Winecast 75: Paul Tincknell — once more unto the wine crisis breach

“Some of the glimmers of hope … really aren’t glimmers of hope.”

Paul Tincknell, the blog’s official wine marketer, is even more pessimistic about wine’s current crisis than I am. Which, as regular readers here know, is saying something. Our discussion about how to solve these problems included spot-on takes about the dilemma of alternative packaging like boxes and cans as well as the conundrum of natural wine.

Along the way, we also analyzed the crisis and ways out of it:

• There’s a cultural shift about what younger consumers are looking for. Call it better quality or more authenticity or whatever, and it’s something wine quite hasn’t figured out.

• Yes, prices are too high. “No industry has ever expanded with higher prices. … Unless the industry is going to tackle this head on, we’re going to see shrinking volume.”

•  The split between Big Wine and the rest of the industry. Paul says it’s too much to ask a 1,000 case winery to solve wine’s various problems, and the biggest producers — who seem reluctant to do so — must take the lead.

• Wine marketing needs to improve — quickly. “There needs to be a consistent message,” says Paul, about what wine is and why people should drink it. Maybe: Wine is something to drink every day. It’s worked for coffee, he says.

Click here to download or stream the podcast, which is about 24 minutes long and takes up 16 megabytes. Quality is excellent (save for a short false start). Yes, this is longer than usual, but it’s not boring and I throw in a teaching anecdote.

More wine podcasts:
• Winecast 74: Dave McIntyre and what’s coming for wine in 2023
• Winecast 73: Randall Grahm and ingredient labels for wine
• Winecast 72: Denise Clarke and the progress — and challenges — for Drink Local