Meet the New Boss

Same as the Old Boss

- Pete Townshend, Won’t Get Fooled Again

I get a lot of wine samples (and no, I have not yet properly pimped out my wine storage to accommodate them all).  I know that many of you (because you’ve told me) hate it when I say that, because supposedly this is some sort of wonderful problem to have.  However, that position is based on two assumptions that generally are totally wrong:

1. The wine samples are primarily for my enjoyment.
2. The wine samples are primarily very good wine (or, alternatively, the wine samples primary purpose is to keep me intoxicated).

The fact of the matter is that neither are true (the samples are for evaluation and most of them are not ‘knock-yer-socks-off’ good), so I don’t buy the argument that I’m a dick for discussing issues I might have with keeping up with wine samples (I could buy alternative arguments for why I’m a dick, however).  I’m not going to complain if a winery producing limited amounts of excellent wine sends me a sample or two, because I know that most of you (because you told me) want me to write about those wines.  But, in reflection of the wine market in general, those ‘special’ wines reflect maybe 2% of the samples sent to me.

I’m telling you this because, if my sample profile is any indication, the wine market is focusing on budget/value, and targeting the general wine consumer using low price points.  Common sense would suggest that, in this time of economic meltdown challenge, the focus on producing budget wine is a logical new development in the wine market.

Logical conclusion, but wrong…

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