Have you ever wondered what happens to all the wine produced each year that doesn’t sell? I have. Seriously, with hundreds of millions of cases produced each year, there’s just no way all of it gets purchased, consumed, or cellared. There’s just far more produced than we can handle. So what becomes of it?

I don’t know the answer or even who to ask but I have some ideas. Much of it is discounted somewhat or even heavily until it’s gone. A smart winery will discount it at the wholesale level, rather than lower their retail price, which incites retailers to stock up on a bigger margin wine. Then if the retailer gets stuck with being unable to move the wine well, hey, it’s their problem, not the wine estate’s problem.

There are a few websites I’m aware of that are moving big volumes of mostly un-sellable wine, that is to say, wine from wineries no one knows about (and thus no one cares about), that never got established in the market before the crash, or has distribution that is too small to be on very many people’s radar. These places are offering truly huge discounts to move wine but buyer beware. Although some of them may be good buys, many were far overpriced to begin with and even with a discount of 50% or more, a lot of these wines may not be in line with the Price/Quality Ratio (QPR) that I consider acceptable. Here’s an example from one of the sites today:

Pine Ridge Winery, Fortis, Napa Valley, 2005, 
originally priced at $169.99 and available now for only $69.99. 91 points - Wine Spectator. So what? Is this really a deal? Absolutely not! Any winery that would dare put a $170 price tag on a mere 91 point wine (decent but it won’t change your world) probably needs to go out of business anyhow. Why should we save this place from certain doom when their business model was lame to begin with and their wine is just okay?

Here’s another one I like: S. E. Chase Family Cellars, Hayne Vineyard, Napa Valley, Reserve Zinfandel, 2006. Original price was $90.00 now ‘only’ $42.99, which would be okay if they got paid per letter for the text on their label. The wine was rated 93 points by Jonathan H. Newman. Who is Jonathan H. Newman? Oh yeah, he doesn’t mention that he’s the guy that owns the business that's selling the wine. Here’s a big heads up to all the retailers whose egos are bigger than their stores: if you sell the wine, you don’t get to rate it too (this means you too Mr. Vanyerchuk). There is no credibility when a business owner schlepping wine infers in an advertisement that a wine has been professionally rated, if they are the source of the rating. I know there are a handful of business owners that also know their wine very well but this practice of rating wine themselves and then selling it is a clear conflict of interest and should not be tolerated by anyone.

Oh by the way, this wine to me does not seem to be a bargain at all. Some of the most expensive Zins are produced by the well established and respected Turley Wine Cellars and even they don’t retail for $90. Besides the last time Chase Family Cellars submitted one of their wines for review to Wine Spectator was in 2003, and it was rated 86 points. I wouldn’t be proud of that if I owned the winery unless I was selling 10 million cases per year, and then I wouldn't care what my ratings were.

The point is that there are retailers dumping wine everywhere I look and from nearly every region of every wine producing country. But I think a lot of people are getting duped by artificially inflated prices that have so-called ‘sale’ prices that are brought down to normal retails levels – it’s a shell game. In the two examples above, even after discounting, those are both far too expensive when factoring in what else is available for the same money. If you choose to get in on these ‘bargains’ just be careful and know what you’re buying or at least be prepared to end up with not such a great deal. Many of these wines are rated poorly if at all, are made by wineries that have not been around long enough to establish a track record or a following, were vastly overpriced to begin with and just have to be dumped at any price because virtually no one is interested in buying them.

That said, there are always a few exceptions and a few relative bargains that come across my desk every now and then. Here are a few sites worth looking at and signing up to receive emails from:

http://www.wineblowout.com

http://cinderellawine.com

http://www.wtso.com

All I can say is there is an enormous glut in the wine market right now and great bargains to be had but only if you’re buying the right wine. And I still don’t know what happens to all the wine that still doesn’t sell! Any help would be greatly appreciated – no alien theories though okay?

David Boyer

Photo by: D’Arcy Norman, usedby permission. http://www.flickr.com/photos/dnorman/