I can remember back to the 1980s when the only New York
wines you could find were things like Hunt Country red at the Union Square
market on Fridays and Saturdays…and then in the 1990s at Grand Army Plaza
farmers market in Brooklyn. Stores didn’t carry it. At least not the dozen or
so I would peruse through.
OK, so I am, where wine is concerned, a shopaholic.
Relatively speaking, under $100 per bottle, I’ll consider buying almost
anything. These days less so, but back in the days before 2007, I happily
plunked down all kinds of cash for one bottle after another. To be sure, I am
also a great comparison shopper, so I was happy to also waste my time perusing
two or three or four stores and a website or two in order to secure the wines I
was chasing at the best possible price.
Cakebread? Hanzell? Turley? Kistler? Pahlmeyer? Sin Qua Non?
Mouton? Lafite? Baron Pichon-Longueville? Montes Alpha M? Almaviva? The list
went on and on. I am not bragging, merely trying to establish that I, as a wine
buyer, long before I had actual skin in the game, was a wine buyer….second
class albeit, but still in top 20% to say the least.
Now, recently, Eric Asimov wrote a fantastic piece on
Chardonnay (which has taken a beating of late) extolling the virtues of the
cool climate whites coming from the Santa Barbara, Santa Rita, Santa Ynez,
valleys, and others. I am a big fan of the region, and have visited and shopped
there two out of the last three years. It’s one of my new favorite regions. And
its whites are very light, minerally, and cool climate.
I do not particularly begrudge them their prices. The prices
are actually not rich by any standards, but they are in the $30-$40.00 range.
No better or worse than well-made, artisanal wines from Napa and Sonoma. I
prefer the cooler climate style these days. I love Sea Smoke, and Clifton-Brewer,
and Foley, and many others. So what’s the issue?
In a rejoinder to the piece, Richard Olsen-Harbich the
winemaker at Bedell Cellars, in the North Fork of Long Island, on facebook, was
thrilled with the kind words Asimov had for this cool climate style of
Chardonnay. The winemaker remarked on the irony that Long Island had been
producing this same style of minerally, light Chardonnay for the last 15 or so
years, with good scores and reviews to show for it to boot. And that the prices
were also in the $30-$40.00 price range. “New York wineries take note,” texted
Olsen-Harbich.
I knew exactly where Rich was going. He was hinting at a
glass ceiling for regional wines.
But here’s the thing. The truth is that there are two
answers. Yes. And No.
To answer yes, I will wear another hat. I am also a
producer. And the one thing local winemakers hear up and down the eastern
seaboard is: You’re wines are too expensive. Wine distributors, liquor stores,
and restaurants, from New York to Virginia, all chime the same thing. Not just
to me, as our wines are way under priced (ask my accountant) but to many, many
wineries. All regional wines, no matter how exquisite suffer from the same
thing – they hit the proverbial glass ceiling, Price being the same or not,
priced right or not, in the distribution game, regional wines just do not stack
up in the wholesale and retail marketer’s eyes.
On a personal aside, I had one sales rep tell me that at
$19.99 the wines we were already selling out of (we cannot make enough of them),
and getting rave reviews for, were $10 too high…despite the fact that our wines
were written about in some of the best newspapers, magazines, and websites, and
sold in some of the best restaurants in NYC and the Hudson Valley.
So, that is the glass ceiling. An yes, it exists with
distributors, retailers, and restaurants. is this a sexist thing? Like women
have to do twice the work to get paid half as much? It has been said that
Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except she did it backwards and
in high heels. Is that the double standard applied here? It seems like an east
coast wine is faced with the same challenge that women around the world have
been facing down for years.
In some ways yes. This is an older generation, who has
several preconceived notions. Foreign wines are superior to them, especially in
New York, where France, Italy, and Germany reign supreme. California is good.
Chile and Argentina pretty good. Regional wine is last.
The prejudice for regional wine is memory. In the 1980s, for
example, regions like New York, Maryland, New Jersey, and Virginia said, come,
drink our wines. But not all the wines were ready for prime time, and
especially these older professionals remember their tastings. Local wine is
dreck to them, even if it is not. Turning these heads will be harder and harder
as these older professionals get….well, older.
They hold this memory tight to their chest, and they resist
all the new things happening in regional wine in the last 10 years. And they say
price is among the reasons. I heard this mantra at the Drink Local Wine 2013
conference in Baltimore just a few weeks ago. This theme runs up and down the
east coast.And to be fair to the distributors, and they do share horror stories with me. There are wineries they would like to work with, but who have not priced their wines appropriately so that they can start to work with a distributor. It’s a deep discount a distributor asks for. If a winery can’t make any money selling to a distributor, their wines are not well priced enough already. But that is a different issue.
And this is why they are wrong. Because here’s the second
part to my answer. There is no ceiling to what east coast wineries can charge
for their wines at all. And I can prove it to you.
I think it’s important to note, in the Finger Lakes and on
Long Island, there are wineries that are selling top notch wines for prices similar
to what their west coast brethren are asking. In their tasting rooms, they are
selling lovely, lovely, competitive products, and the public is buying the
wines without problem. The crowds show up in spring, summer, and fall. They
join the wine clubs. Consumers walk out these tasting room doors with cases and
multiple cases at a time. Small bottlings, and large ones, are sold with little
deterrent.
Wineries like Barboursville, Boxwood, Black Ankle,
Unionville, Bedell, Lenz, Wolffer, Channing Daughters, Dr. Konstatin Frank,
Ravines, Heart & Hands, and many, many more have higher end products people
are happy to pay for. If you are a wine consumer and you like good wines, these
places are making some of the best wines in the country. And I’m leaving a bunch
more out. Great wine is now being made on the east coast.
The target audience is and remains younger consumers.
Getting more open minded consumers to come in and taste east coast wines is
what it’s all about. As Matt Kramer has pointed out to me in the past, every
generation wants to find their own wine. They want to make their own discovery.
They don’t just want to drink what their parents drank. You can’t afford
Bordeaux, you go Napa. Can’t do high end Napa? How about Rhone? Chile is the
new place? Each generation finds a new region to claim its own and stock its
cellars with those wines. That’s where regional wine finds itself.
But pricing? There is no ceiling for quality, nor should
there be. An artisanal winemaker in New York and Virginia has every bit the right to charge what his or her California counterpart does. The wine tanks, the labor, the bottles, the corks, the labels, all cost both of them just the same. I see consumers paying high prices for the quality artisanal farm
produced wines that are being produced regionally. And I am seeing a slow,
steady improvement, year by year, in the marketplace. More and more people are
buying, drinking, and holding local and regional wines.
Today, I can walk into stores in New York City like Astor
Wines & Spirits, McAdams Buyrite, The Wine Hut, and find a decent to large
selection of quality regional wines. They are in restaurants like Gramercy
Tavern, The Home Restaurant, and many more.
In the end, while there may be a glass ceiling for retailers, distributors, and restaurateurs, there is not with the consumer. And the consumer is the only arbiter. The others will always slowly follow. They always have. They always will. They have no choice.
In the end, while there may be a glass ceiling for retailers, distributors, and restaurateurs, there is not with the consumer. And the consumer is the only arbiter. The others will always slowly follow. They always have. They always will. They have no choice.
So, if you are a consumer and you want quality wine, don’t worry
about the price. Worry about the taste and quality. Try more and more local wine. Many will absolutely impress!!
And if you’re a winery owner, and some sorry SOB tells you
your wine is too expensive, you can always tell him that you don’t make jug
wine. Tell him to try something special.