Winebits 708: Three-tier, direct shipping, Big Food

This week’s wine news: Even Walmart is scared of three-tier, plus direct shipping for spirits, and Big Food dominates even more than Big Wine

• Not in Arkansas? The email from the Walmart marketing person wanted me to review its new $10 Winemakers Selection Reserve Series wines. But when I talked to the woman, she said I would have to go to Walmart to buy the wines. Arkansas law forbids the company – one of the largest retailers in the world, the inventor of the post-modern supply chain, and the subject of more academic studies than Wine Curmudgeon has rants – from sending samples. Is it any wonder I worry about the future of the wine business? I mention this not to be upset and bothered that I have to go to Walmart to buy wine; regular readers know I buy about two-thirds of the wine I review, and have bought much Walmart wine in the past. Rather, it’s to note that it’s difficult to get products reviewed when it’s illegal to send the product to reviewers. Which, of course, happens in almost no other business in the world.

• Bring on the spirits: Several trade groups are lobbying for direct shipment of beer and spirits, which is currently illegal. If they succeed, you’ll be able to buy craft beer, whiskey, gin, and so forth directly from the producer, just like we do with wine. This means they’re heading for a showdown not only with the various states, but with the all-powerful Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of America. It opposes all direct shipping, even of wine. The groups say that even though 46 states plus the District of Columbia allow direct shipments of wine, only nine states plus D.C. permit direct shipping of spirits, despite “despite broad consumer support for the latter.”

• Big Food: Dwight Furrow, writing in Edible Arts, talks about the human, environmental, and agricultural cost of Big Food, the companies like Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Conagra, and Unilever that are even more dominant in their sphere than Big Wine is in its. “For those of us who have been watching consolidation in the wine business, this will come as no surprise. But the situation is much worse in the food industry,” he writes. It’s a clarion call to anyone who worries about consolidation in wine and how it affects something we dearly love.

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