The idea for this post popped into my head a few months ago, when I realized that I had not bought a bottle of wine in an actual wine store for the better part of a year.
One reason for this is simple habits. I no longer buy much wine that I don’t intend to drink right away. So while I’ll happily eat lunch with the Sherry Lehman catalog open in front of me, and have even been known to accompany a friend into my local shop, Woodland Hills Wine Company, a place I really like, my wine money has only been spent in two places, Whole Foods and (obviously) Trader Joes. And that’s merely because that’s where I buy my food.
But it was actually a trip to a third location, the Southern California supermarket, Ralphs (where my wife buys wine) as well as the closing of one of our friends & retailers, the Wine C.A.R.T. in Ohio, that I was reminded how much the landscape has changed for the wine merchant.
Full disclosure: we sell wine through the Kroger Co. (who own Ralphs) and their specialty stores in Ohio are filled with knowledgeable wine folks who know their stuff.
My trip to the supermarket was eye opening because in my store, they’ve actually installed a climate controlled wine room, housing an unimaginative but solid roster of good wines. It’s the kind of selection you might find in a typical upscale restaurant, who’s owners understand their clientele are looking for recognizable names. Is anyone dropping $119.00 on some high end California Cab while simultaneously placing tortilla chips in their basket? I can’t be sure. And I suppose if I had a real reporters nose for a story I’d have simply asked. But I’m not and I didn’t.
So that leaves me to speculate what the future holds for the wine seller, and by this I mean a real wine shop like The Wine House, Wally’s or that little gem in Beverly Hills, the Wine Valet. On the surface I’m pretty confident they will survive, as booksellers Barnes & Noble did in the face of competition from Amazon. It was not that long ago (well, 1994) that we all thought the apocalypse had arrived for any one who built their house of brick & mortar. And to be sure mom and pop lost the store in many industries as big box operations captured the local interest with bright lights, big selection and of course low, low prices.
Now, places like BevMo (and to be fair I’ve never been in one – it may be great – I’m not singling them out as the bad guy) Costco, et. al., I assume, threaten to do the same to great people like the owners of the Wine C.A.R.T.
And given the current economic climate (read: something wicked this way comes) it seems unlikely that someone working in a cubicle as I type, will start planting the seed to open that little corner wine shop in their town. At the same time I’m not happy that the cynic in me is leading here.
We’ve become such a nation of convenience (and when I say we, I certainly have to start with me) that I guess the next place we’ll be able to pickup a nice $6.00 bottle of central coast Red Table wine or Cote du Rhone will be the local Mobil station.
But my hope, as it always is, lies in our ability to look past the easy and instead steer ourselves towards the best. Sometimes buying a book on Amazon is the best choice and sometimes going to a small, literary minded book store like Book Soup or Skylight Books is the experience you’ll be craving. Both are okay.
So when you’re buying dinner for tomorrow night, sure, grab a handy bottle from the supermarket shelf, but alternatively when you’re out getting chips and salsa for a birthday party at that same store two weeks later and need a gift for the guest of honor, make an extra stop, head into your local wine shop and have someone who really loves wine help you make a special choice.
This depends on where you live. In Tennessee, a wine store is the ONLY place you can buy wine. I’d go into some of the other esoteric, utterly stupid rules, but they just upset me! Will things change? Someone is trying to get wine into the grocery store, but obviously the lobbyists are against it because teenagers will then buy it (because we all know teens prefer wine to beer, which is already sold in grocery stores???).
Also, I find more variety in wine shops, which was true even when I was living in reasonable states, and since I tend to get bored with the same-old pretty fast, I went into mine regularly.
Thanks for enlightening me, Gretchen. I surely need to take off my CA glasses and realize some of you don’t have all the options. Again, this is why I write on Word Press instead of the NY Times!
Ralphs has been running a Wine Steward program for some time. I think its a clever move to get in on the market. Unfortunately, my contacts indicated that there is possible mismanagement and lack of communication or coordination up the ladder. Nevertheless, the store near my old residence seemed to have a good following of people willing to drop serious money on bottles inside the “cellar”.
It’s obvious that their push in the newer Fresh Faire stores is to reach higher end consumers who might otherwise shop at Whole Foods. I am still curious as to how many sales they make from the wine found in the walk in cellar…
Not sure. However, the impression I got was that a lot of the ‘regulars’ would buy larger ticket items with some frequency.
Pretty vague, I know.
God post!
As a northern california bay area example, God knows we have plenty of high-end grocery stores, organic or otherwise, selling high-end wine. I obviously support selling wine any which place we can. It is a beverage that suppose to accompany meal, for the most part for me anyway, so this move makes a lot of sense. This is especially true given the latest statistics on who does the bulk of the buying of both groceries and wine. 64% of wine buyers are women. Given all that, for me, nothing beats going down to my local Solano Cellar and sitting at the counter to do a little taste and chat up with the owner.
Yep, you have confirmed what the wine sales numbers have indicated for years. More wine is being purchased at premium grocery stores than at traditional wine and/or spirit shops.And yes, women are buying most of it.
The good news is that more Americans are connecting wine with food (yay!). I believe many of the well run independents will endure (check out Silverlake Wine for example), but 2009 will insure that all of us survivors are lean and mean.
I buy most of my wine online with occasional purchases from Trader Joe’s. But Amazon entering the online wine fray will a game changer this year.
I’m actually curious as to what kind of player Amazon will be. Surely their reach is vast and for those whom buying wine is merely a trip to the store, they might be compelled to buy their wine alongside their books and riding mowers. I blogged about Amazon’s entry into the space a few months ago and was then contacted by the person handling their distribution. We take a much more hands on approach to things, and also make very limited production wines given our distribution network, but I’m still intrigued for the future as we contemplate producing in larger quantities…
Tom Merle has been posting some periodic updates over at OWC about Amazon’s wine venture:
http://www.openwineconsortium.org/forum/topics/2000748:Topic:43617