 Napa Valley label; it could well be smoke-damaged wine being sold under a different label. And we shed a few tears for the once-great Seguras Viudas cava.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is almost 25 minutes long and takes up about 17 megabytes. The sound quality is very good to excellent, though there is way too much giggling on my part.