I don’t see anyone here bothered except the article’s author. He writes a long piece with an airing of the grievances calling the wine industry shitty and I respond that it’s actually pretty nice unless you limit yourself to drinking Napa, and I’m the one who’s all bothered?
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Agree, and I feel the same about wine in American restaurants. If you can’t get ME, a wine lover, to order a bottle of wine in your restaurant, I think you have a problem.
Edit - and I see that was mentioned in the artlicle. Great quote - Restaurant wine pricing is simply obscene.
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IDK, maybe it’s different for you, but I never assume an American perspective when communicating, because I’m always talking to people from all over the world. So I would never even consider writing “the wine industry” when only talking about one specific country.
And when people behave that way, it’s more about their own narrow perspective. But, as you have clarified, if he was writing in a narrow US-wine industry publication, then it makes sense!
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For Napa and much of Sonoma, very true. I went to Healdsburg about a year ago. My wife and I went to the Idlewild tasting room just off the town square. Some of the best Italian varietal wines made in CA. Tasted 5 wines (maybe 6, I believe we got a bonus pour) for $20. The terrific charcuterie/cheese plate was another $10. My wife is not into wine geekery and she loved this visit.
In January, I visited Edio Vineyards (El Dorado county, near Placerville) with Ken Zinns. Tastings are complimentary and the wines are terrific.
Santa Cruz Mountains? Ridge is $30. Neely is $35 and they’ll comp with a $100 purchase.
Just a little background, I started visiting Napa wineries in 1981. Yeah, all free. Grgich Hills, Caymus, Heitz, BV, etc.
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Also not a fan of the appointment tasting culture, but one thing that won’t change – great wine is rare and relatively expensive. Napa, Sonoma, Monterey, and Santa Cruz are full of hole-in-the-wall tasting rooms with nobody in them that have bargain flights. The vast majority of this wine is plonk and the rooms are empty for a reason. “Thank you sir, may I please have another 2015 Grenache you couldn’t sell for half-a-decade are are now blowing out at single-digit prices?”
This is such a Euro-centric nitpick. I agree with Matt that they’re focused on the US, so why would they need to say that in everything they write, just because it’s posted online?
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Why Eurocentric? There’s a lot of wine industry activity outside of the US and Europe.
Europeans love complaining that Americans don’t think about them.
I came here for the complaining but I’m staying for the stereotypes. 
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Interesting read but very USA-centric for those of us who happen not to live in the USA.
What I find even more interesting is that the domestic wine industry in here in NZ is also very depressed with a lot of wine unsold and many wineries for sale.
We do not have anything like the many structural issues discussed in the article. A lot of the issues raised in the article just don’t apply here in NZ and yet we have the same issues.
This makes me wonder if the the early comments were more accurate than the author realized.
“The causes have been extensively written about, and some of biggest ones are due to external forces that industry participants have little control over: rising costs, a resurgent, political, neo-temperance movement, and generational shifts in consumers”
It seems to me that the factors driving the decline in wine consumption are pretty much global
This is not to say things have not been made worse in USA by the factors raised in article. But I am wondering that maybe the ongoing secular decline in wine consumption is less due to the factors discussed in the article and more by the other bigger (for me anyway) global factors.
I shared the article with several friends ITB. To a person they said it was the best summary of cause/effect they had ever read.
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It only takes 1 click to go to their website where you could have found…
“We have assisted over one hundred wineries and wine industry businesses in all corners of the world over the last 30+ years.”
SO, if you want to presume the author’s experience is limited direct your complaint of bias to him, or better yet offer data refuting his points.
Do some background check before opining.
They say they have been international for 30+ years
Oh, I did. You just presume I didn’t. I also saw the part where they say they’re experts in the U.S. wine industry. I still don’t think that changes my point.
In the simplistic thinking of too many, that translated into equating higher prices with perceived quality, and marketers and channel buyers were quick to capitalize on this. If consumers think that a $30.00 Chardonnay was clearly better than a $22.00 Chardonnay, why not just price the $22.00 Chardonnay at $30.00?
This is true with many products. There are people who want to buy quality products but often don’t know what makes something higher quality, so they use price and reputation as proxies. In the local arts & crafts scene, I have witnessed on multiple occasions how raising prices will increase sales.
Firstly, no, I won’t begin to check out the backgrounds of the writers of every single article I read.
Secondly, doesn’t that just validate my point? If they are working globally, shouldn’t the article be headlined with a title that reflects the content? I they operate globally and the title reads like it addresses the same phenomena everywhere, it is just logical to assume the content would be on global things, not just matters applicable to the US market.
What are you talking about?
Good read. Agree with all that, though lobbying influence probably under highlighted.
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The macro drivers of “The Great Wine Depression” are changing consumer tastes which is cratering demand, particularly among young (non-)drinkers. Supply can contract or prices can fall (as it has in Bordeaux). Otherwise the industry is going to remain in a “depression”. A top 10 list of complaints isn’t going to fix things.
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No. Seriously, Americans don’t think that way.
I’ve been writing weekly about my business’s industry (weed) for 6 years now. I know I have non-US readers. I only explain that I’m talking about the US licensed weed industry when it’s necessary to be specific. Otherwise, my readers know that I’m not talking about anything else.
I sincerely doubt the authors of this blog post on their marketing website expected it to be shared on an international wine board.
This is such a dumb argument.
Other issues aside, it’s pretty accurate. Not perfect perhaps but a lot of that rings true to me.