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Wine deals
Excess juice means great offers: Here's what to look for
By Andrea Coombes, CBS MarketWatch.com
Last Update: 12:06 AM ET Oct 11, 2002
SAN FRANCISCO (CBS.MW) -- The wine surplus is causing wineries and growers to struggle, but it's the best of times to be a wine drinker.
Consumers can expect to see price reductions and higher quality wines overall in the next few years, experts said.
"This is the best time I can imagine to be a wine consumer," said Chris Condit, a wine buyer for Trader Joe's. "Prices have been coming down in our stores on everything all year long.
"Two years ago there was no such thing as a $1.99 bottle," Condit said, adding that the retailer is now selling Charles Shaw wine at that price. Trader Joe's often buys 20,000 cases or so at a time to offer prices that low, but even retailers that buy in lower quantities are offering wine bargains.
The excess is expected to last from one to five years, depending on a wine's variety. Some of the changes consumers can expect to see are:
1) Premium wine given a new label and offered at a lower price to move inventory. Wineries won't want to tarnish their top brands, but they need to move wine out of tanks. "The challenge is to figure out which ones these are," said Robert Smiley, who conducts wine-industry studies and is the dean of the Graduate School of Management at the University of California at Davis. "You'll see newly-featured wines that you've never heard of -- you have to watch for that."
2) Super-premium wines offered at lower prices. A reserve cabernet blend, Merryvale Profile, often listed at $90, is being offered for $25 by K&L Wine Merchants. "Because they need to make room for inventory, we're able to ... offer it to our club members at less than $25 a bottle," said Dave Rosen, director of wine clubs at the Redwood City, Calif.-based company.
3) Better quality grapes used for cheaper wines. "As more good grapes become available, wineries will buy those and they will put those in their wines, particularly in their lower-end wines," said Bill Nelson, vice president of government relations at the American Vintners Association.
4) Better wines at discount wholesalers. "You see large stores like Costco selling high-quality wines at good prices today, wines you would never have seen three or four years ago," said Joe Ciatti, president of wine brokerage Joseph W. Ciatti.
5) Mid-price wines will be on sale more often. Consumers "might even see a price reduction as a normal course of business," Smiley said.
The easiest way to take advantage of these specials is to try a bottle. Consumers should "go to a retailer they trust, that they get consistently good values from, and try new things," said Mark Albrecht, national wine buyer for Cost Plus World Market.
"We get a lot of customers who will come for our great price on Kendall Jackson chardonnay who will walk out with three or four wines they've never heard of. They trust us," Albrecht said.
Domestic wines offer good deals, Albrecht said, "but the real true values are imports, because you can get some phenomenal wines for some really low prices." He cited New Zealand, Australia, Spain, the Rhone region of France, Chile and Argentina as having particularly good value wines.
Consumers "need to be adventurous. There are some really low prices. Try a bottle," Albrecht said.
If you frequent a local wine shop, ask for a taste test of some of the new labels, and if you find one you like consider buying a case, said Kim Marcus, managing editor of Wine Spectator magazine, because that particular label may not be available for long.
"You may not be able to find them next year," Marcus said.
For those willing to do some serious detective work to uncover a new label's origins, there are some clues. Bottles may have the same back label as higher-quality wines from the same winery, or the cork might bear the same winery name.
Suggested Smiley: "You could call up the (new label) winery and see if it has the same phone number as a well-known winery you might suspect." |
