Can it be that wine has become nothing more than a glorified marketing vehicle, albeit a tasty one? It’s all too common to hear people pontificate about wine in these parts—from its status as food’s favorite sidekick to the intoxicating romance of it all. But sometimes it feels like the sweet notions of yesteryear have dropped out of sight in favor of the commerce of it all.
Modern day oenophilia
The Wine Market Council, which conducted its first round of consumer surveys in 1994, then reported that two-thirds of wine drinkers were classified as “marginal,” imbibing less than once per week. Skip forward 18 years, and the 2012 survey data tells a different tale. More than half the adults surveyed consume at what the council dubs “core” consumption levels, drinking wine at least once every week.
By now you’ve heard—and if you haven’t, it’s time to get out from under that rock—the baby boomer demographic segment, which has enjoyed a long reign as the most sought-after demo for decades, is in the midst of a dethroning. According to the council’s findings, it’s the millennials (ages 19 to 36) who are poised to dominate the beverage stratosphere in the years ahead.
To put that proclamation into perspective, of the 228 million people in the United States in 2012, boomers comprised 77 million, with millennials trailing only slightly at 70 million. The first key take-away from the day is worth restating until the industry takes notice en masse: The wants and needs of millennials are far different than that of their predecessors. As such, winery marketing tactics need to change.
The council reports that 46 to 48 percent of core drinkers make weekly or monthly bottle purchases that cost between $5 and $14.99, while only 12 percent of those same drinkers were willing to fork out $30 to $49.99. Of those core drinkers willing to shell out more than $30 per bottle, 53.73 percent did so in liquor or wine stores, with a mere 8.7 percent of purchases done direct at wineries and 1.55 percent through online retailers.
Of those web-surfing core drinkers, 68 percent frequent wine.com. And while we’ve been conditioned to accept that wine ratings and scores are driving the business, only 50 percent of core drinkers made Wine Spectator their go-to destination, with a paltry 25 percent going to eRobertParker.com.
While no one wants to be the one to place “other” beverages in the limelight ahead of our illustrious grape-fueled brew, the stats of the day made another point abundantly clear: Growth in the beer category is impacting the wine market. While the wine industry saw some growth in 2012, it was minor in comparison to the boom that malt beverages and hard cider experienced, the latter clocking in growth of 70 percent in the last 52 weeks. It’s all too easy to become myopic when it comes to the beverage-sphere, but, in this instance, can we really afford to?
In the wine world, Moscato still ranks with the highest growth over the last year with a volume of change increase of 33 percent, followed by Malbec at 17.6 percent. Consequently, the online buzz and conversation surrounding Moscato is huge relative to sales spikes, topped only by Chardonnay.
WDO beginning to boil
For the Winery Definition Ordinance (WDO), which has been humming along since 1990 when it was initially enacted to protect Napa’s agricultural preserve, it’s no longer a smooth-as-the-wine ride. For decades, there’s been little movement, until 2010 brought amendments to the original ordinance. Last year, discussions started to gurgle when Raymond Vineyards and Renata Winery submitted petitions for expansion, and the aftershocks have thundered ever since with the Napa Valley Vintners on one side of the fence and the Napa Valley Grapegrowers and Farm Bureau on the other. The debate stems from varying interpretations of the 75 percent rule, which stipulates that all new wineries source their wines from 75 percent Napa Valley grapes. The dividing line distinction is mounted around compliance with the rule as it relates to grandfathered wineries wishing to expand.
The Napa Valley Grapegrowers and Farm Bureau are arguing over how the county should enforce the 75 percent rule with grandfathered wineries (whose past production has been exempt from the stipulation) should they choose to expand production, while the Napa Valley Vintners (NVV) feel that changing the way a long-standing clause is adapted would be unfair.
“This new interpretation by the Farm Bureau and Grapegrowers is unnecessary and impractical. The [original] agreements made served Napa Valley and have done their job quite well. The effort afoot to erode those rights is unfair to the 250 wineries that were in existence at the time of the ordinance,” says NVV government relations director, Rex Stults.
In January, key leaders of the Farm Bureau and Grapegrowers wrote a letter to the county expressing the following, “An application for expansion and development on agricultural land should include a plan to source Napa grapes that are additional to current production. By definition, expansion means the crushing of additional fruit, and it’s this fruit that’s subject to the 75 percent rule.”
The Napa County Planning Commission met on February 20 to discuss the debate. Stults weighed in on the proposed reinterpretation of the WDO prior to the meeting “Unnecessary, unfair and impractical, those are the three points we’re trying to make. Unnecessary because it’s worked well [as is], unfair because it erodes the vested rights of 250 wineries and impractical because you’re asking to go back in time and verify the amount of Napa Valley wine a winery has made in the last 25 years.”
Others say it’s these very grandfathered wineries and legacy brands that made Napa Valley what it is today…which could be a good or a bad thing, depending on whom you talk to. Regardless, for now, the commission has decided to control the brouhaha by simply letting the WDO stand, as is.
