Wine Sales are Flat -- This Might be Why

Reasons wine sales have been flat for a long time (unrelated to the pandemic). 

Wines sales have more or less been flat for a long time. Sure, sales have gone up as the economy picked up after the Great Recession of a few years ago. That only happened because sales fell at the start of the recession.

The wine industry may be its own worst enemy.
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Gouging

Yes, that's maybe too strong a word, but wine prices have sure gone up over the past few years. It's not just wine. You can look at the price for everything from Kona coffee to new vehicles and see the price surge.

How are some wineries making up for flat sales of the past couple years? By increasing prices. How are some reacting to  the great economy after the recession? Increasing prices. It's easy to see this isn't much of a solution to leveled off sales. It isn't just the mean ol' wineries causing the price increases as the cost of vineyard land and the cost of grapes has gone up, too.

I get that it's difficult for any one part of the industry to just say, "no more." On the other hand, I see lots of new ideas and winery "toys" come out that only cost more money. You sure see lots of fancy pants tasting rooms. You don't really see anyone looking to reduce costs (think about Henry Ford and the automobile).

There's no reason you shouldn't have lots of choices for excellent wine for twenty bucks or less.

Boredom

Wine is pretty much the same ol' style of Chardonnay and Cabernet. Some industry people are currently trying orange wine to break out of this funk we're in. Before that it was (and still is) rosé. Look at what's happened with beer over the past decade or so for comparison with different styles and different containers.

The American wine style went from trying to emulate France to the big fruit juicy soft wines of the past couple decades. Apparently there's no other choice, but a soft, 14.8% alcohol Cabernet.

The Receptacle

We still have that big, heavy, breakable glass bottle. It lets in light, too, to help ruin your wine. It comes with a cork. Corks can also help in ruining your wine. You need a special instrument to remove the cork. WTH? Again, beer went from 12 oz bottles to 22 oz bottles to cans in about a year, it seems.

Heavy glass, corks, and 750 ml containers need to go.

The Three-Tier System

America's post-Prohibition system of alcohol delivery with separating producers from consumers with a middle layer (wholesalers) seemed like a good idea at the time to somebody (the Mob, for sure). It's corrupt and it's a waste of money. Speaking of money, wholesalers send of bunch of what's ultimately your money to Washington politicians to keep this system in place. This isn't just wine, of course, but all alcohol.

Poetic Descriptors

Have you read some of the professional wine reviews? Here are a couple I picked up with a quick Google search:
#1. nectarine skins, gushing blackberries, white flowers, smashed minerals.
#2 Supremely elegant effort transparently and kaleidoscopically combines moss, wet stone, gentian, buddleia, coriander, pepper, piquant yet rich nut oils and a saline clam broth savor that milks the salivary glands.

OMG Who the hell writes like this and what does it all mean?  If your goal is to scare people away from wine this is going to do it.

Words

If the wine biz wants to bring in the younger consumers (and they damn well better) then remember these words:
Price, earth-friendly.

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