I was thinking the other evening, as I watched a 20-something neighbor of my mom drag in her big box of ready to assemble/heat meals that offering optional wine pairings (screw top half bottles!) might be a way to get even commodity wines into people’s hands that otherwise wouldn’t bother to explore wine.
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Blue Apron abandon this because it was too complicated to deal with the state to state regulations.
That’s the one thing that really kills this. We need to get our liquor laws out of the dark ages.
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Ah. Didn’t know it had been tried.
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What’s funny is that their prediction in 2014 seems to have been bang on. Volume of consumption is down, but it’s been replaced with higher spending. I also think how my late-GenX/elder-millenial generation travels as well and this tracks too. It’s much more about quality over quantity.
Plonk will always be here and that’s more than fine tbh. And let’s be honest, the bulk wine now is much more palatable than the fish-shaped bottles of Soave 50 years ago were. It’s just another entry point for drinkers or at least people to have an experience
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Yeah, and there was a NJ company called Wonder that wanted to get into it too, and it was too complicated for them as well.
Lest we forget Uber bought Drizly, then closed it less than a year later. Now you can’t transport alcohol with Uber either.
It was a great idea! You still get some credit! 
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User numbers up, though I didn’t norm across that (which would make it bleaker, I think.)
This was a quick look just to see if we reflected a trend.
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I’m now extremely interested to see where that money was spent. Users being up and Napa being down means that money certainly went in other places.
I have theories, but it’s more on my anecdotal observations than anything rooted in actual numbers.
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Everyone’s buying all my Champagne. 
I would guess people are buying wine in their price comfort zone.
What about 4th quarter versus 4th quarter?
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Agreed it would be bleaker, which is why I asked.
It’s certainly an alarming trend.
CT users are the exact audience that are buying premium California wine (among other things), so this is certainly a way to see trends.
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You are referencing 2023 Q4 vs 2024 Q4, I assume?
Yes,
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Surely a decline but might need some adjustment for late entries if folks enter on delivery like I do. Also, an adjustment for user count.
Neither will account for more than 10% most likely.
ETA see upthread that user count is up; somewhat surprising given demographic consumption trends. Good on Eric!
Down marginally. 4th quarter 23 vs 24.
@Keith_A_k_e_r_s I can run California/Napa easily because we can assume most buyers are US-based and currency is $. Anything outside the US, it gets to be more effort to query than I want to do. But globally the overall numbers look to be down in general.
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More, I was wondering what people are buying and where they are putting their $$$. Like, are you seeing more Beaujolais being inputted and bought? I don’t know how specific you can get on running those numbers though
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I don’t think it will be a meaningful number if folks are later in entering (but we gave them the benefit of the doubt as we are 3 weeks into Q2 now.
Overall numbers of bottles seem to be down, though less than value.
I tend to be skeptical short run trends in our data, tbh. Less late inputs and more bulk imports of cellars will reflect purchase date in the past and they can be hefty.
I thought it was just interesting how dramatic the difference looked on first pass which goes to Robert’s initial point.
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I have stuff that arrived in Q1 that hasn’t been entered yet. Sometimes it’s six months or more if I don’t have time for my inventory and rack re-racking.
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