Newsletter Archives > Wine Marketing/Lifestyle
Climate dictates the quality of wine available to most of you. Definitely the climate of the growing region, such as the cool Region I area in which we grow, but also the political climate and shipping climate are critical to getting and maintaining delicate wines like ours.
Political Realities
Wine is not just art, it is a
business; and not just a business, it is a lightning rod for posturing
and polemic, from pulpits to Capitol Hill. After all, it contains
alcohol and that has prompted heated reaction for the last century. We
are still reeling from ongoing effects of Prohibition.
Underworld powers reputedly still have their fingers in the hard liquor business, having gone “legit” after repeal of prohibition, and, over the years, have extended into wine distribution to control one or more of the Big-5 national wine distributors. Within the last five or six years, these big companies have become bigger, "eating" the young and small.
In the decade of marketing our small brand we have learned that, despite these distributors sweet-talking and wooing boutique brands to flesh out their portfolio of high quality wineries, big distributors care only about big wineries. Only small distributors care about small wineries. We at times had difficulty choosing small distributors who did a great job for us initially, only to be bought out by a conglomerate that relegated us to benchwarming. (Here's our current list of distributors.)
The nefarious side of vesting so much power and ignorance in so few is visible when you consider the oppressive and unconstitutional influence these big players have in suppressing direct shipment. With the advent of the internet and chi-chi wine labels that have more inches of ink written on them in the press than bottles run down the bottling line, the inability of big distributors to think small becomes glaring.
Consumers often know more about the best wines than these distributors, yet the big distributors have conspired to keep them from doing their own ordering by encouraging state laws to prohibit direct sales and shipping. Obviously their intent is protectionist in nature, giving businesses inside a state a tacitly unfair advantage over those outside (and therefore limiting consumers' choices inside the state), which runs counter to Constitutional guarantees.
Moreover, big distributors use divisive methods to further their cause, even convincing the religious right to support the Three-tier System, on the pretext of protecting congregations from floods of illicit demon-wine. They have beat the drum of state's rights, tax collection and the rampant tendency of 16 year olds to order $100 Oregon Pinot noirs by the case so they can binge after Friday night football games, to a fever pitch.
It will only be when enough individual states reverse laws in court and when the Supreme Court rules on the issue as a restraint of trade that we will settle into a saner climate to buy what you want and get it. It will at least be a climate where consumers are treated as adults and wineries are not in jeopardy of a felony conviction for practicing their art and selling the wine themselves.
Three-tier System
This being said, the traditional marketing structure of winery selling to a regional distributor, who sells to restaurants and retailers, who sell to consumers of the wine, is a good system.
| I | II | III |
| The Winery sells to the Regional distributor, who sells to the Consumer | ||
For large wineries the system is all about logistics of “moving boxes” and a ramified structure is excellent for that, offering incentives like slashed prices to keep velocity up.
For small brands like us, the system can add value by educating consumers and providing ideal venues for selection and enjoyment. Ours are not commodities, so $9.99 doesn't sell our wines. Our wines are sold by having a salesperson knowledgeable about our region, varieties and, hopefully, our winery.
There is a difference in taking orders or replenishing shelves, and providing service. The two layers in-between us and the consumer deserve their not insignificant cut of the pie by adding value, by providing service.
For cult or highly-allocated wines there is little value required to sell a wine that hasn't been already provided by the winery through PR, expensive high-quality grape-growing or winemaking, prior reputation or a programmed-loss, my-winery-is-a-monument-to-my-life operation. Consumers shouldn't have to pay even more for these wines, just to have a middleman unpack them and hand them out.
Chehalem sells two-thirds of its wines through this three-tier system. Although it costs us half of our profit to do so, most of the time we think our customers get the benefit.
Climate at the Receiving End
No matter how you get our wine, through the distribution channel or direct, the condition of the wine as you get it is critical. It does you no good to properly cellar a wine that has been abused in handling between the winery and you.
Overheated wines are damaged wines, with not a lot of cumulative heat required to affect aromas, taste and ageability. And, like a chain, all it takes is one weak link to break the wine. To us it is a great frustration to have taken pains to control temperatures precisely, from the point of harvest through every step in the winery, only to have it treated like so many boxes of copy paper or motor oil, rather than the transformed perishable fruit it is.
|
Here are links to graphs showing the impact of season on ambient temperature in three cities around the US. Specifically, we plot cumulative degree days (a concept used in classifying growing regions and describing heat accumulation during the growing season) to keep 65°F, either by heating or cooling. |
|
It is easy to see that wine can be handled conveniently in cities like San Francisco with consistent moderate temperatures, and with great trepidation in locales like Miami.
What is sobering for us in trying to accommodate customers in various regions with low-cost shipping is that shipping windows narrow more-and-more as you consider not only the destination, but the region it is shipped through.
Even relatively local ground shipments can cook if conditions are bad, such as riding all day during deliveries in a dark brown, non air conditioned UPS truck, when Mother Nature has decided that 85° would wake up the natives. A little like a bottle of red wine in the back seat of your BMW with the windows rolled up.
Anecdotally, even short periods of direct sunlight on a dark bottle have been known to raise wine temperatures above 90°; and, the big brown delivery truck has been known to exceed 140° internally. With the exception of a couple months in spring and fall, we now ship only air for any significant distance, plus we even check weather conditions to determine whether 3-day air needs to be adjusted to next day, or just held for shipping later in the year.
If we are anxious to this level about direct shipments, you would guess correctly that we also get demanding about wines shipped to distributors.
Our first questions in selecting a distributor, even before “how quickly do you pay?”, are:
“Do you ship from the West Coast in refrigerated trucks?”
“Are your delivery trucks air conditioned?”
“Is your warehouse air conditioned?”
In our early years we received a call or two regarding leaking bottles, in entire shipments by a distributor to their warehouse, and naively looked to see if the corks were faulty!
We're doing a Study
As an ongoing investigation into the condition of wines and the conditions wines see, we are investing in disposable temperature sensors that record maximum, minimum and duration of temperatures beyond ideal levels. We want our wines to be in perfect condition when you get them, so we're inviting you to join us in a study over the next year to establish the current baseline.
Whether distributor, restaurateur, retailer or consumer, we'd like a limited number of participants in our trial to help gather data. We'll make it worth your while. Perfect wine. And maybe something more. (Email me at harrypn@chehalemwines.com.)
Home | About Us | Privacy Policy | Our Wine | Buy Wine | Contact Us | For the Trade
© CHEHALEM
31190 NE Veritas Lane • Newberg, OR 97132
Phone (503) 538-4700 • Fax (503) 537-0850
