The National Wine
UnClub
Newsletter
March/April 2007
Wine Wheel of Fortune
Not so famous quote: "How do you make a SMALL fortune in the wine business? ... Start with a LARGE fortune!"
Funny, yes...but, oh so true! How many aspiring wineries have come and gone over the years in California for instance? Do you remember labels like Chateau Chevalier, Conn Creek, Hacienda, and numerous other small estates that found the wine business more daunting than expected? Here today and gone tomorrow go the faint of heart in this high stakes game.
What are the driving factors in making a wine producer famous, trendy, and most importantly, profitable? There is no 'American Idol' program to kick off the careers of the new legion of UC Davis-trained winemakers. 'Mom and pop' winery owners have a hard time funding national ad campaigns which major corporations utilize when promoting a new brand of pharmaceuticals, hair-care products, or lap-top computers.
It helps if your surname is Coppola (Francis Ford), Andretti (Mario) or Parker (Fess). Notoriety in some other field of business (particularly sports or show business!) can be a wonderful boon to starting up your own 'gentleman farmer' winery operation! Of course, these folks usually have the LARGE fortune mentioned in the initial quote above which doesn't hurt their chances of making it in the fickle world of the wine trade.
For all those other aspiring winery owners that aren't already famous the road is much more rocky. After paying as much as $100,000 for an established acre of prime vineyard property, other expenses like setting up a winery operation with stainless steel tanks, pumps, and oak barrels for ageing your wine, you must hire workers to harvest your crop, and a winemaking team to produce a decent wine that will hopefully wow some notable wine critic so that your career might be launched properly.
Failing to impress the wine critics, the weary vigneron must then take the 'off-season' (after harvest and winemaking has been accomplished) to travel from city to city across the country to show their bottled vino to finicky buyers in restaurants, wine shops, and grocery chains. This is a 'hit or miss' proposition that many times depends on the mood of the buyer. That is why the winery usually attempts to get these buyers out to restaurants where they can 'wine and dine' in the classic sense thereby adjusting the buyer's attitude accordingly.
Another road to fame and fortune that wineries have in their bag of tricks is the whole arena of wine judgings held in major cities around the world. It doesn't hurt to tout the gold medal your Cabernet won at the L.A. or San Francisco International Wine Competitions when you're showing this wine to a prospective buyer. Wineries will print reams of 'shelf talkers' or 'bottle neckers' to help promote their award-winning label amongst a sea of other labels with similar advertisement 'tags'. Walk into in a wine shop or grocery and you can't help but notice how 'papered up' their wine departments are.
This leads to a whole industry built up around gimmicky wine labels with exotic animal motifs, ala Yellowtail. Great for getting your wine noticed, but if the drink in the bottle is sub-standard you won't get much mileage out of this ploy. Packaging must be considered, but has to be number three, after quality (Number 1!) and price.
The best angle for a small winery operation has to be the motivated wine enthusiast who actively seeks out quality producers despite their lack of clever marketing savvy and deep pocket advertising budgets. These rare individuals exist in every market and aren't afraid of trying something new, in fact they're seeking the latest and greatest new label to hit the market.
This type of buyer is the one that will take a chance with internet-based wine clubs that ship obscure, small-house labels despite the fact that this approach to buying is fraught with peril in terms of getting your money's worth on the purchase. However, for the pure wine enthusiast, this game is akin to panning for gold as every now and then a shiny nugget will be discovered!
Let's all say a little prayer for the fledgling wine artisans out there attempting to produce a 'drinkable work or art'. Their path is long and difficult but if their passion for the art is strong there's a good chance that they will find an audience for their product. It would be a sad day when the only wine available to the market was the typically mediocre, uninspired wines produced in volume by mega-corporate drinks firms.
Cheers!
Donald W. White