Tag Archives: wine availability

The final wine availability post

Frustrated computer user
“No… not more about wine availability!”

Because it’s not going to get any better, so we just have to accept it the way it is

I got an email the other day from a wine marketer who wanted to send me a sample that was only available from the small winery that made it. No thanks, I said. If I ran a review of a wine that no one could buy save directly from a small winery, my readers would – to put it politely – offer a complaint or two.

In other words, nothing much has changed in wine availability since I wrote the blog’s first post almost 16 years ago. It’s as much of a pain today as it was then. There are only a handful of national brands available in much of the country, and most of those aren’t worth writing about on the blog.

Hence, my attempt at what I call “generally available” – that an independent retailer in a decent sized city can order it from a wholesaler if the retailer doesn’t carry it. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, it’s not great, but it’s better than all of the others.

The irony here is that almost everyone, including me, expected availability to get better in those 16 years – the Internet and all of that. But it never did, for reasons we’ve covered before on the blog. And, unfortunately, it looks like availability isn’t going to get any better, no matter how much we want it to,

So consider this the final availability post, for the following reasons:

• Consolidation among wholesalers. The top two control about half the market and the top 10 control about two-thirds (the last time I looked – it might be more now). That means wines from small producers have less of a chance of getting distribution, and without a distributor they can’t be sold in the U.S. And the term “smaller producers” increasingly means a company that makes less than 300,000 cases. Which could well be about 90 percent of the wineries in the world.

• Retailers are less willing to take chances. This was one of the biggest surprises I found when I wrote the grape glut story. Retailers, for a variety of reasons, are more hesitant about stocking wine that doesn’t come with a best-seller pedigree. Which could also be about 90 percent of the wines in the world.

• No help from the courts. Many of us thought the three-tier system would die a well-deserved death sometime in the past 20 years, thanks to the various lawsuits filed against it. But the system has endured; almost every federal court decision has supported it. My friends who work to end three-tier may disagree with me, but I don;’t see that changing.

Update: Wine availability, and why it makes so many people angry

Man in wine store
“That bleeping wine writer. Why doesn’t she write about wine that I can buy in the store next to my house?”

Once again, the WC tries to parse this availability thing and restore calm to the wine drinking universe

The following is mostly a true story. The names were changed to protect the guilty (though I doubt they would even notice):

Big-time wine writer (not me): “So, you have a question about wine availability?”

Reader: “Yes, and I am furious. You never list any wine shops in my city. What’s wrong with you?”

Wine writer: “Well, there could be a lot of reasons for that. What city do you live in?”

Reader: “I live in City A. Are you being paid not to list any shops in my city?”

Wine writer: “Of course not. No one in City A carried the most recent wine. But there are shops listed in City B. That’s right next to City A, isn’t it?”

Reader: “Why should I have to drive there? This is all your fault.”

Ain’t wine availability grand?

I’ve been grappling with this subject since I did my first wine story in the 1990s. It almost wrecked a friendship with one editor, who refused to believe that every store didn’t carry every wine – because that’s how it worked for everything else. And I did lose a wine writing gig because another editor never understood that, and just assumed I was lazy.

So if I had trouble explaining the concept to editors, the above-detailed story should come as no surprise. I’m a wine drinker. I go to a wine shop. So where the hell is the damned wine?

Would that it were that easy.

The most important thing to understand about wine availability? Just because a wine is in one shop in one city in one state doesn’t mean it will be anywhere else in the world. There are a variety of reasons for that – three-tier, the whims of shop owners, how much of each wine is made each year, and the politics and foolishness that are inherent in wine. But regardless of the reason, it’s about the only absolute in wine availability.

My job as a wine writer is to find and write about wines that are – all together now – generally available. Otherwise, what’s the point? Many of my colleagues write about wine that almost no one can buy. This might make them feel special, but they’re doing a disservice to their readers.

And – all together now – generally available means that a decent independent wine shop in a medium-sized city should be able to find the wine. I won’t write about a wine unless I get the sense that’s the case.

Because, as much as I would like to, I can’t guarantee the wine will be in a shop in City A. No one can. Given the flaws in the system, be glad if you can drive to City B to buy it.

More about wine availability:
• The dilemma of wine availability, why you’re so angry about it, and why it just won’t go away
• Ask the WC 14: The wine availability edition
• Eric Asimov and wine availability

Treasury cheap wine

Ask the WC 14: The wine availability edition

wine availablityThis edition of Ask the WC: Wine availability, and why can’t I buy what you’re writing about?

Because the customers always have questions, and the Wine Curmudgeon has answers in this irregular feature. This time, I answer the dozens of recent comments and emails from readers about wine availability, which has apparently been driving everyone crazy. You can Ask the Wine Curmudgeon a wine-related question by clicking here.

Hello, Wine Curmudgeon:
I love your blog, and you make me laugh. But I can’t always find the wine you recommend. Is that me? Or am I missing something?
Can’t find the wine

Dear Can’t:
It’s not you. It’s not even me, despite what some readers think. It’s the way wine is sold in the U.S. Every wine on a store shelf has to have a distributor. The retailer, no matter how large – even as big as Costco – can’t buy wine directly from the producer. That’s the law (and our old pal), the three-tier system. Some wines, for whatever reason, won’t have a distributor in all 50 states. I try to review wines that should be available in a quality independent retailer in a mid-sized city. My only other choice is to do Big Wine products, which are available in most places, but what’s the point of that?

•

Dear WC:
I’m getting annoyed going to my local supermarket and not being able to find the wines you write about. It happens all the time. Why don’t you write about wines I can buy there?
Tired of the hassle

Dear Tired:
It’s not my fault. Honest. It’s the three-tier system, because you can’t buy wine like you can buy ketchup and laundry detergent. Grocers, for a variety of reasons, usually carry different wines than the ones I review. It doesn’t mean you can’t find the wines I recommend in supermarkets. It’s just less likely, and why I suggest looking for a quality independent retailer.

•

Hey WC:
I really like a nice glass of rose. I lived in the New York City area for years, but have just moved back to home, a smallish city in the Midwest. Not as easy to find good wine, and especially the rose that I like. I tried Wine.com and Wine-searcher — no luck. Can you help?
I want my rose

Dear Rose:
Welcome to the joys of availability. Go to a good independent retailer and ask them to check if the wine has a distributor in your city. That’s not difficult, but not every retailer will do it. If the wine is available, the retailer can order it from the distributor even if they don’t ordinarily carry it. Again, not difficult, but not every retailer will do this. Hence, my recommendation of a quality independent retailer. Finally, you may have to accept that the wine doesn’t have a distributor in a smaller market. Or, even if it does, the distributor may not carry it. That’s another example of why three-tier is so infuriating.

More Ask the Wine Curmudgeon:
• Ask the WC 13: California chardonnay, grip, affordable wine
• Ask the WC 12: $5 wine, varietal character, negative reviews
• Ask the WC 11: Arsenic lawsuit, marijuana, wine competitions

Wine availability, and how it drives readers crazy, too

Wine availabilityThe email from the reader (paraphrased here) was direct: “I put together a list of 15 of your recommendations and searched online at two big West Coast chains, two of our local retailers, and was only able to find 4 out of the 15 wines. That’s mostly the same experience I’ve had with recommendations from the wine magazines. The wines just aren’t available for ordinary folks. What’s going on with how you determine wine availability?”

Ouch. “Mostly the same experience with the wine magazines”? “Not available for ordinary folks”? So much for 20-plus years of writing about the wine that most of us drink.

Welcome, once again, to the horror that is wine availability, the bane of my existence as a wine writer. I’ve written about this many times, and despite the changes in the wine business over the past 20 years, wine availability has not gotten any better. As this reader noted, it may actually have gotten worse.

How can this happen in the age of the Internet, where we have more retail choices than ever? Much of the blame lies with our old friend three-tier, which requires producers to do more work than they want to do — or are capable of doing — to sell the same wine in each of the 50 states. But that’s not the only reason:

? That there aren’t any national wine retailers, the way there are for supermarkets. The biggest chains, like Total Wine, are only in 15 states, so what does someone do in the other 35 if I write about a wine I bought at Total?

? That there aren’t any national brands in wine, like there are in other consumer goods. Every grocery store in the country is going to carry Heinz ketchup, but there is no brand similar to Heinz in wine. Even Barefoot, the best-selling U.S. wine, isn’t in every supermarket.

? The growth of private label wine, and especially in grocery stores and the largest chains. If they’re carrying more private label, there is less room for the wines that I write about, which are almost always not private label.

? The idea that European imports are less available as one moves west across the country, so that Italian, French, and Spanish wine is going to be more difficult to find in California than in New York.

So all I can do is to keep making the effort. I buy wine at supermarkets like Kroger, specialty grocers like Whole Foods, large retailers like Total, independent retailers in Texas, and national chains like World Market. My approach is that if the producer makes enough wine that I can buy it at one of those stores, it should be generally available in a decent-sized city with quality retailers. This way, I have the best chance of avoiding the 800-case wines that the Wine Spectator seems so fond of. And the first question I always ask when I get samples? “Who is the distributor?”, because if it is too small or too niche-driven, the wine won’t be easy to find.

But this, as the reader noted, is no guarantee. My only consolation? That if Franz Kafka had been a wine writer, we’d have a new definition for Kafkaesque.

More about the dilemma of wine availability:
? Wine availability: Whose fault is it anyway?
? Wine availability: How to find what you ?re looking for when it ?s not on the shelf
? Eric Asimov and the dilemma of wine availablity

Ask the WC 7: Winespeak, availability, Bordeaux

winespeakBecause the customers always have wine questions, and the Wine Curmudgeon has answers in this irregular feature. Ask me a wine-related question by clicking here.

Wine Curmudgeon:
You use the term structure for wine, which sounds like a lot of jargon to me. What does structure mean?
Confused by language

Dear Confused:
Think of a wine’s structure like the structure of a house. A house has to have a foundation, a floor, and a roof. Leave one of those things out, and you don’t have much of a house. A wine, regardless of price, needs structure, too, and that includes tannins, fruit, and acidity in the proper proportions. Leave one of those out, and it’s like a house with a crappy roof — livable, but why would you want to?

?

Hey Curmudge:
Where do you buy your wine? I know you try to find wines that are available, but how do you do it?
Curious consumer

Dear Curious:
I’m one of the few wine writers in the country who buys wine to review, and it’s probably more than half the wines I do. The rest come from samples that producers send, and that number has fallen significantly since the recession. I shop for wine at least once a week in two or three places. I go to grocery stores like Kroger and Albertson’s, independent wine shops (Jimmy’s and Pogo’s are two of the best), chain wine shops (we have Spec’s and Total Wine in Dallas), and specialty stores like Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, and World Market. That way, I can compare prices, see who has what, and talk to retailers and customers. I enjoy this, not only because it’s part of a job that I like, but because I come from a long line of retailers, and learned to appreciate this stuff when I was a kid.

?

Jeff:
I have tried a few red Bordeauxs, and most are not very good in the $10-$20 range. I like many California cabernet sauvignons and red blends, and am not put off by the “earthiness” of French wines. But most of the Bordeauxs I ?ve tried are just harsh and bitter. Any suggestions for reasonably priced Bordeaux would be appreciated.
Searching for French value

Dear Searching:
You aren’t alone — Bordeaux has priced most wine drinkers out of its market, whether from greed, infatuation with China, or French stubbornness. It’s almost impossible to find quality red Bordeaux for less than $20 a bottle, as you note (Chateau Bonnet and one or two others being the exception). Instead, we get poorly made wine, whether with unripe grapes or raw tannins — just like the bad old days. Ironically, we talked about this in my El Centro class last week, that the wines that most Americans used to drink to learn about wine are now too expensive for most Americans to drink.

More Ask the Wine Curmudgeon:
? Ask the WC 6: Box wine, wine closeouts, open wine
? Ask the WC 5: Getting drunk, restaurant wine, wine reviews
? Ask the WC 4: Green wine, screwcaps, mold

Ask the WC 3: Availability, prices, headaches

Because the customers always write, and the Wine Curmudgeon has answers every month or so. Ask a wine-related question by clicking here.

WC:
I just returned to the U.S. from a three-year stint in the UK where cheap Bordeaux is a plenty at Sainsbury or Tesco. Before we left, we spent a week in Sicily and I stumbled into the Cusumano wines. Amazing stuff. What is the best way to purchase in the U.S.? We now live in Tennessee where you have to go to a package store to buy wine! Insane. Please advise.
Baffled by the three-tier system

Dear Baffled:
You aren ?t the only one. I get more availability questions than anything else; hence this post and this one, which should answer all your questions. Basically, first ask your retailer, and if that doesn ?t work, start Googling. You ?re spot on with the Cusumano, by the way. Love those wines. And I ?m jealous about the Bordeaux.

?

Dear Wine Guy:
You write a lot about how Americans buy cheap wine, but that no one pays enough attention. But maybe there ?s something you ?re missing. Do we buy cheap wine everywhere that sells wine, or only at certain places? Like do fine wine shops sell more expensive wine?
Wondering about prices

Dear Prices:
That ?s one of the best questions I ?ve ever received, and I don ?t know there ?s an exact answer. I consulted a bunch of really smart wine people, and we came up with these proportions, but there ?s no guarantee to their accuracy: About two-thirds of the wine sold at a mass market retailer like Walmart costs $12 or less and 80 to 90 percent of the wine sold at a grocery store costs $12 or less. At a fine wine shop, the numbers for a mass market retailer are likely reversed, so two-thirds of the wine sold there costs $12 or more.

?

Hey Wine Curmudgeon:
I have a friend who says she can drink beer OK, but wine, white or red, gives her migraine headaches ? and fast. Any clue as to what is the culprit?
My head hurts

Dear Head:
I have written about headaches, perhaps the great urban myth of wine. About one percent of the U.S. population is allergic to sulfites, which can cause the headaches. The rest of it, says one of the leading researchers in the field, is auto-suggestion. So there is a chance it is sulfites, though a small one ? and one she can test with dried apricots, which have 10 times the sulfites of wine. The other culprit might be histamines, common in wine and which can cause allergic reactions. But beer has histamines, too. So this is where I say I ?m not a doctor, and suggest asking one.

Wine availability: How to find what you’re looking for when it’s not on the shelf

Wine availability: How to find what you're looking for when it's not on the shelf
So much wine, but so much that never seems to be available.

Wine availability is the bane of any wine writer’s existence. Even the Wine Curmudgeon, who only writes about wine that I see on a store shelf or am assured is on a shelf on pain of my considerable wrath, gets emails all the time asking why something I wrote about isn’t available.
There are a variety of reasons for this, most of which are discussed in the link above. The point of this post is to help you find wine when your local retailer doesn’t have it.

The caveat in all of this is that wine availability varies from store to store, city to city and state to state. As Michigan State’s Phil Howard noted in his landmark study of the wine business, there are no national brands, and availability is one confused mess.

So these pointers should work — but it doesn’t mean they always will:

• Ask the retailer to check his or her distributor books. More wines exist than any retailer can possibly carry, so just because they aren’t in the store doesn’t mean they aren’t available. A distributor book lists every single wine — often thousands for the biggest distributors — that can be sold at retail in that market, and many markets have at least a half a dozen distributors. If the wine is in one of the books, a good retailer will get it for you.

• Check with the winery. Obviously, if you can buy it from them, so much the better. But if you can’t (thank you, three-tier system), send an email, and there’s a decent chance you’ll get a reply. The best solution: Some producers have database apps on their site, like this one from Terlato, that let you search for their wines in your area.

• The importer should know. If the wine is not made in the U.S., there’s a line on the back label that says “Imported by such and such.” Look for the importer’s web site; sometimes, they’ll have a database app. More likely, you’ll have to send an email.

• Look for on-line retailers like Wine.com. This comes with the proviso that on-line wine sales are notoriously annoying, what with shipping charges and state laws designed to restrict on-line sales.

• Use Wine-Searcher.com. Plug in a wine, and this site will tell you who carries it (as long as the retailer has paid to be listed in the results). Despite its limitations, which include results that aren’t consistent from search to search and outdated retailer availability, it can be quite helpful. And the free version is usually sufficient. One visitor to the blog used Wine-Searcher to find a wine I had reviewed that wasn’t available in her market, but was at another retailer in her state who shipped it to her.

• Send me an email. Believe me, I don’t mind forwarding it to the producer or importer.