Whole Foods Wine Dept - did something just change (for the worse) ?

WINE TALK
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Although I live close to a WF the parking situation there tends to be a passive aggressive bumper car battle there with Subarus, Volvo’s etc., so I hardly ever go there (even when I can walk, as its under a mile). But today, I braved the suburban Starbucks fueled rage and entered, hunting for some specialty bread.

As I walked by the wine dept, I did a double take. It seems to have morphed into a crappy Costco (Meiomi, Belle Glos, Beringer KV etc.) mashed up with box wine land, FitVine and so on. It had never been a place I bought more than the occasional bottle every few years, but once upon a time it offered differentiated wines that one would not have seen in supermarket retail.

Whole Foods has been totally shredded since the Amazon merger, but every time I think they can’t possibly go lower…they find a new way to surprise me to the downside.

Anyone else observing this sadness in their locations?

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Sadly your eyes do not deceive.

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At the WFs in SF I observe two kinds of wine:
1/real wine from real wineries like Ridge
2/their own brands floor stacked everywhere.

A friend inquired about making private label wines for them. He learned they like crazy big margins.

4

Yes, they had oceans of “3 Wishes” all over the place, which is (cleverly!) $3 a bottle at the store, $3.50 delivered for Amazon Prime customers.

I suppose they came up with the marketing moniker in the low inflation era. Sort of like Big 6 and Super 8 motels.

5

Whole foods was unbelievably overpriced before Amazon took over. People are just upset everyday people can shop there now.

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Agreed, but I see it as no big loss…

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Sure it was expensive before, but at least the shelves had unique items. Now its the same Unilever ice cream or General Mills cereal in giant endcap displays…all at 25+% premiums to the normal unionized grocers in my area.

I guess they are asking people to pay for the privelege of handling Amazon returns, or locker pickups, at the same time as they buy commodities.

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The Los Altos one near me has a pretty good selection, including local producers and a good representation of imports, a respectable level of geekiness. So, you’ll likely find a Frappato, a Tannat from Uruguay and stuff like that beyond the “safe” boring stuff at Safeway.

I think they still work in 3 store clusters, where local suppliers apply for approval. If you pass the test, the buyers from each of those stores can pick up the SKU. The stores seem to have a lot of autonomy, being different sizes and customizing to their customers. I see quite a contrast with the smaller downtown Palo Alto locale (which is “why bother?” to me) and the large San Jose-Bascom site.

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This has been going on for at least 5-6 years now. They were going more towards private labels even before Amazon bought them and as a rep, it was vastly harder to sell to them in 17 than it was in 15 or 16. Then in early 18, reps couldn’t even taste with the buyers at stores and unless you were selling from one of the big distributors (at least in Chicago at the time) you were pretty much SOL

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11

I live about 100 yards from a small Whole Foods that’s surprisingly middle of the road in selection given the neighborhood and the genuinely bonkers prices they charge for hipster heritage crap at Erewhon. The wine hasn’t changed - it’s a lot of Kermit Lynch cotes du rhone, the Prisoner and the Prisoner-adjacent stuff, headache-in-a-bottle blends, and a small amount of 2017 Bordeaux at roughly 175% WSpro low. Their beer on the other hand is pretty good.

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I guess the issue I don’t understand…I never recall seeing the sugary Prisoner category there before. Doesn’t that violate some John Mackey health rule or something?

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My local WF has a decent mix of expensive and inexpensive wines. I don’t buy much wine there, but loaded up on 2018 Geyserville for $34 and recently bought a single bottle of 2013 Cristal for $225.

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Several years ago, pre-Amazon and for some unexplainable reason, Whole Foods decided they needed to compete with Trader Joe’s Two Buck Chuck. They had a huge display of stacks of cases near the front of our local store so I took a look. The fruit sourcing of their $2.99 Cabernet was “America”!! I haven’t bothered to check back since.

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My Whole Foods just discontinued its last type of fresh baked whole wheat bread. Only bakery bread is white bead (plus an outlier Prussian Rye). I now call it White Foods.

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A few years ago Whole Foods (pre-Amazon and for some unexplainable reason), decided to compete with Trader Joe’s Two Buck Chuck. Our local WF had a huge display of cases near the front of the store. The fruit sourcing of their $2.49(IIRC) Cabernet was “America”!! I haven’t checked back since.

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yeh, the Los Altos one by chef chus is ok. the one in Cupertino that is by de anza used to be pretty good, but gone down hill. still happy to make the drive to K&L for a much better selection

18

Why do you hate America?

[wink.gif]

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I’d like to mirror all these comments with our cheese section.

When the store opened it was a beacon of hope for cheese lovers. Staffed by an actual monger who was eager to explain what was new and share a slice of it. Then she/he was there with little enthusiasm as there was nothing to slice but mostly national or immediately local brands. Then the monger disappeared yet the void where they stood remains. Now I get better stuff at my local grocery (which isn’t much).

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Well, it is Amazon, so I suspect that’s a big part of the problem. Never seen Amazon take something and not spoil it.

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