Wine in 2020 with Jeff Siegel - The Wine Curmudgeon

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You know, maybe we need to take another look at how we sell wine. Maybe we need to take another look at who's drinking it. And maybe we need to make people understand that wine is not something that your grandparents drink, and so therefore we should you should ignore it.

SPEAKER_00 0:25

Hi everyone, I'm Nick Borbagel from Lake Geneva Country Means, and I'm here with episode three of the Dinner Plus Drinks interview series. Today's interview takes a look at wine in 2019 and looks forward to 2020. Our guest is Jeff Siegel, also known as the Wine Curmudgeon. Yep, the Wine Curmudgeon. You can find Jeff blogging and podcasting at winecurmudgeon.com where his focus is on sharing advice on affordable wines from all over the world. Jeff reviews lots of wines for his own blog with a focus on affordable or as he calls it cheap wine. He writes for a number of wine industry publications, and he also does some wine judging, so he has a wide amount of experiences, gets to see the wine industry from a lot of different angles, and I thought he would be the perfect person to provide perspective on what's happening across the wine landscape. In the interview, we talk about wines from unexpected regions, different grape varieties that have surprised us, pricing, how that affected wine sales in 2019, different packaging formats, plus some more hot button topics. It's a great conversation. Here we go. Take a listen. We are uh so happy to be friends. We're so happy to have you on. And uh we wanted to talk about wine and what we're looking forward to in 2020. I figured there are a few people who uh are more qualified than you. You have a lot of unique perspectives and a lot of different viewpoints on it. So you write winecurmudgeon.com among a lot of other things that uh you have going on in the wine world. Could you give us a little overview of how you got into wine and what you'll do?

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Um as I always like to say, um I'm

About Jeff & WineCurmudgeon.com

SPEAKER_01 2:20

a failed newspaper man. Umspapers, three of which no longer exist, so I decided to write about wine. And I've been doing that. I've been doing that as the wine curmudgeon at winecurmudgeon.com for 12, 13 years now. And with the sense that wine uh should be written about in English, not in wine speak, and that uh I write about wine that people can afford to buy, which of course makes me different than almost everybody else who does that. Um and we've the blog's had great success, and I'm and I'm very happy for it. And and I also do a lot of trade magazine writing, a lot of consumer magazine writing about wine that people can afford to buy and trends and so forth. So, and I pay more attention to what's going on at the wine shop in the liquor store than a lot of other wine writers do. Um so I think I actually have a pretty good perspective on what's going on, especially for people like your customers, Nick, who go in there and they've got their 10, 15, 20 bucks and they want to get a decent bottle of wine for dinner.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

I agree. That's what I like about your blog, is you actually know what can go in stores. You look at something like Wine Spectator's Top 100 that gets so much attention every year, you can't buy hardly any of it. You know, congratulations. This is the best wine of the year, but where are you gonna buy it? Where are you gonna buy a bottle of Lynch Bosch? Nobody's buying that. Unless you're uh a billionaire, but it yeah. So that's what I appreciate about your blog. Uh you're down in Texas. One of the things I also like about uh what you do is you you shine a light on some of these regions in America that are emerging and uh bringing out some decent wines. Texas is um starting to make some really great wine in New York, Michigan, Virginia, and um that's one of the things I wanted to ask you about as we to kind of wrap up 2019, things you were seeing in 2019. We keep talking about California as the

Recapping wine trends in 2019

SPEAKER_00 4:12

behemoth and American wine, but have you seen any of these other states, these other smaller producers of wine in America, start to make an impact in the commercial level?

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Oh yeah, most definitely. And thank you for bringing that up. Um with Dave McIntyre of the Washington Post, I helped start a group uh called Drink Local Wine, and the whole idea was to spotlight wine made in the other 47 states that aren't on the West Coast. Um and one of the things Dave always likes to joke about is that we don't have to do drink local wine anymore, and we don't, uh, because we can declare victory, because regional wine, local wine is now pretty much accepted in a way that it wasn't 10, 15 years ago. You can actually go in Texas, you can actually go in New York, you can actually go in Michigan, even in Wisconsin, even in Illinois, um, and go buy a bottle of Wisconsin wine in Wisconsin or Texas wine in Texas and Michigan wine in Michigan in a way that wouldn't have been possible 10 years ago before we started this thing. Um the wine, the quality of the wine is much better, people are more aware of it, the price-value uh ratio has improved considerably. Um and there's a sense that we just don't have to drink the same stuff from California every time.

SPEAKER_00 5:24

And that's nice because obviously California makes some fabulous wine, they have great conditions and they have a history of it. But uh I had some Tanat from Texas recently that was uh quite good, actually. I was very skeptical. Um it wasn't cheap, but it wasn't super expensive. And um, like you said, the price value actually was at the point where I said, yeah, I might I might try this again.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

And and that's and so a couple of things have happened, one of which is technology, both in winemaking and in grape growing, has improved so dramatically over the last 20 years that we can grow grapes in places of the country that we thought we never could. Um and so that's that's number one. And number two, we just have smarter winemakers who understand that not all wine has to taste like it comes from Paso Robles. And that was always the problem with regional wine in the past. And now they understand that the climate in the terroir in Texas is completely different than it is in Washington State or Oregon or the Napa or Sonoma. And so we grow grapes and we make the wine according to what's here. I'll put in a plug from my friend Kim McPherson in Lubbock, um, who's who's discovered that Rhone varietals, uh Spanish reds and whites do very, very well in Texas. And that's actually been kind of the wine that that a lot of like the Tanakh the the less well-known grapes um that people are uh are growing and making wine out of, and it's uh it's done very well.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

Yeah, yeah. So 2019, if you had to put a big bow on 2019, was there one overarching theme that you said 2019 in wine is different than other years because of this?

SPEAKER_01 7:05

Uh it's different because I've never tasted so much ordinary wine costing so much money that I was supposed to like because it costs so much money.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Amen. Amen. I think there's a technical term for that. It's called premiumization, right?

SPEAKER_01 7:19

Yes, it's called premiumization, uh, invented by Rob McMillan of Silicon Valley Bank, who they finance a lot of wineries, and he does a big report every year on the state of the wine industry. And uh it really makes me sad, and particularly from California, we're seeing 15 and 18 and $20 wine that is of no has no interest at all. It's technically well made, but it's very boring. And I want $10 wines that are well-made and interesting, and $12 wines, and and there are just fewer and fewer of those. And I know you and I have talked about this, and it's harder to find those wines for the shop.

SPEAKER_00 7:53

Yeah, we did a large reset on the store, brought in maybe a hundred new different different wines, reorganized things a little bit, and really tried to pay attention to consumer trends. And as I was preparing about what I wanted to talk to you about, I have you know other questions for you, but that's what I could not escape in 2019 is how much sixteen dollar, eighteen dollar California Cabernet we're selling. And I understand why people like it. It's a good bet in terms of it's gonna have a certain flavor profile, you're probably gonna enjoy it. And it's yummy. It's it's yummy. It's not necessarily the most interesting wine, but sometimes that's what people want. Like you said, I wish that wine was $14 instead of eighteen dollars. And I think that's contributing to overall wine sales being down a little bit because if you know everybody has a set budget, and you don't want to strike out, so if you're spending $18 on that wine, you know you're not going to strike out on, not so much room to get two bottles, maybe one at the $10 that's something different, and one that's a good old standby.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

Right. Actually, I had a very smart retailer here in Dallas tell me that he thought premiumization was actually making um um traditional varietals more popular. Because if every wine costs $18 or $20 and you only have money to buy one bottle of wine, then you're going to buy the same thing that you know and play it safe. So you're gonna buy an $18 bottle of California Cabernet instead of maybe something more interesting from Spain or something more interesting from Italy, because you're not sure what those taste like. But you know exactly what that California Cabernet is gonna taste like. And it'll be enjoyable because especially if you like that style. And so that's how that's that's your $18 investment right there.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

I I gotta agree with you 100%. That's uh and what he said. I think I think that's it's understandable from a consumer point of view, but as somebody who's always uh trying to get people to try something new, it's it's too bad that those wines have gotten to be that price point, so that you can't get people to try something new. Um did you see any any regions really kind of pop off the board that you thought, wow, you know, we talked about some of the other 47, but any countries around the world that popped up and you said, this was really interesting. I did not see you know Uruguay gets you know getting so much press or becoming popular. Anything that kind of surprised you that way?

SPEAKER_01 10:23

Yeah, uh a couple of things. Uh in fact, and I guess we'll end up talking about this a little bit later, but over the last year, the last 18 months, I thought Spanish white wines in particular, um, the quality and the value had increased considerably. Uh and you know, two, three years ago, neck who'd ever heard of Alberino? Yeah. Um and now you can go for $12, $10, $14, and buy an absolutely terrific Alberino that's not Sauvignon Blanc, that's that's not Chardonnay, uh, that's that is a great food wine, it's a great sipping wine. Um, and that that impressed me a lot. I the other thing that I I I found, and this was a little disconcerting, and I don't know what you saw in Wisconsin, but here in particular, we get the stuff from the wine retailers and the distributors and the wholesalers, and it's Greek wine, and as you mentioned, Uruguayan wine, and they're trying to sell us wine that frankly you can't buy much of in Texas. Which doesn't do me any good because I can't taste it, and it doesn't do my readers any good because I have a national audience, and I really hate to write about wine that no one can buy.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

I was um I think your point on the Alberinho is interesting. We've we've done really well with those not Pinot Grigio, not Sauvignon Blanc aromatic whites. Um, stylistically, that was something I found interesting. Gruners, dry Rieslings, uh, Alberinos from around the world, Shenon Blanc, things like that where it's it seemed like there was a bit of a tipping point. Uh Marlboro, New Zealand, Savillon Blanc is still a juggernaut. That's killing it. But there was a little bit of a tipping point of people wanting to, instead of buying two bottles of that, at least that I saw, looking to try an Alberinho, um, something like that. We actually sold a lot of Vinha Verde from Portugal. That's what we saw. Is this was a year, I think the past five years, everybody said it's going to be the year of Portugal. It's going to be the year of Portugal. For us this year, we sold a ton of Portuguese dry reds and dry whites.

SPEAKER_01 12:29

And I think a lot of that has to do with two things. First off, availability was much better than it ever was. I mean, in the old days, there were only, by old days, literally three, four years ago, there were only two kinds, two or three kinds of Venjo Verde to buy, and that was the crab, which is made by the same company, and it just has three different labels for three different retailers. Um, and the Portuguese have really improved the quality of the wine, uh particularly on the whites. Portuguese whites were kind of like Spanish whites were a long time ago, and they were not easy to drink. Uh and they've improved a lot. They actually now are balanced and interesting. Um and Venno Verde, too, which just kind of be sweet and flat, like flat beer now, it actually tastes like wine, and it's actually fun to buy and drink.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah, we did well with one. Um I always think what I recommend to consumers when they say, if you, you know, we like talking to you, we like buying wine from you, but if you're not around, which I look for if in some other store, I always think looking for importers on the back labels is a great way to know if you're finding quality wine or not. And uh, we've done a lot with uh Mundo Vino, a very large importer, also distributor in America, and they have a single varietal Vino Verde called uh Luero from J. Portugal Ramos that widely available, delicious, highly recommend that wine. And we went through cases of it. And it was a hard sell at first because, as you said, Vino Verde used to be this slightly fizzy, slightly sweet, disgusting wine, and this was certainly good white wine, very refreshing, very food friendly. That was that was something that really surprised me that we were able I liked the wine, but just because I like the wine doesn't mean we're gonna sell it.

SPEAKER_01 14:13

No, and that's the toughest part about what I do, and the even more tougher part about what you do is you have to have wine in there that people want to buy, and you have to have wine in there that you want people to buy, and you have to maintain a balance so you can make a living.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

So Spanish whites, uh anything else you you saw kind of pop up that you were asked to review more often or that um you know.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

Um yeah, it's it it's it's funny because uh when you think of Italy and you think of red wine, um you think of of Tuscany, um you think maybe now a little bit more towards Sicily. Um but right there in the middle, uh uh uh the Monte God, you're the Italians in your audience are going to never forgive me for this. Um but the uh the Montepucciano d'Abruzzo, right there in the middle, I believe it's in the middle of the country, just tremendous, inexpensive red blends. Um again, you have to look for them because they're not going to be sitting there uh at the end of the aisle uh you know with a big sign uh because nobody's gonna pay for that. But again, those they're getting to be a little more available, and the the quality has just been terrific.

SPEAKER_00 15:21

I think uh what we've seen in Italy too, and hitting circling back to premiumization, is we've done really well with northern Italian reds, uh not Barolo, which is still $45, $50, but uh Barberas, Nebu uh Barberas, um things from Verona area, so we're talking about some Corvina-based things like Val Policello, where those have always been about $16 to $18 for a very nice bottle of wine. Now that California Cabernet's come up to that, it's a little bit more appealing. So we've done, I think you said, you know, the southern Italian reds you're seeing, uh, the Montepuccianos, but we've also seen those northern Italian reds really take off when people are enjoying them for picnics, great food wines, and just easy drinking.

SPEAKER_01 16:08

You know, and that's you you mentioned Corvina, and that's another really interesting point because I'll date myself here, but I'm old enough, my dad used to drink a lot of bola um chella.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

And that was so that kind of gave me a taste in my mouth, and I didn't want to have to repeat that again. Um But the quality on Corvina, you can there are actually now wines that are really terrific. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

The Italians always uh theoretically have fairly strict laws about production practices, but uh I think depending on the administration and the localities, it could be a little more or less enforced. I think they're starting to enforce things a little bit more. Have you seen um anything that package-wise, we um you know the other thing that I think you've seen in every wine publication for the last five years is this is the year of canned wine. Look out for canned wine, look out for bag and box wine. Um we've actually done slightly better this year with canned wine. I think the quality's come up. I don't know, as you're looking around in stores around you, as you're looking for wines to review, have you seen consumers ask for more of that type of style of alternative packaging in wines?

SPEAKER_01 17:23

I think I think canned wine, canned wine will eventually reach a plateau in the same way that box wine, quality box wine has reached a plateau. You can go out and you can go buy a black box, you can go out and buy a Boda box, it'll be inexpensive, the quality will be acceptable, sometimes a lot more than acceptable, and eventually canned wine will get to that point. Um I think, and I have not seen any numbers yet, I think it didn't do in terms of growth quite whatever quite as well as it had done in the past, and quite what everybody had expected it to do. And I think there's a couple of reasons for that. One of which, Nick, as you mentioned, most canned wine is terrible. Yeah. Most canned wine is made uh with uh bulk grapes, and nobody really, and I'm being honest about this, not enough people care about what's in the can because they're not selling it for the wine, they're selling it because it's in a can. Um and I think that's hurt. And there's three different sizes of canned wine, and that's hurt, and the pricing has hurt. When you buy a bottle of wine, you know $15 is a lot or not for a bottle of wine, and you know how much you're gonna get. With three sizes of cans, can pricing is all over the place, and you have no idea how much you're buying. And I think after the novelty wore off, consumers started to get a little confused about that.

SPEAKER_00 18:46

That's a really interesting point. I didn't consider that, but I think you're right. I think that's that's right on because it is confusing.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

Well, especially it's got to be confusing for a retailer because you don't know what size to carry, you don't know how you're gonna stack it on the shelf, and I think that's been a problem problem too. And then of course we can't forget that the other thing that might have hurt Can Wine this year were the hard siders and the hard seltzers, um, which were basically the same product for half the price.

SPEAKER_00 19:13

I think that's uh, you know, when you're talking about 2019 and the alcohol industry in general, it's the year of the hard seltzer. And things like White Claw is obviously the big name, the big one that everybody talks about. But that has hurt beer sales, that's hurt wine sales, liquor sales are are are generally doing okay, but this has definitely been the year of the hard seltzer.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

And and and why not? It's low in alcohol, it it it's it it fits that smooth profile that all the wine companies are so desperate to try and uh and get, and it's inexpensive. And plus, because it's it is what it is, you don't have to worry about trying to make bad grapes, bad quality grapes taste good.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

So anything else uh in 2019 that you thought was interesting as we uh put a bow on what's been a very interesting year overall?

SPEAKER_01 20:05

Um I'm curious, I think at the end of the year, uh as consumption continued to be flat, overall consumption continued to be flat and even decline a little bit, depending again on whose numbers um that you look at. I think there was a there was a realization among some parts of the wine business that people like myself, the the baby boomers, um, were drinking less wine because A, we're drinking less wine and B, we're dying, um, and that nobody's really coming up to replace us. And in the entire industry, you know, we were laughing about premiumization. I I think most people have just decided we'll just keep selling expensive wine to the baby boomers until they die um and worry about the rest later. But I think there are some smart people that I've talked to who have have suddenly said, suddenly realized we're gonna have to do something here about wine because it's not it's not where it has been. And if we don't do something, we're gonna, we may face a problem where people who are Americans just aren't drinking wine anymore.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

Are you seeing that on um the producer side more of that or the large large company side, small company side? Anyone, you know, is there kind of a trend to that that you're looking for?

SPEAKER_01 21:20

I I I've talked to some analysts who who believe in numbers, so they they believe what they see. But I've also talked to some some um some consultants who are typically very conservative in their view, and and they'll say, oh yes, total dollar sales are rising, line is healthy. Um and a friend of mine said it's like going to a rock concert. You can either go, you can make money getting 75,000 people to come, or you can get money making 10,000 people to come. It seems to me that we would all want to make money getting 75,000 people to come. I agree. So there's that, and I think a lot of small producers. Users because they have to be smarter, are seeing this too, and so they're trying to do different things. Um, but again, uh one of them told me he said it's just it's just getting product to market is so much more difficult now because there's so much so many fewer distributors and he's got to be more inventive about what he's doing to get his product in front of people so that they have a chance to buy it.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah, that's a good point. It's I think that's one of the other things, more on the uh inside baseball, but in 2019 we saw a ton of consolidation of big wine big winery owners, uh vineyard owners, distributors. So in America there is a three-tier system where a producer sells to a distributor, sells to a retailer, sells to the consumer. And the fewer that works well when everybody's on an equal playing field, but it seems like the number of vineyards that are available for a new winemaker to independently make great wine from uh definitely going down because large companies like Gallo are are buying up every little bit of premium vineyard space in California and keeping it for themselves. Big distributors are buying smaller distributors or merging and making wineries and play by their rules and making retailers buy certain wines to have other wines, and ultimately that's just hurting consumers.

SPEAKER_01 23:31

It's because it's about choice. And if you have the number is the top ten distributors control two-thirds of the U.S. wine market, then if you have ten companies making decisions about what I'm going to drink, um, that might be good for them. It's not good for me. And I think it again gets to the point of if everything out there comes from 10 companies, which again, 90% of the wine made in California is made by 10 companies. Um that gives us less choice. And this is not a criticism of the quality of Gallo or the quality of Kendall Jackson or anything like that, but it I don't want the same thing every time. I want vanilla and I want chocolate ice cream.

SPEAKER_00 24:11

That's a good way to put it. So let's uh transition to 2020 and kind of on the inside baseball thing. One of the things, topics I have a couple topics I want to ask you about that I want to just uh maybe we can find some positive things and some exciting things we're looking forward to in 2020. But um recently there was the summer there was a decision of the Supreme Court about how uh wine can be shipped from it's technically extraordinary illegally, uh it's extraordinarily illegal for me to send wine to any customer. Doesn't matter if it's uh across state lines, if it's inside the state, I can't even put it in my truck and deliver it. Um that could get me some

Looking forward to 2020

SPEAKER_00 24:50

serious federal uh felony type of situations. But that recently, there's recently a decision in the Supreme Court um that might change that. Do you do you see, and I know shipping wine is very important to you and what you do uh in terms of receiving it. Do you see anything changing in that that might be a benefit to consumers?

SPEAKER_01 25:09

Well, the the the case you're talking about, the the Tennessee retailer case, was taken um by people who want to open up direct shipping to make it easier for not just wineries to ship to consumers, but for retailers to ship to consumers. Um it depends again on which attorney you talk to. I talked to several who said it's a very narrow uh the Supreme Court decision was very narrow and applied just to Tennessee and just to this particular case. But you can talk to other attorneys who say this is the opening that we need, so that Jeff, you're sitting there in Texas, you'll be able to order um Wisconsin wine um from NEC because you really like uh the Prairie Fume from Wallersheim, which I can't buy in Texas. Um we're just gonna have to wait and see on that. And again, as slowly as the wheels of these things work, it might be a couple of years. Um the thing I think that's even more interesting about that is that uh Amazon is trying to get around um the direct shipping ban by since it bought Whole Foods, it now can can ship wine from a little in Texas in particular and in many states, it can ship wine from Whole Foods to its customers. Yeah. And that will be interesting to see if Amazon expands on that. And so that they have the way I mean they're big enough they could say, well, we have 15 wines in our local Whole Foods, but you can get access to these other 15 wines that aren't necessarily there, but they're virtually there. And if Amazon decides to do something like that, who knows?

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Yeah. Another thing you've written a bunch about on the blog that I think is is interesting, and I'm I'm curious uh as you speak to people is nutritional labeling on wine. Um we're starting to see it on beer a little bit. Um there is some of the things. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Thank you so much for asking that, Nick. Um here's how backwards the wine business is. Okay. Budweiser and Coors and Miller and the big beer companies, and however many, I think there's one and a half beer companies that control most of the beer in the world. These guys have been making beer the same way forever. And they've decided to put nutritional labels on beer. And there's nothing in beer. It's hops and water and yeast, and and depending on what grains you use, right? I mean it's and they've decided because of the way society is and the way younger consumers are, that they needed to be transparent.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Why not?

SPEAKER_01 28:06

So how did But the wine business, yeah? No, no, no. You don't know what's in wine. They're my whatever my favorite thing is, 75. I'm shouting here now, so you can tell I'm worked up by it. 75 legal ingredients to be in wine, including many things that have absolutely nothing to do with grapes. And the wine business refuses to do this. They won't tell you how many calories is in a glass of wine, they won't tell you how much how much uh fat, which is zero, of course, which would be a good thing to put on there. But now, and and I've heard all the reasons. There's not enough room on the bottle. My favorite reason, it'll confuse consumers. Right. And we all understand what's on a on a on the ingredient label on Campbell's uh cream of mushroom soup.

SPEAKER_00 28:50

I would love to see not only the nutritional labeling I can understand where it would be difficult to get that precise, but I would at least like to see ingredient labeling, and I would like to see process labeling. If I mechanically tenderize a steak, I have to put mechanically tenderize steak on there. So you know, I've doctored it up a little bit. If big winery reverse osmosis is their wine, which is very common right now because of climate change, you as a consumer wouldn't know. And maybe as a consumer, if you knew that, you would learn I don't like wines that have been gone through a centrifuge or reverse osmosis, because I feel like it stripped some of the character away. I I think consumers can handle that.

SPEAKER_01 29:38

Oh, I consumers can certainly handle that. Uh, and it's but again, it's the idea that we're making $18 and $20 wine and $22 wine that's aged with uh oak chips that has grape juice concentrate added to it to give it color, um, that may have one or two other or three things in it to make it taste a certain way. And that's what they're terrified about. The great irony to me about nutrition labeling is um is wine vegan? And for the most part, almost all wine is vegan because hardly anybody uses uh fining with eggs or or fish bladders or anything like that anymore. And the wine business is so terrified of nutritional labeling, they don't even want to talk about that.

SPEAKER_00 30:26

So do you see anything happening from the government uh coming in and saying, hey guys, you start doing this?

SPEAKER_01 30:33

Or is that uh No, I no, it's it's I mean right now you have the option to do it, and uh again, that's one reason why you're seeing a lot of the big spirits companies uh putting nutrition you'll see nutritional labeling on a lot of spirits now. The wine business, no, other than really smart people um like Ridge and Bonnie Doon and some smaller local producers, um uh you it's not it's it's just not going to happen. Because everybody is completely terrified that the minute they put that there's something on there that the consumer doesn't understand, that the consumer will go drink something else. With, of course, Nick, the understanding that the consumer's already going to drink something else.

SPEAKER_00 31:17

So the one thing that the government did do, uh, if not nutritional labeling, is slap a bunch of tariffs on some imported wines. Uh French wine, Spanish wine, German wine. I think that's it, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Uh and of course uh British wine.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

British wine. Uh there's some good British wine out there. We actually sold some British wine this year. But uh how do you how do you think that the tariffs on those wines is going to impact the wine industry in 2020?

SPEAKER_01 31:44

Oh, I think I I think in 2020 in general, um at the end of the year, the wine business will look at what happened and look at the sales numbers and look at the consumption numbers, and it will be like, how did this happen? What did we do? We didn't do anything. How did it how did things turn out so badly? And I by nature, I'm not the most optimistic guy in the world, but I really think 2020 has the potential to be a very bad year for the wine business. Um the tariffs are going to raise prices on um on some of the most affordable wines in the world, particularly from southern France, particularly from Spain, um, that is a tremendous that you know that moves supermarket wine sales, regardless of what you might sell there, that moves that that ordinary people when they go to the supermarket, those are the wines they buy. And those wines won't be eight and ten and twelve dollars anymore. They'll be twelve and fifteen and eighteen dollars. And my guess is they won't buy them. Um and and I've talked to a lot of retailers who are terrified about that. I've talked to a lot of importers who are afraid they're gonna have to go find another job. Um, the good news about this is the spring, hopefully some kind of compromise uh can be made and the tariffs uh could go away. So that's what I'm keeping my fingers crossed for.

SPEAKER_00 33:03

Yeah, we all of our importers and distributors kind of bought in to get through the first of the year, and I'm telling people that like those wines, either go find Italian wine, Chilean wine, um, South African wine, there's actually been a marked increase in quality availability and good pricing. But um, you know, go find something else because first of the year, it's not going to be pretty.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

No, and and and uh I'm glad you mentioned South African wine. There's a couple of really terrific producers uh who do affordable wine, Ken Forrester for one, with just a very pretty rose and a and a very pretty uh beautiful Chen and Blanc that has that have had trouble getting distributed in the U.S. because who wants to buy South African wine? But maybe this will give them an opportunity to uh an opportunity to get in. No, I'm not I'm not optimistic at all. I just I I see the decline in consumption. I see prices being artificially raised, um and I and I and I see the lack of of enthusiasm for wine among everybody who's younger than 40. Uh and I just I get really depressed. Because I love wine, Nick. I mean, that's why I'm sitting here talking to you. I love wine. I want people to drink it. I want people to have as much fun with wine as I do.

SPEAKER_00 34:18

The um thing I love about wine, and I I wish there's actually something cool that uh 19 crimes is doing with they have an augmented reality thing. Um it's a bit of a shtick, it's a bit of a commercialized thing, but 19 crimes, the premise is there's 19 crimes that could get you shipped to Australia. Uh transported, that's the phrase transported. And uh you can scan the label and it tells you. I love the stories behind wine, I love the people that make wine, I love the land that it comes from. And I I think younger people should get, you know, behind that. It's just uh I think you said earlier in the podcast there's a lot of wineries that want to continue selling wine to baby boomers that they've always sold to baby boomers until baby boomers die. And uh be interesting to see if somebody can figure out how to really authentically connect those stories and the sense of place and the authenticity of wine to consumers that want to try experiences and want to uh travel the world even if the budget doesn't let them.

SPEAKER_01 35:21

It's funny what you mentioned about 19 crimes, because I think it's worth mentioning that that's an Australian producer, Treasury, um one of the two or three or four biggest in the world that did something that an American company, a US company, it never even crossed its mind to do something like that. Uh the Australians, for the most part, invented quality boxed wine. They've always been a little um a little more courageous in trying different things. And I I I'm I'm like you. I I think the 19 crimes, the the VR stuff is is real corny. But at the end of the day, if it gets people to drink wine, who cares what I think? Who cares if it's corny? If they go on, if somebody buys it because they like that, and then they go on and they try something that's not quite as sweet, something that's a little more interesting from a different country, then we've won. And thank you very much, Treasury.

SPEAKER_00 36:14

Yeah, I agree 100%. The uh Australia discussion, maybe on the bright side of things, I am really excited about the quality of wine coming out of Australia, the price to value ratio, and consumer acceptance again. We uh I I think 2020 could be a big year for Australian wine. They had some years where prices got a little out of whack because they had a bad currency exchange, had some bad vintages, and they chased the uh critter wine trend a little too much of putting a cute animal on it. But they're making some beautiful wines. They've discovered some of their cooler climate growing areas to make Chardonnays, Sauvignon Blancs, Pinot Noirs that are really quite good. Um are there any regions that you're kind of excited about for 2020?

SPEAKER_01 36:59

Well, I I agree with you about Australia, and as an old friend of mine in the retail business said, Australian wine was doing so badly in the US that you could leave a case out of it in front of and by the front door and let people steal it and nobody would. Yeah. That's just that's just and because the wines were all that heavy, Shiraz, um, that you know, just weren't any fun to drink. And now that that's gone away, I mean it's it's just I can't tell you what a pleasure it is to walk into a quality independent retailer like yours and see an Australian Riesling, to see uh all these other Australian whites um that you know in the old days we never would have seen because it was all it was all about um Shiraz. Um I really hope South Africa can figure a way out to get some of these wines over here. Um, like I say, uh some nice roam blends. Um uh and again, the prices are because the the land costs are less, the labor costs are less, they're the price-value ratio is is terrific. But again, you've got to convince a distributor uh that it's worth trying to sell to a retailer and given consolidation, I think that'll be really difficult.

SPEAKER_00 38:10

Yeah, one of the challenges I've run into with South African wine is I want to offer it at uh at a value, you know, run a promotion with it to make sure it gets into people's hands, because something like that, um, I'm gonna want to put it on display. And to do that, to buy that quantity, I'm gonna want a discount. Uh that's generally how it works in the wine industry. But there's either not enough margin because they already have it priced so low, or not enough supply that I can never get that price point. I can give you a great everyday $10 value from South Africa. And I I'm on record, I think if you see a $10 South African Shenan Blanc, it's good, buy it. But um, I can't get that $7, $6 type of everyday patio pounder wine because I just can't get enough volume discount on that. And I think that's one of the challenges that I'm seeing from South Africa.

SPEAKER_01 39:04

And I and I agree with you uh uh because they've had so little U.S. distribution and they've had their own um unique financial problems, and you're gonna have to help me here. The the fairly big producer uh did a really nice rose uh out of Cabernet, uh Mulderbosch. Yeah. Umlderbosch vanished from the U.S. for about a year, and I had a reader ask me about what happened to it. And I went and checked, and the company got sold, and they lost their U.S. distributor and importer or whatever, and and it just vanished. And it's kind of hard to establish a business relationship when the brand just goes away.

SPEAKER_00 39:45

Yeah. So South Africa, Australia, anything else that you're really looking forward to trying in 2020, things that you think are going to be great?

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Um apparently there's a chance, and I don't know if we're gonna get to see any of it, but there's a chance we might see some Eastern European Europe. It's been so long, it's been long enough now from the fall of communism and the money's been reinvested, um, that from uh Hungary, um, from Romania, uh, those places we might see some wine. Again, in the middle of the country, I don't know that we'll see it. I'm gonna say this because I really respect the person who told me, uh, which is uh a friend of mine named Roberta Bachland, who's a longtime retailer and wine consultant, and she even admits working for distributors at times. Um, she says that the Chileans have got their act together finally after 10 or 12 or 15 years of not having their act together, and that we're gonna start seeing some really quality Sauvignon Blanc and some really quality Pinot Noir for $15 and less uh over the next couple of years.

SPEAKER_00 40:52

Yeah, that's a good point. I've been uh pretty happy with some of those cool climate rivals. They've really figured out how to that there's not just one growing region in Chile. They're subappellating, they're figuring out good vineyard sites. Some of those vineyard sites are getting deeper vines, more age on them, and they're producing some really quality wines.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

The other go ahead. I was gonna say the high-end wine in Chile never really dropped off. It was always very nice. But in the late 90s, um, I guess that would be about right, they were selling so much six and eight dollar Sauvignon Blanc in the U.S. and $10 Sauvignon Blanc that they just stopped caring and they just shipped everything over here they could possibly get. And the way these things work, the wines were terrible, and people stopped buying them. And it I think it's taken them a decade or more to the Chileans to figure out if we're going to sell wine in the U.S., it's got to be of a certain quality level.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

And kind of a similar attack, what I've found interesting, and I wasn't sure how I felt about it originally, but the Argentinians are really, really subappellating in Mendoza. And what was it, maybe 10 years ago now, we had the big $10 Argentinian Malbec. That was what everybody liked. And they're they're taking a instead of just planting things everywhere and letting it grow, they're really diving into soil types, exposures, things like that, and figuring out a lot of special places that can grow really great Malbec, um, which I think has brought up the quality of a $15 bottle, but there's some very good $25 bottles. And I think we have to give credit to the uh Katana family, because I think they're funding all of it. But I think there's some really cool um Reds, Cabernet, uh Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, obviously coming out of Argentina, that if you want to look for some uh Appalachian specific wines and get into a deeper dive into a region, I think Mendoza's really figuring out some neat things.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

I and I think that might actually be one of the few good things of premiumization is in Argentina, if you've been, if one has been to Argentina, you can taste amazing Malbek that never, you know, would never have been shipped to the U.S. And now that there's a market, quote unquote, for more expensive red wine, I think they see an opportunity to take some of that higher quality Malbek that never left the country to make more of it, to do what you're saying, Nick, to do what you're saying. Um and I know I'll put a plug in for my friends at wine cellars uh uh down in suburban Chicago, um, a really fine importer. Um, and they do a lot with Argentina as well, and some some really nice stuff. And I think the Argentines also are very proud of their wine business, and they're seeing all these things in the world, all this high-end um California Napa Cabernet, they're saying um all this um all these Super Tuscans, and they're saying we have these Alps, Alp-like mountains, right? The Andes, where we grow these vines and make and the grapes come. Why aren't we getting credit for what we can do with Malbek the way the Italians are with the Super Tuscans and and the way the Californians are with Cabernet?

SPEAKER_00 43:56

Yeah. Shout out to wine cellars. Uh we have A lot of their book in here. Zuccardi is uh their Argentinian brand. Um, beautiful Malbec. Janssen Srobinson, who's a uh well-renowned British wine writer, has this quote that she likes her Malbec to drink a little bit like Pinot Noir. And if you like a little lighter bodied Malbec with a lot of um floral aromatics, just beautiful, pretty wine that drinks a little bit more like Pinot Noir than that heavy Malbec, uh check out the check out the Zuccardi. We have that on the shelves all the time. Um Yeah, anything else you find exciting about 2020?

SPEAKER_01 44:32

I I think what I'm really hoping for is I just I really hope that we get this tariff things figured out. And this was such a shock, and maybe this will be a good thing. Maybe the tariff will have shocked everybody into realizing we've got to start thinking about the future of the wine business. And I I I mention this because one of the most conservative um analysts, I won't mention his name because he's a real big deal, but he's always been kind of, you know, I this is what's gonna happen, and I have these big numbers. And he suddenly started to write some stuff that says, you know, maybe we need to take another look at how we sell wine, maybe we need to take another look at who's drinking it, and maybe we need to make people understand that wine is not something that your grandparents drink, and so therefore we should you should ignore it, but that wine can be fun. And like I say, for this guy to have written this, I was very surprised and and happy. Because that sounds like something I would write, and I never get invited to speak anywhere.

SPEAKER_00 45:30

Well, here's hoping of that, because I think that's what we all want. Wine can be a really magical thing to have that bottle that's you know, it doesn't matter if it's $10, $50, $100. If it's the right bottle, having it open at the table with with friends, family, new acquaintances, new friends, that's uh it's a very magical experience that I don't think really any other beverage shares the way wine does.

SPEAKER_01 45:53

No, I agree completely. And it's this is the late Daryl Beeson always used to say, most people don't remember on wine occasion because of the wine they drank. They remember the wine occasion because of who they were with and who was there to drink it with them.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

So if uh listeners want to keep up with you, hear more of the insight that you have, you do great reviews of very affordable wines. Uh right now you have lists of holiday gifts, things like that. Um lot of uh great content for whether you're somebody that's just getting into wine or somebody that likes a little bit more of the advanced wine industry nerd things. Uh what's the website? Where can everybody keep track of you?

SPEAKER_01 46:30

Winecurmudgeon.com, W-I-N-E-C-U-R-M-U-D G-E-O-N.com. And if uh I write five days a week, and all you have to do is click a box on the upper right-hand side of the website and you'll get it emailed to you like magic.

SPEAKER_00 46:46

And uh if somebody's looking for gift for wine people, I guess this is actually going to air a little after Christmas, but if you missed that, or somebody just wants to learn more about wine, you have it you have a really great book too that people can buy, right?

SPEAKER_01 46:59

Oh, you're too kind, Nick. The Wine Curmudgeon's Guide to Cheap Wine, available through Amazon. And I've also sold it through the website. And if you buy it through the website, I will be happy to sign it for you.

SPEAKER_00 47:09

I have a copy. I refer back to it from time to time. Uh I read it cover to cover. I love it. It's a great book. Taught me some things, made me some a better retailer. Uh always reminding myself of, you know, would would Jeff be mad at me if uh that's uh in this book. But uh it's a great thing. So hope everybody keeps track of you. You do a little podcasting too, that of your own that people can keep up to. That link's on the website too, right?

SPEAKER_01 47:35

Yes, exactly. And uh so basically it's reviews of wines that people can afford to buy that I hope are generally available. It's trends in the wine business. It's an occasional rant about how the wine business has screwed up and has made it difficult for those of us who like to buy wine and can that we can afford to buy. But it's I've been doing it now for 12 years, and every time I think I'm tired of doing it, something else happens and I get right back in it.

SPEAKER_00 47:59

Well, thanks so much, Jeff. We'll uh be sure to catch up soon.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Thank you so much, Nick. This was a real pleasure.

SPEAKER_00 48:17

Thanks again to Jeff. We've spoken a bunch over the years for his website, his podcast, and I'm really happy we could get him on to the podcast as one of our first guests. I always appreciate his perspective. I think he's a really smart guy, and um, yeah, thank you, Jeff. You're great. I highly recommend that you go check out Jeff's website, it's winecurmudgeon.com and read his writing. He has great picks for affordable wines, his podcasts are fun, short, to the point, and he also writes about a lot of fun news tidbits and explains why they're important to you as a consumer, not just inside baseball industry p gossip. His book titled Wine Curmudgeon's Guide to Cheap Wine is available on the site as well, and it's a great book. We're a little bit after Christmas, but if there's someone that you need to get a gift for, get a copy of the book, it's really great. I do recommend it. If you'd like to get links to Jeff's website because you don't know how to spell curmudgeon, which is totally cool, it's not the easiest word to spell, or a link to his podcast, you can go check out the page for this episode by visiting dinnerplusdrinks.com, and we have that link there, so you don't need to worry about spelling curmudgeon. We also put up some notes on wines that you can try that fit the categories we talked about on the podcast that we have available here at Lake Geneva Country Meets. So if you want to know the name of a Spanish Alberinho, you can try. We have that up there. So DinnerplusDrinks.com and just navigate to the page for this episode. I do hope you check out Jeff's website. I do hope you check out his podcast, Wine Curmudgeon. It really is great stuff, and if you like this interview, you will like what he writes on a regular basis. We have one more podcast looking at 2019 and 2020 coming up, and it'll be out soon. That one is talking about meat and features at American Butcher, as you may have seen him on Instagram, or his real name is Travis Doxstow. It's a good one, and we really think you'll like it. Before that episode comes out though, we will have our first regular episode of Dinner Plus Drinks. It'll be released on Sunday, the 29th of December. And this is our brand new format that co-hosts Bridget and I are going to talk about the holidays, share some meal plan ideas as you're looking into January, and we're going to preview our New Year's Eve celebrations. It will feature wine, we promise. We're excited about the format. We hope you tune in. That's it for this episode, and I really do hope you liked the interview and found Jeff's perspective helpful as you're trying to find new wines to enjoy in 2020 that are maybe a little bit different than what you tried in 2019. If you did enjoy the podcast, please help us get the word out by sharing the podcast with your friends. Give it a share on social media, just talk to them about it, rate it on your podcast app, and of course, subscribing helps us a lot. We also really appreciate any feedback that you have, so please send an email to hello at dinnerplusdrinks.com with your comments, or you can fill out the contact form on the episode pages at dinnerplusdrinks.com. Once again, I'm Nick Vorpegle from Lake Shaneva Country Meets. Really appreciate your time, and we'll talk soon. Cheers to the