Does it matter?
by Jessyca Frederick
“What is happening is American wine companies are buying bulk wine in France, Chile, Australia or wherever, shipping it back here and bottling it here under their own brand,” says Lewis Perdue, the author of wineindustryinsight.com.
“P
eople have no idea the wine they are drinking is cheap bulk import,” Perdue says.
Read the full article here
I guess my question is… does it really matter? My philosophy has always been, “Cheap wine is fine, as long as it tastes good.” I’m not partial to where it comes from. If I’m looking for a bargain, and you can get me cheaper wine from France or Chile where macroeconomics have more to do with wine pricing than brand recognition, I’m all for it!
I do care if the wineries are labeling it as coming from somewhere other than where they bought it, but I highly doubt they are since it would probably put them out of business.
What do you think?
P.S. Thanks to Julie Brosterman of @womenwine
for the heads-up on this piece!
Category: Wines from the Grocery Store | Tags: bargains, cheap wine 2 comments »
March 2nd, 2010 at 8:55 am
Here’s my take on the situation. I love a great barbain in anything (including wine). I grew up learning to shop at Loehmann’s when you had to run around the store looking for codes on tags that would tell you if there were pants that matched the jacket from the same designer and in the same dye lot – in those days they cut out the labels and you had to be a super sleuth to find them.
Then Loehmann’s decided to go the route of other outlet stores and buy clothing made specifically by designers for the lower priced market place. They sold for the same discounted prices but there was no longer authenticity in what you were buying. They weren’t selling designer duds at a discount but cheap merchandise to an audience that was just shopping based on price. I make the same comparison here. The un-assuming wine purchaser looking for a deal will assume that they are getting a great bargain from a known producer of higher priced wines. Instead they are getting the bargain basement substitute. Ugh.
Somewhere there needs to be some truth in advertising on the label, etc. to let people know that the wine clost $5 bucks not because it’s been ‘marked down’ from $10 but because it cost the winery 50 cents.
Sorry for any typos btw, this box is really hard to type into as you don’t get to see the whole line.
Best,
Julie Brosterman
@womenwine
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March 2nd, 2010 at 9:40 am
Thank you, Julie. These are excellent points. You’ve touched on a subject that I’m also passionate about… discount shopping!
While I agree that unscrupulous businesses shouldn’t be attempting to fool people into buying fraudulent merchandise, there is a responsibility on the part of the consumer to know what they’re buying (Buyer Beware). Essentially, if you don’t know what you’re buying, why are you buying it?
In clothing, you can tell the quality of a fabric, how it’s put together, etc. just by looking at it… but most people don’t do this. Likewise, with wine, you can read the label or do some online research to find out what it is you’re actually buying (assuming the wine producer isn’t shady). But most people don’t do this either.
There’s too much risk to a legitimate business to be selling cheap wine from Australia in a bottle that says “California.” And if 75% of what’s in that bottle is California and the rest is from Australia but they don’t tell me? Meh. I only care if I like what’s in the bottle or I don’t. When you’re shopping on the bottom shelf, it’s not logical to be too picky about the source of your wine.