Winebits 683: Direct shipping, low alcohol, Brexit

This week’s wine news:  We’re buying less expensive wine via direct shipping, plus the demand for low alcohol wine and Brexit wine woes

• Prices drop: The pandemic, which has boosted sales for wine on-line and via direct shipping from wineries, has also cut the average price of wine bought the latter way. Ship Compliant, a winery shipping consultancy, reports that the average price of a bottle of wine bought directly from the winery dropped 9 1/2 percent in 2020. That’s the first decrease in at least a decade. Meanwhile, the dollar value of all shipments increased 14 1/2 percent last year. I wonder: will anyone in the wine business pay attention? Lower wine prices translates to more sales. The average DTC price remains high, about $37 a bottle, but that’s mostly because direct to consumer wines are more expensive to begin with.

• Lower alcohol: One leading wine analyst says the way to boost U.S. wine sales is though lower-alcohol products, like wine spritzers and wine with some alcohol removed. Martin Pasco writes that “Brands should offer lower alcohol wines, i.e. 5-9% [alcohol], to trigger permission to indulge for U.S. Millennials.” This is part of a larger trend in the U.S. wine business, which we’ve noted before on the blog. This could be the first time, though, that I’ve seen the low alcohol trend used to target younger wine drinkers.

• Brexit booze woes: Just when you think the U..S. alcohol laws are the goofiest in the world, someone goes and shows we’re not alone. Amazon had to stop selling some beer, wine, and spirits from its Northern Ireland web site because of the mess surrounding Britain’s departure from the European Union. Reuters reports that new custom rules may make selling alcohol too complicated and too expensive for the on-line retailer to deal with, including double taxation.

Photo: “White Wine Drinking Evening With Girls” by wuestenigel is licensed under CC BY 2.0