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Paul Mabray: wine’s biggest problem? Consumers don’t care about wine
The Buyer ^ | 21 Aug 2019 | Richard Siddle

Posted on 08/21/2019 10:01:49 AM PDT by ptsal

There is a lot spoken and written about the wine industry’s inability to truly connect with more consumers about what wine is all about and why there is so much to discover if only people took the time to look. But why should they? Are they ever going to change the habits of a lifetime and not just see wine for what essentially it is. An alcoholic drink to enjoy with friends or on your own. That’s where Paul Mabray start his conversations about wine. If wine is truly going to connect with its target audience it needs to really understand what consumers do care about and that means getting deep, down and digital. Which is the message he delivered to great effect at this summer’s MUST Fermenting conference in Portugal.

(Excerpt) Read more at the-buyer.net ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; US: California
KEYWORDS: alcohol; consumers; marketing; oenology; trends; wine; zymurgy
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To: ptsal; All
The wine industry has a fundamental problem. For no matter how hard we all collectively talk about, and make and share stories about wine and its genius winemakers and idyllic wine regions all over the world, it all boils down to one thing. Most consumers don’t care about wine.

I used to work at at a beverage distributing company, sold a lot of wine. The high-falutin' way they tried to market the wine, 'a heady nose, with hints of cinnamon and coriander', and all that bs...I find that kind of snobbery disgusting, and it plays into the commercialization of everything that our consumer culture tries to sell...it is my least favorite aspect of free enterprise. I don't want to make it illegal, mind you, I just wish people weren't so taken in by appeals to snobbery.
41 posted on 08/21/2019 2:41:13 PM PDT by notdownwidems (Washington D.C. has become the enemy of free people everywhere!)
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To: Romulus
Good comment. I seriously cannot tell the difference between $6 wine and $40 wine.

I do like wine. So why pay more than you have to? I get the House Red whenever I go to restaurant and it's just fine. At home, I get deliveries of Splash Wine for about $90 (for a case of 15 bottles) for a net price of $6 a bottle. Rarely disappointed.

No need for paying more, really. Wine is basically fermented grapes. Remember that. Forget about all that fancy talk of terroirs and vintages. Wine is basically wine.

42 posted on 08/21/2019 2:45:43 PM PDT by SamAdams76
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To: drwoof

I will narrow it down some. Wines you like the taste of and wines you don’t.


43 posted on 08/21/2019 3:13:11 PM PDT by lastchance (Credo.)
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To: skimbell

Pear Ripple is wonderful for those picnics in the countryside.


44 posted on 08/21/2019 3:14:36 PM PDT by lastchance (Credo.)
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To: ptsal
When I was growing up Dad grew grapes,and we picked blackberries in the nearby woods. Mother made jams and jellies from both. Dad made wine from both. There was always a barrel of wine in the basement. I really don't know if it was all that good a vintage, but he and his friends liked it.
45 posted on 08/21/2019 3:19:48 PM PDT by JoeFromSidney (Colonel (Retired) USAF.)
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To: vpintheak

Indeed. I only even know of Cold Duck because it was a holiday tradition in the missus’ family, too.

And yes, in small amounts. We had regular libations too.


46 posted on 08/21/2019 3:26:55 PM PDT by monkeyshine (live and let live is dead)
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To: ptsal

I’ve enjoyed $3 dollar bottles more than $15 dollar bottles.


47 posted on 08/21/2019 3:32:40 PM PDT by Rebelbase
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To: SamAdams76

A wine snob took me to a wine tasting many years ago. There are of course plenty of different tasting wines. Some smelled like an old sock but tasted nice. Some smell nice and taste horrible.

Most restaurants that serve a house wine have probably spent a bit of time and experimentation in choosing the least offensive or most well accepted wine that costs them very little. And of course fancier places pour from premium bottles and call it the house wine.

A friend of mine (one of the guys we used to have those dinner parties I wrote about above) owns a couple of restaurants. He was very clever in opening his first place though. Got a great location in a trendy area (and somehow got a great lease rate but spent a fortune in building it out). They serve coffee and danish stuff starting at 5 am, free wifi etc. Around lunch time they serve wine and after 3 they turn off the wifi and focus on selling glasses of wine and small plates of food until after 1 am. The mark-up on some of that stuff is incredible, like, costs him $2-$4 for a bottle and he charges $8-$12 a glass. And up from there of course. Huge selection. So I guess people like wine. No hard liquor. I imagine the markup on coffee and danish is likewise huge. Personally now I hate spending money on wine in a restaurant knowing their margins are so massive.


48 posted on 08/21/2019 3:46:19 PM PDT by monkeyshine (live and let live is dead)
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To: monkeyshine
Margins are tremendous for wine in restaurants.

Occasionally I do pay for a bottle of wine in a restaurant and the bottles they charge $60 for can be gotten at the local liquor store for around $15. I'm sure the restaurants pay less than the $15.

49 posted on 08/21/2019 3:55:48 PM PDT by SamAdams76
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To: The Great RJ

In California, when you see those shiny tanker trucks from Cherokee Trucking going in both directions, it does make you think about the amount wine hauled from point A to point B and from point C to both points A and B. You get the idea. Wine is mostly a bunch of hooey from the marketing department. There are no little red-nosed winemakers. Those days are gone.


50 posted on 08/21/2019 4:35:44 PM PDT by ptsal
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To: SamAdams76

Yup. I know a restaurant where if you bring your own bottle and they have that same vintage on their list they charge a corkage fee equal to their list price.

But I also know a great place with great food that has no liquor license - but plenty of wine screws on the tables for those of us who want to bring our own. I like that place better :-)


51 posted on 08/21/2019 4:37:40 PM PDT by monkeyshine (live and let live is dead)
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To: SamAdams76

Which department contributes the most to the restaurant’s bottom-line?
   Well, it is alcohol sales.


52 posted on 08/21/2019 4:38:45 PM PDT by ptsal
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To: ptsal

Cheaper (and, smaller carbon foot print!) to ship a tanker full of a wine to local bottlers for local distribution than to ship all that glass in empty and out full of wine from the vintner’s location.

Of course the small producers do it their own way. I imagine it’s like the man said, to become a millionaire in the wine business start with 2 million.


53 posted on 08/21/2019 4:40:20 PM PDT by monkeyshine (live and let live is dead)
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To: oldvirginian

Have you tried El Gato Negro? It tastes like it’s been through a gato negro.


54 posted on 08/21/2019 4:59:20 PM PDT by virgil (The evil that men do lives after them)
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To: monkeyshine

The standard restaurant markup for a bottle is 100-200%. Lower than 100% is a rare bargain; more than 200% is gouging.


55 posted on 08/21/2019 5:09:54 PM PDT by Romulus
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To: Romulus
Well, it's usually calculated off of wholesale rather than retail: typically it's three times wholesale, which usually works out to about three times retail, since the standard mark-up is 50% on wholesale (i.e., retail is 150% of wholesale).

Some places which are trying to be 'consumer friendly' mark up at twice wholesale, which looks like a 33.33% mark up over retail.

In New York, you sometimes see three times retail, which is really gouging!

56 posted on 08/21/2019 6:13:43 PM PDT by CatoRenasci (Ceterum Censeo Islam Esse Delendam -- Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit)
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To: Romulus; SamAdams76
Well, I suppose that depends on what you mean by making peace with plonk, and what you're looking for in an everyday glass of wine with dinner.

Sensitivity to differences in wines differs widely. Partly, I think it's a matter of genetics, partly a matter of training and experience. If you have no reference points it's hard to make comparisons. I'm perfectly prepared to accept that he can't tell a $40 wine from a $6 wine, just as I accept that some people have perfect pitch and others can't tell one tune from another. General Grant was (in)famous for having said (listening to a band) the tunes all sounded like Yankee Doodle to him. I do think that most people, who want to, can improve their palates and can learn to differentiate among wines on a quality basis, if not a price basis - I'd be the first to agree that while price is a general guide to quality, it's not a reliable guide, and there is a whole lot of wine sold for premium prices that is probably worse than many sound commercial wines (like your Gallo Cabernet - a poor replacement for the blend that was Hearty Burgundy back in the day) costing a half as much or less.

I have an eight word theory of wine tasting:

Pull Lots of Corks

Remember What You Taste

The last four words are important to figuring out what you like and being able to replicate it other than by looking at the label. Everyone has some sort of taste memory, but few people make a point of training it. (just as few people train their memories much at all, these days). Your taste memory includes '70 La Mission, which is a good wine in a very fine year - an excellent benchmark. My benchmarks are different for Cabernet, though several 1970 Bordeaux and California Cabs are among them. And, I'm lucky enough to have tasted many of these wines through their life cycles.

It has become harder to find daily drinkers - my base point is around $15 minimum these days, though I can sometimes get a case of something I like for ~$10-12. For special occasions, for dinner parties, and even for a 'special' dinner at home, I go to my cellar, where I have wines I bought young, and have kept until maturity (or I lose my patience). I rarely drink Cabernet under the age of 10, prefer my Zin between 8-15, and other wines at varying ages. YMMV.

57 posted on 08/21/2019 6:37:23 PM PDT by CatoRenasci (Ceterum Censeo Islam Esse Delendam -- Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit)
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To: SamAdams76

Restaurants typically pay wholesale, often less if they buy on discounts (post off). In most states the ‘suggested retail’ price is 150% of wholesale. In some states, there are still legal minimums at retail (usually 10% under suggested retail), but it varies among the 50 states....


58 posted on 08/21/2019 6:52:29 PM PDT by CatoRenasci (Ceterum Censeo Islam Esse Delendam -- Forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit)
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To: ptsal

I grew up in the Pittsburgh area. Loved Iron City beer. The only wine I ever tried that I could stomach more than a sip of was Gewurtztraminer. It tastes enough like grape juice that I could drink it - but why would I when there was Iron City? Everything else I ever tried (which wasn’t that much to be honest, and never the “good” stuff) tasted like rurnt grape juice.

I don’t drink any more, so no plans to upgrade my knowledge of wines.


59 posted on 08/21/2019 7:13:44 PM PDT by Some Fat Guy in L.A. (Still bitterly clinging to rational thought despite it's unfashionability)
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To: CatoRenasci

I have pulled a few corks in my time, and have learned that I consistently receive greatest pleasure and value from the southern Rhone valley: cotes du Rhone, Chateauneuf, and Gigondas go very well with Louisiana food. I’ll drink a GSM from Australia also and have enjoyed some immensely. But these are $15-$75 bottles, and that’s not my everyday price point. Thus my plea for plonk.


60 posted on 08/21/2019 7:19:40 PM PDT by Romulus
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