To briefly recap from last time, the production side of the wine industry is better than ever, more people have the tools and the knowledge to make the best wines ever.\u00a0 There are very few \u2018bad\u2019 wines these days that suffer from bacterial, microbial, or other forms of \u2018funk\u2019 that hygienic winemaking has mostly eliminated.\u00a0 The most significant source of bad bottles stem from the closures, either those with TCA that cause the wine to be corked, or an imperfect seal that allows the wine to oxidize.<\/p>\n
Screw cap closures virtually eliminate all of those problems, and the next generation is not as<\/em> connected to the \u2018screw caps mean cheap wines\u2019 mentality.\u00a0 Millennials grew up with fine wines that came with screw caps and there\u2019s no reason to think the acceptance of screw caps will not continue to increase moving forward to the point where most of the wines that are consumed \u2018off-the-shelf\u2019 will come in cap closures, allowing the cork trees to replenish to make better corks for those \u2018special\u2019 bottles destined for the cellar.<\/p>\n One must ask a simple question here before moving on.\u00a0 Presumably the wine industry will cater to the market (though it is known to try and manipulate certain aspects) as time marches on.\u00a0 But what exactly is <\/em>the market?\u00a0 Is it the small upper part that maintains cellars and buys wine on a regular basis, usually with the curiosity to try new genres just because they want to and the itch to keep up on trends?\u00a0 The small, savvy group is the one we maintain has the most impact on the market and spends the most money proportionately.\u00a0 The trends often start here.<\/p>\n Is it the second tier that is willing to spend money on high priced wine clubs and restaurant markups with just enough knowledge to know they want something better?\u00a0 These are professional folks that have the money to spend but not necessarily the experience or desire to sort through the rhetoric.\u00a0 They are more susceptible to price (more expensive is better, right?) and marketing (\u2018being in a wine club makes me a special insider\u2019) impressions.\u00a0 There\u2019s a mediocre, single vineyard $60 Petit Verdot Reserve out there somewhere for these folks but they do make up a sizeable buying force.\u00a0 Certain market brands (not mentioning names) have established remarkable followings with this largely loyal group.\u00a0 This is the ideal target for most wineries and direct-to-consumer entities. Some will take the step to the smaller group, others will become disenchanted with the lack of value, but the remainder is still a sizeable group with buying power.<\/p>\n The third group is the largest in population though probably far less connected.\u00a0 These are the more occasional buyer that purchases wines pretty much the same way they buy potato chips and soda.\u00a0 They find a brand they like and stick with it unlike shaken out of the pattern.\u00a0 Of course they make up the largest group in terms of tonnage and are the targets.\u00a0 For the most part these are the folks that like wine but aren\u2019t fanatics about it.\u00a0 They will see things when they filter down to the grocery\/\u2019big box\u2019 level, and won\u2019t see or seek out many opportunities to try something different.\u00a0\u00a0 These are the \u2018brand buyers\u2019 that corporate wineries seek.<\/p>\n We aren\u2019t casting judgment from our perspective, just observing.\u00a0 At this point we have described these groups from a multigenerational context.\u00a0 In truth the big change in wine perception came with the baby-boomers, arguably the first American generation to have some sort of wider-spread wine culture.\u00a0 It was rare to see people ordering wine in restaurants or bars as an aperitif or cocktail back in the day.\u00a0 But it is pretty common now and the next generation, the millennials, grew up with this around them.\u00a0 Most \u2018boomers\u2019 are now in their 60s and 70s and aren\u2019t buying a lot any more.\u00a0 The industry looks to the next-gen buyers to try and figure it out.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a little hard to cover all the bases, and our perspective is certainly a bit skewed as we deal largely with the savviest group.\u00a0 But there are a few things we have noticed over the last few years.\u00a0 The media has changed buying patterns.\u00a0 We hardly ever hear the term \u2018vertical\u2019 from a buyer any more.\u00a0 For those that don\u2019t know the term, a lot of folks would find a few wines they liked and buy some every year, year in and year out.\u00a0 These days a buyer will be more sensitive to reviews on high end wines and cluster buy the highest rated vintages and top wines from the media.\u00a0 He is more attuned to score<\/em> than brand<\/em> if push comes to shove.<\/p>\n Back in the olden days, brands established themselves more slowly but on a much more solid footing.\u00a0 In today\u2019s lightening communication world, wines and labels can get hot overnight and disappear almost as fast.\u00a0 In the \u2018148 character\u2019, digital world where a lot of folks don\u2019t ever look up from their phones, slow building would seem to be at a disadvantage.\u00a0 It\u2019s hard to get someone\u2019s attention long enough to tell much of a story (unless you have them trapped in your winery tasting room).<\/p>\n Most of the wine purchased is drunk right away, though that isn\u2019t necessarily a massive societal change.\u00a0 It is however on a bit of an upswing.\u00a0 The next-gens seem to be more inclined to meet outside the home, which kind of precludes the whole cellar building process.\u00a0 We would suggest that this trend has supported the explosion of casual restaurants, ethnic eateries, and \u2018pub-like\u2019 venues over \u2018fine dining\u2019 (that itself is a very fertile subject for another time).\u00a0 Suffice it to say that those are less likely to provide that \u2018revelation\u2019 moment wine-wise, and support the more casual buying of wine.<\/p>\n On the production end, things are technically much better as we said.\u00a0 But the combination of the media formats favoring blowsier, more overt styles and the general public\u2019s waning attention span (air a wine for a half hour?\u2026omg, lol what am I supposed to do in the meantime?), favors the sweeter, more commercial, more obvious style of wine.\u00a0 Sadly for the big picture, we see wine, like the world, becoming more homogenized.\u00a0 Busy people don\u2019t have time for details, so simple and non-obtrusive has a ready market.<\/p>\n Another key issue is how<\/em> wines are sold (we\u2019ll address this detail next time).\u00a0 There are more exceptional wines than ever as we said in our last piece.\u00a0 So let\u2019s take our next-gen buyer, the people that the industry will have to rely on for the next 20-30 years, and let\u2019s make a couple of big suppositions.\u00a0 Let\u2019s assume that a couple a next-geners were at lunch and ordered a glass of wine and actually paid attention to it for a moment.\u00a0 Now this presumes a lot of other things, like the wine they got poured was actually opened within the last 24 (or 48?) hours and the batteries on their smart phones, tablets and smart watches all ran out at once and they left their wireless charging devices at home.<\/p>\n That a pretty unlikely convergence of events but for the sake of theory let\u2019s move on.\u00a0 Under these extreme circumstances, let\u2019s say they find they really like what they were drinking.\u00a0 Suddenly, through no fault of their own, they have the \u2018aha\u2019 moment (like we all<\/em> had at one point or another) and decide maybe they\u2019d like to pursue the wine thing a little bit.<\/p>\n Where are they going to do that?\u00a0 How are they going of do that?\u00a0 Where\u2019s the next generation, the generation that will be expected to support the wine industry, going to learn about wine?\u00a0 That probably is the biggest question because, as much as the wine industry loves to tell itself otherwise, the world has changed a lot since the baby boomers turned 21.\u00a0 But that\u2019s too big a question for right now.\u00a0 We\u2019ll take a swing at it in a couple of weeks\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To briefly recap from last time, the production side of the wine industry is better than ever, more people have the tools and the knowledge to make the best wines ever.\u00a0 There are very few \u2018bad\u2019 wines these days that suffer from bacterial, microbial, or other forms of \u2018funk\u2019 that hygienic winemaking has mostly eliminated.\u00a0 … Continue reading “And Now, A Look Even Further Ahead: Part II”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[6,7,5,8,4],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/46"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.winex.com\/stockreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
“It was rare to see people ordering wine in restaurants or bars as an aperitif or cocktail back in the day.”<\/strong><\/h3>\n<\/blockquote>\n