Well, with 2011 here, it’s with great pleasure we can say goodbye to the year from hell. Extremely cool weather all season delayed harvest by a couple of weeks but not without mildew and rot rearing its ugly head, some early rains and a couple of new nasty insects (European grapevine moth and light brown apple moth) creating a quarantine to add to our miseries.
If that weren’t enough, just add a nonexistent market where even the usual bottom feeders weren’t real active due to full warehouses and bulk tanks. If you had a contract, count your blessings if it wasn’t ignored, canceled or renegotiated like many were. Spot market prices were far below the costs of production, but the alternative of just letting them rot wasn’t real good either.
We’ll never really know how much fruit was left on the vines, because it’s really not a bragging issue. There’s no way to track that figure, and it really makes the final average price (per ton) published by the state not very meaningful. The “average price” might be $1,800, but if you didn’t sell your fruit, it means nothing. Were people to read about the average prices paid, they’d think we all did well. You can almost see it now: Chardonnay averaged $2,200 per ton! Sounds good, but only if you had a contract. I fear there will also be a lot of wineries that are going to delay paying growers—and maybe not at all in some cases. As the slow market vice tightens even more, cash flow and credit problems will flourish. Many small wineries got into the business when it was fun and games and, even then, were marginally capitalized.
Add to that the race between Constellation, Fosters and Diageo to see who can screw up the entire industry the quickest, which doesn’t help the premium wine market. Quality doesn’t seem to be in their vocabulary, but “bottom line” sure seems to rule the roost. Probably the biggest long-term fear is that of the consumer not trading back up because they’ve found some damn good wines for under $20. Why spend $50 or more unless it’s used for showing off? Would you dare tell your friend you don’t like it right after he emphasized it cost him $78? Since price is more a function of availability than quality, this might turn into a real problem.
Well, with the new year comes resolutions and maybe wishes. I have a few wishes for the industry, and they sound like this:
1. More screwcap wines for easier access and less ritual.
2. More and better chateau la boxes to encourage greater consumption of everyday wines. To appreciate and buy expensive wines, one needs to be a regular consumer.
3. More environmentally friendly packages, including lighter bottles, six-bottle cases becoming a norm instead of an exception, and no Styrofoam packing.
4. Less $40 and up wines and more and better less than $15 wines.
5. Friendlier and more knowledgeable tasting room staff—although this is getting better—and I’m still in a quandary about charging, but it’s come and will undoubtedly stay.
6. No more ego-driven appellations.
7. Mandatory conjunctive labeling so I don’t have to get out the atlas to figure out where Green Valley, Rockpile, Rutherford Bench and Chalk Hill are. Why does the industry think the world swirls around their own little niche and everybody got an A in geography? For you wonderful readers outside of California, how many of the gazillion appellations can you identify with and know where they are? For you Californians in the south land, how many Sonoma, Mendocino and Napa appellations can you name and find on a map? And for you from Northern California, try the same task for Paso Robles and south.
8. Why is it that it’s always wine, food and art and never wine, picnics, barbecues and sports? We’ll never be mainstream as long as we always wear tuxedos and have to eat with the perfect utensil.
9. Why do we always have to have the perfect glass for each variety, which include stems and easy breakage? The Europeans use plain old glasses; we used to call them jelly jars.
10. We need a few changes in our attitudes toward others who drink “that swill,” in thinking that high-end, expensive packaging makes the wine taste better, and treat wine as an everyday item, not just meant for special occasions
It appears that all of us in the industry need to be educators about wine and its commonness, not the holy grail of liquid drinks. Just think if everyone in our great country would drink just one glass per day, we couldn’t keep up with the demand. All lessons start at home, so we must also drink just one bottle per day to really help out. It’s easily accomplished by using a glass of sweet dessert wine over your Wheaties, a couple glasses with lunch—no problem—and finish up the day with a couple at night with dinner. See how easy that was?
If you really want to help, have a glass of port while reading or watching the boob tube before bed. Our miserly per capita wine consumption must go up if we want a healthy industry. I still think there’s a bigger market right here at home than looking at the export markets, we just need an attitude change. If China decides to develop a taste for imported (California) wine, our worries could be over—and that appears very possible at this point.
Other than your standard homework of a bottle-a-day, we need to add in a daily prayer that will give us a good or great year for growing and selling. I’m not sure things can be much worse, but I better watch what I say. Happy new year!
