Three wines that give the WC more reason to worry about the future of the wine business

Why do producers – big and small – make and market wine in such confusing ways?

The samples and the e-mails for the samples keep arriving, offering wines that seem to have no relation to reality. So I ponder and ruminate: Why is someone making these wines? What’s the economic reason for these wines? Why would anyone buy them? Or are they just three more reasons to worry about the future of the wine business?

• A $45 Italian white blend made with chardonnay and sauvignon blanc. First, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc aren’t Italian grapes, so this looks like little more than a marketing project. Dig deeper and it gets even more bizarre: The link in the e-mail goes to the wine’s Vivino page, where the wine has a crummy rating and the Vivino algorithm compares it to wines costing $7.99. Meanwhile, this Arneis and this one – both much more Italian – cost less and have better reviews.

• A 15 percent Spanish tempranillo. Spanish tempranillo’s reason for being, save for a few Winestream darlings from Ribera del Duero, is elegance and grace, with a bit of rusticity for balance. Plus, higher alcohol wines are becoming less popular. So why would anyone make a Spanish wine that has the same amount of alcohol as a California fruit bomb? Isn’t it easier just to buy the fruit bomb?

• An email touting an $8 wine because it has a new label – “featuring the iconic Andes Mountain range, a bigger and bolder logo and easy to read color-coded varietal listing.” No one knows better than I do the quality conundrum inherent in supermarket wine and how difficult it is to sell those wines around quality. But isn’t there a better way to market it than to note a picture of mountains?