Economy Shapes the Wine Press
Written By: Anonymous on Thu, Aug 7th 2008
I've harped on and on about this, but just this week, there have been no less than four articles that focused on inexpensive wines: Bill Daley of the Chicago Tribune posted an article entitled "Good wines for tough times." Michael Franz of winereviewonline.com writes "Loving wine on the cheap." Leslie Gevirts of Reuters Life beckons with "Psssst - Have I got a cheap red wine for you!" And finally Rachael Wharton of the New York Daily News talks about The Wine Trials with article entitled "Cheap, tasty wines get their due in 'The Wine Trials'" Mind you, these all posted within 48 hours of each other. That's fascinating. So what does that tell you? Well like any other economic indicator, wine consumption says a lot. Granted, we know that overall alcohol sales always increase during tough times - seems that booze is the nation's escapism of choice offering quite a bit of bang for the buck. But with a luxury item such as wine, the argument for its continued place in the budgets of America gets pretty tough to win. So what's the best way to keep it there? Downgrade! It's all the rage... Look at cars, everyone is selling off their big SUVs (I did recently, once the gas tank starting hitting triple digits and the mpg was single ones) for more fuel efficient ones. Mortgage got you upside down? Sell out from under it, take your lumps and get a loft. Apartment leases have been on fire lately, condo purchases are nowhere near as low as traditional housing, indicating a trend towards economy, albeit relative. So what about wine? As I have said before, hardcore collectors with the pockets to collect 'hardcorely' are usually pretty insulated from all this fuss about money and groceries and fuel and blah blah blah. But what about the guys and gals who want a nice bottle from time to time, maybe going crazy in that $30-50 range? It seems that the press thinks they want to hear about wines in the sub-$20 category. Truth be told, they are right. Those among us who view ourselves as aficionados, geeks, but not billionaires, we tend to bob with the financial currents, and wine should be no different. If anything I see this as a great opportunity to branch out. Leave the nest. Strike out. Insert favorite exploratory cliché here. These are the times when you fall back on old friends like Columbia Crest Yellow Label Chardonnay and Cline's entry-level Syrah, both which are without peer in their price and varietal category. Then you go out and explore the nether regions of Chile, Argentina, Spain, and Costco. But for the collectors among us, maybe you aren't thinking about loading up on more prima-donna auction tokens, so perhaps now is the time to start walking amongst the herd, looking for the fatten calf. Yes, these are the days when seeing what doesn't make that much sense investment-wise makes sense pleasure-wise. Maybe a hard look at wines you have been dying to taste and perhaps bought a bit too high will reveal some excellent values for the table, of not for the bank.
