Winebits 815: Utah, expensive wine, paper bottles

This week’s wine news: Will Utah make it easier to buy booze? Plus, even very high-end wine is in a slump and one more attempt at paper bottles

• In Utah? Utah, infamous for perhaps the most restrictive alcohol laws in the country, may see some changes. A group – if it can collect 134,000 signatures in the 3.3-million person state – wants a referendum to make it easier to buy wine, beer, and spirits. That would include abolishing the state store system and allowing sales at retailers like Trader Joe’s, Costco, and the local Harmons grocery chain. The story plays it straight on whether this thing has a chance, but the WC – who knows Utah’s alcohol reticence first hand – has his doubts.

• Slowing auction market: Believe it or not, even the very rich are cutting back on their wine purchases. So says the man who oversees sales for global auction house Christie’s. Adam Bilbey told thedrinksbusiness that the market for the super-premium wines his company sells is “currently undergoing a difficult period of cooling prices. …” And, he adds, he doesn’t expect that to end any time soon. Bilbey attributes much of this to China’s economic woes, but it does the make the WC ponder: If the 1 percent are cutting back, what does that mean for the rest of us?

• More paper bottles: A British trade magazine asks: “Could paper bottles be the future of wine and spirit packaging?” The story discusses the Frugalpac effort (which, of course, we’ve had on the blog) to convince wine and spirits producers to give up on glass for its much lighter paper bottle — made with recycled paper and which itself can be recycled. Regular readers will know the WC has long advocated for ABG – anything but glass – and hopes this has a chance. Though, unfortunately, it still looks like a novelty item.