Tuesday, July 20, 2010
You know how it is, you have a wine
somewhere that you love, and then you look for it in a
store. You didn't pay any attention to the vintage because
you figured that old or bad product would have gotten pulled
and discarded. The problem is that you had a 2008 which was
wonderful, and the store has some 2004, which at this point
is horrible. Part of the problem is that the wine has been
exposed to light for too long a time, and that helped to
destroy/degrade the product. And in some cases, the product
has been jostled about between warehouses and stores, thus
increasing the potential damages to what's in the
bottle.
And this all leads up to you
getting a bad bottle, and you just thinking that you don't
want any more wine from said wine producer. And that, my
friends, is a slap in the wine label's face!
In my case, I luckily have some contact with
people in the industry, and in several cases, either someone
in sales, distribution of production of some of the
wines/labels that I love. In this case, I asked Mark
Beckner, the Area Manager for The Wine Group, what was wrong
with the Concannon Sauvignon Blanc (I had first met with
while trying their Petit Sirah at an industry tasting, and
after that, started trying the remainder of their wines when
I saw them on the shelves). The first thing that he asked
me was the vintage, and as it turned out, I had fell in love
with the 2008 and the store was carrying the 2004. I did
tell one of the workers in the store that they needed to
pull that from the shelves, but noticed later that they
didn't (it's also amazing that I still see some stores
selling Red Bicyclette Pinot Noir, even though it's been
revealed that it's not Pinot Noir).
It's
an interesting relationship between the producer, importer
(where necessary), distributor and retailer; one that is
based on not only delivering a good product, but also not
putting ruined product in the hands of the consumer. More
often than not, the consumer doesn't look at the retailer,
but simply look at the label [if they are more experienced
consumers] and at other times, the varietal [if they have
very little experience in wine drinking]. What could easily
be an abandonment of one label most often for the newcomer
an abandonment of a varietal, or wines from a certain
country. I remember one person that thought they knew a
little something-something about wines, and had the temerity
to say that he didn't like Italian wines because they're all
bitter. I did take him to an Italian restaurant and expose
him to more, in order to show him not to talk, but just take
time to learn through experience.
Summarily, this fault falls on the shoulder's
of the retailers, and there are many retailers that just
don't realize how much business that they gradually lose
over the years by offering ruined product. And while on one
hand, it's impossible and improbable to taste-check every
vintage of a product every six months, especially with the
more expensive bottles, something should be done to ensure
that what you get it fresh. Maybe it should fall on the
shoulders of the sales reps, but in this business, that
would tend to cut back into profits elsewhere. I mean,
giving away spoiled wine is worse because when something is
free and tastes horrible, that ruins the wine's image
totally.
Oh well, that's an issue and
I'll report to you if I see folks starting to address this
issue over the next year.
As always, have
a great bottle, and if not, a glass!
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