Tag Archives: wine business

This edition of Ask the WC: More about negative reviews, inflation and cheap wine prices, and more laments about availability

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

Dear Wine Curmudgeon:
A serious question, after reading about negative reviews on the blog. Aren’t you afraid someone is going to sue you?
Curious reader

Dear Curious:
The Supreme Court heard arguments recently on a case that may end my negative reviews, as well as the various parodies I do on the blog. The court will rule, probably in June, whether commercial products are protected from satire, despite the free speech protections in the Constitution. Frankly, I’m aghast the case got this far, and it speaks to the corporate capitalism that’s so pervasive in our culture and that making money is more important than individuals. How anyone can rationally argue that this dog toy affects Jack Daniels’ image in any way is beyond me.  If the court rules in favor of Jack Daniels, and it wouldn’t surprise me if it did, then I will stop the parodies and probably the negative reviews. The toy’s legal quandary is not exactly the same as that of a journalist, but I can’t afford to defend a lawsuit to make that point.

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Hey WC:
What are cheap wine prices doing with all this inflation?
Buys lots of cheap wine

Dear Buys:
Mostly what I’ve seen are prices up a couple of bucks, so a $10 wine is now $12 and a $12 wine is $14 or 15. Having said that, there is still a lot retail discounting going on. So, if the heyday of the $10 bottle is gone, we’re not paying that much more. Now, this analysis doesn’t include the various producers who are raising prices for no reason than to raise prices. But, thanks to any possible Supreme Court decisions, I don’t want to say what I think of that.

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Hi, Wine Curmudgeon:
Is availability getting any better these days, after the pandemic and all of that?
Trying to find your wines

Dear Trying:
I think so. But, as always, I can’t guarantee it. Just know the blog’s guidelines: A decent independent wine shop in a good-sized city should be able to get almost all of the wines I recommend on the blog.

Photo: Krakenimages via Unsplash

More Ask the WC:
• Ask the WC 37: Blog future, negative reviews, California rain
• Ask the WC 36: Restaurant wine, holiday wine, past vintages
• Ask the WC 35: Kroger merger, Fred Franzia, AVAs

This edition of Ask the WC: Will the blog continue, plus questions about negative reviews and all that rain in California

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

Hi, WC:
Are you going to keep doing the blog? I read all the stories on here about how people don’t drink wine anymore and I’m wondering if it’s worth your time to keep writing the blog.
Long-time reader

Dear Long-time:
That’s a fair question, and one I’ve thought about a lot over the past couple of years. In the end though, I always decide to keep going. Yes, it is more difficult to keep going s wine becomes less popular — who wants to write about something that fewer people are interested in? But, thanks to the Substack model, I’m making money; more last year in fact, than in the previous year and much, much more than I made in all the time the blog was free. So keep those subscriptions coming.

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Hola, Wine Curmudgeon:
Your negative reviews are hysterical — how do you think of that stuff? And why don’t you write more of them?
Still laughing

Dear Laughing:
Thanks for the kind words. Some of the review you mention even I like, and I am pretty hard on myself. Having said that, I don’t do more for a couple of reasons. First, any publicity is good publicity, and crummy wines don’t deserve any publicity. Second, I much prefer writing about wines worth buying.

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Dear Wine Curmudgeon:
You haven’t written anything about all of the rain in California this winter. Is that good or bad for wine?
All about the weather

Dear Weather:
It depends on who you ask. I talked to one very small grower, and he was thrilled to death. But given that so much of the rain flooded and then ran off every which way. it will be more difficult to say on a larger scale. One report said the rain helped, but there is still a long way to go.

More Ask the WC:
• Ask the WC 36: Restaurant wine, holiday wine, past vintages
• Ask the WC 35: Kroger merger, Fred Franzia, AVAs
• Ask the WC 34: Wine prices, wine and health, Ukraine

This edition of Ask the WC: Restaurant wine prices keep going up, plus questions about holiday wine and past vintages

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

Dear Wine Curmudgeon:
I went out to dinner with some friends at a high-end steakhouse, and I couldn’t believe the prices. How about $100 for a glass of wine? What’s going on there?
Chapped off

Dear Chapped:
I guess the restaurant wine business, faced with building its business back after the pandemic, decided to do it at one fell swoop with lots of high prices. I warned them about this (and took some flak for it), but it’s not all the different from the restaurant wine model before the pandemic. The irony, as one wine marketer told me the other day, is that many restaurants are still sitting on lots of wine left from before the pandemic. Meanwhile, business still hasn’t rebounded completely, so you’d think they’d be more reasonable about prices. In which case, apparently, you’d be wrong.

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Hi, Jeff:
Do you ever get tired writing about holiday wine? I’ve been reading your site for a while, and it seems like having to do the same stories every year would wear you out?
Just curious

Dear Curious:
You ask a question that used to drive newspaper food editors crazy in the old days (and may still do so — I haven’t talked to many in a while). How do you write what is essentially the same story every year and keep it interesting? I’m lucky that I’m just doing wine suggestions, which is far less difficult than finding a way to explain turkey roasting in a new and inventive way each holiday.

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Hey, WC:
You mention past vintages a lot. What does that mean?
New reader

Dear New:
Past, or previous, vintages are exactly that — everything that isn’t the current vintage. So if the current vintage is 2021, then 2020, 2019, and so forth are past vintages. That’s one way to tell the health of the wine business; if you see a lot of past vintages on shelves, then there is a lot of unsold wine in warehouses and in inventory. And that’s not a good thing, since it means a lot of wine is not being sold.

Photo: Marcus Herzberg via Pexels

More Ask the WC:
• Ask the WC 35: Kroger merger, Fred Franzia, AVAs
• Ask the WC 34: Wine prices, wine and health, Ukraine
• Ask the WC 33: Wine consumption, bad wine, Earth Day

This edition of Ask the WC: The Kroger-Albertson’s merger and wine, plus Fred Franzia and lots of new AVAs

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

Hi, Jeff:
You write a lot about the retail part of the wine business, and as far as I know you’re the only one who takes grocery store wine seriously. So how will this proposed Kroger-Albertson’s merger affect those of us who buy wine in the grocery store?
Worried

Dear Worried:
I’d be worried, too. This merger, announced last week, would turn the of the two biggest supermarket chains in the country into one. How do we know to be worried? Because the business media has fallen all over itself saying what a great idea it is. How can reducing competition for food — especially these days — be a good idea for anyone but the companies merging? Unless, of course, you think higher prices and less choice is a good idea.
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Dear Wine Curmudgeon:
Fred Franzia’s death seemed to cause a lot of controversy. Why was that? He just made cheap wine, didn’t he?
Cheap wine drinker

Dear Cheap:
Because, he made cheap wine, of course. And he liked to rag the wine business about it, which offended it that much more. I was surprised, though, at the vitriol when he died, and not just the Eric Asimov piece. I talked to several people in the wine business, who are otherwise quite intelligent and rational, and all were almost giddy about Franzia’s death. He had that kind of a reputation.
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Hi, Wine Curmudgeon:
I don’t understand  about all these new wine regions. Why is that?
Confused

Dear Confused:
Wine regions in the U.S. are called American Viticultural Areas, or AVAs for short. They’re supposed to highlight the wines of that region and show that the conditions in the region make the wines unique. They’re based on the European model, and for the most part do a good job — even for less known regions. The Texas High Plains AVA is unique, and much different from the Monticello AVA in Virginia. Having said that, they have become an integral part of wine marketing — call it a government seal of approval for wine quality. Which isn’t the case, and was never supposed to be the case. They’re just supposed to denote different geographical regions. So you can be excused for being confused.

More Ask the WC:
• Ask the WC 34: Wine prices, wildfires, supply chain
• Ask the WC 33: Wine consumption, bad wine, Earth Day
• Ask the WC 32: Wine prices, wine and health, Ukraine

This edition of Ask the WC: Why wine prices continue to defy the law of supply and demand, plus wine country wildfires, and good news — and bad — for the supply chain

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

Hey, WC:
How come wine prices keep going up? Or at least they seem to where I live (East Coast).
More cheap wine

Dear Cheap:
I was asked this question on this radio show and this radio show. (And please forgive the shameless, shameless, plug.) The confusion is that, as wine consumption has been declining, prices have been increasing. Which seems to defy the law of supply and demand. As near as anyone can tell, the price hikes are more about the cost of glass bottles and shipping than the price of wine. In addition, some retailers and wholesalers are raising prices just because.
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Oh Curmudgeonly One:
You haven’t written anything about wine country wildfires this year. How come?
Curious

Dear Curious:
Because, thankfully, so far, this season’s worst wildfires have avoided California wine country. In fact, I talked to the blog’s official wine marketer (who lives in Napa) about this the other day, and he said it has been a fine, pleasant and wonderfully normal summer so far. So let’s hope for the best.
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Dear WC:
What’s the latest on wine and the supply chain?
Geeky blog reader

Dear Geeky:
The good news, according to this story, is that much of the worst of the supply chain snafus of the past couple of years seem to be over. The backup at the port of Los Angeles, the busiest in the western hemisphere,  is one-fifth of what it has been. The bad news? Cyber-attacks, mostly from Russia and Europe. The story says there have been as many as 40 million attacks a month.

More Ask the WC:
• Ask the WC 33: Wine consumption, bad wine, Earth Day
• Ask the WC 32: Wine prices, wine and health, Ukraine
• Ask the WC 31: Pinot noir, minimum pricing, wine apocalypse