This discussion is not about family A or person B. We have already established that wine sales are flat to declining correct ? I’m just offering my opinion about possible reasons.
I can sum it up with Millenials don’t feel they will end up more successful than their parents and are more value oriented IMO. So they find choices in other categories that better suits them. Not my opinion but my observation is wine is not as in vogue as other categories especially liquor.
Nice simple new Asimov article that would be instructive to many novices. I like how makes it fun and accessible but not at all dumb.
And they’ll likely inherit thousands of bottles their dad didn’t get around to drinking
You can’t. Detach, that is. Wine is a luxury good. Luxury good sales may (or may not) have a higher margin, but the issue is about mixing price points from bread and butter plonk to artisanal to mythical offerings. Luxury goods are not just for the Range Roverers of the world.
Your East Coast Rangers, for example, can possibly afford slowly collecting over decades. Lets pretend they can even afford to pull together a nice Burgundy collection. So Leflaive is golden for the foreseeable future. Groton parent Rangers will see them through.
But what about Jacques Carillon, busting out premiere cru from Puligny Montrachet at $100 a pop? Are there enough BMW 5-series to keep them in the black? Or, gulp, frugal West Coast Honda Civicers? Further afield geographically, what about Gerard Boulay, making killer Sancerre for $40, give or take? Or – why not? – Bodegas Tameran in the Canary Islands. Enough metropolitan Specialized riders hankering for a distinctive vino?
My point is that Leflaive alone does not make a wine culture, let alone a wine economy.
Better understand your point now.
I’m thinking about the top of the wine collecting chain.
To your point though, I think there is simply too much volume and plonk that needs to go away. It’s needed to go away for at least 5 years, if not farther back. I think the list of producers you reference will be fine. France is pulling up vines at a crazy pace to help smooth out the issues, and California is starting to do the same. I’m sure other regions/countries won’t be far behind.
The impact of cannabis legalization on wine retail remains a topic of industry debate. Harmon Skurnik, President of New York based distributor Skurnik Wines & Spirits acknowledges the uncertainty: “There have been many reports that the younger generation are slower to adopt wine and legal cannabis could be one reason. That suggestion, however, is mostly based on anecdotal evidence, rather than hard facts.”
This is one paragraph that should not be missed.
Appreciate your getting my gist, and I get the feeling I’m talking to someone with a sensibility for these things. But pulling up vines does not equal “the producers will be fine.”
There is a comment in here that I hear all the time, and it’s “failure for retailers to adapt”
I see this all too often, and see an ocean of stores carrying the same products store by store. The best ones are providing great service and quality wine at all price points. I think too many are hoping that just being open is enough, and it’s simply not.
26 years in the wine biz 
True, but what it does is create a better path and landscape for producers like a Bouley, with 700 years of family history to sell their quality product while plonk gets pulled out of the system.
They aren’t asking Lafite to rip up roots, it’s the bulk wine market (that the French government was subsidizing) they are trying to curtail.
So, and I can’t resist but ask, is a 700 year old history (myth or otherwise), what’s needed to survive this market? Okay, cheaty question.
I know folks whose ancestors have been making wine for longer but can’t document any such history. Are they screwed?
And peeps with no family history, who just do it for the love of it?
Let’s face it for what it is, harder times. Not es hard as it has ever been. But not easy.
I’m saying this because I think that there’s an opportunity here. There’s a place here for consumers to see that they have always been part of the production process. Interesting things might ensue if they dare to acknowledge this. I’m hopeful about how this could play out in wine. I’m hopelessly hopeful about a lot of things.
Fortunately, there is room for all that are making quality.
I agree there is an opportunity! What it is right now, is a bit hard to figure out.
Agreed. But I have heard that a country called France also makes good wine… the vast majority of which sells for under $20.
Hmmm. Not to be contrary but great service and wines at all price points don’t necessarily go together. Competent staff costs money (even if $20-$25/hour, ugh) and selling $15 wines at moderate volumes doesn’t pay that nut. So the establishment needs to upscale the selection to get the margin to pay the staff and make money for the house. This is particularly true in urban settings where you can’t have a huge enough footprint to satisfy a broader array of clientele. One of the other has to be sacrificed to some extent.
Pure anecdote on my part as a wine buyer. Chambers (where I used to work) used to be a mecca for great wines at bargain prices. That was David’s wheelhouse. Went to put an order together a couple of weeks ago and no dice maestro. (And I don’t consider Bouley at $40 affordable.) Flatiron was not far behind Chambers, after all they copied the model. Same deal, if you look on their website there’s a few things but not enough to put together a mixed case of cheapies you really want to try. To be fair, my “line of business” has a sister retail store that offers unique wines with good service. i almost never buy anything even with a 25% employee discount. Too expensive. They maybe have 20 wines under $25, don’t think I am being hyperbolic.
In Jersey there’s Bottle King where the selection is very good, the prices great. Service nonexistent. There’s your past haunt Wine Library. Selection slowly getting better, prices not Bottle King but better than Crush. Service tries but – to me – they are geared at your normal joe buyer, not a wine geek. Only time I speak to someone is to inquire about a specific wine I don’t see (these days the Schloss Gobelsburg rose which seems to be in a witness protection program).
Joe Canal? Hah. Gary’s? Hah. Amanti Vino (another former haunt of yours) has good stuff with prices that make you want to slap the wine buyer. And the staff there couldn’t be more disinterested if they were embalmed. If I do buy at a handful of NJ places I’d put together a mixed case from WineWorks and get it shipped on the cheap. Or maybe even Cellar d’Or (even though they don’t seem highly organized, yet prices are fair enough and selection very good).
When I was at Bayway in Elizabeth in 2012 I was making $50K and working 60+ hours (not including holidays 80+ weeks). They churn like no one’s business, probably a $25mil business. They didn’t need me as a wine expert but it seemed like a good perk (made the owner feel good about himself). All attempts to help clients failed miserably and I know how to sell Clos Palet Vouvray and all the pedestrian shit in the Touton book, not a snob when it comes to selling wine, meet them where they are at). So I spent most of the day packing out, smiling at clients and asking if they needed help. Why, yes, where’s the Bartenura? Lasted a year there.
Again, just one body gendered male’s opinion, but good/great service comes at a cost to the house which gets passed along to the customer. And having such a staff means they don’t want to case stack Bogle or Guigal Cotes du Rhone. Not “what they are there for.”
Discuss.
That’s a content rich post.
Tap water tests better than bottled water in most parts of the country, and there are far higher testing standards for tap water than bottled water. Some of the bottled purified water is in fact just tap water (that maybe passes through a uv light).
Not that I want to derail this conversation, but a quick Google search on lead in water is really disturbing. It’s happening 15 minutes down the road from me.
My comment about the successful ones was not really geared towards our market. There is a couple you mention that I think are doing a better job than you’ve given them credit for, but by and large, I very much agree with you.
Part of the issue with the NYC shops is the painfully high rent, and the lack of volume that a store like Astor has, so selling wines below a certain price point (which seems to be around $30 for a floor price) and below a certain mark up (again, rent and other costs) just doesn’t seem to be a prudent business model.
Everything is cycles. If smoking is cool again, maybe drinking wine will become cool too?
how many are rent controlled? (or does that exist only for domiciles?)
I can’t fathom the money that goes into running some of these spaces in New York or San Francisco. Chicago was bad enough when I was debating that route.