Ymm, Wine

[sagegrouse]

I'm mildly surprised to hear that about Grgich, which is still family-owned, albeit with a pretty large production. The others have been sold to large corporate conglomerates, so I'm not surprised about those. Treasury Wine Estates owns both Beaulieu and Sterling, St. Supery went to Chanel, and Clos Pegase went to Vintage Wine Estates. As an example, TWE produces about 15 million case per year across about 20 different labels, and a recent article about them going public quoted the CEO as saying, "In addition, the Company has a deeply experienced management team with a strong track record of synergistic deal-making, which, on top of impressive organic growth, should continue and will help drive profitable growth as well as enhance shareholder value over the long term." In short, those outfits are concerned more about shareholders than they are about wine. I'm not surprised they don't offer loyalty deals, which is what a wine club really is.

Take a look at Bedrock or Jean Edwards or some others to get a better idea of what a direct-to-consumer winery model in California should look like.

Nice description of the industry. I like buying wines that I have tasted -- which I can do at the wineries. As you probably know, Mike Grgich (>90) is still showing up at Grgich Hills.

[Phredd3]

I'm mildly surprised to hear that about Grgich, which is still family-owned, albeit with a pretty large production. The others have been sold to large corporate conglomerates, so I'm not surprised about those. Treasury Wine Estates owns both Beaulieu and Sterling, St. Supery went to Chanel, and Clos Pegase went to Vintage Wine Estates. As an example, TWE produces about 15 million case per year across about 20 different labels, and a recent article about them going public quoted the CEO as saying, "In addition, the Company has a deeply experienced management team with a strong track record of synergistic deal-making, which, on top of impressive organic growth, should continue and will help drive profitable growth as well as enhance shareholder value over the long term." In short, those outfits are concerned more about shareholders than they are about wine. I'm not surprised they don't offer loyalty deals, which is what a wine club really is.

Take a look at Bedrock or Jean Edwards or some others to get a better idea of what a direct-to-consumer winery model in California should look like.

Sorry, self-quoting for error correction: The stats and quote apply to VWE (Vintage Wine Estates), not TWE (Treasury Wine Estates). The latter is more than twice as big.

[Tripping William]

Sorry, self-quoting for error correction: The stats and quote apply to VWE (Vintage Wine Estates), not TWE (Treasury Wine Estates). The latter is more than twice as big.

The only time I have visited Napa was in 2011. At that time, BV and Sterling (along with some others like Acacia and Provenance) were owned by alcoholic beverage conglomerate Diageo. Fortunately for me, Diageo was a client at the time, and one of their in-house TM lawyers was kind enough to hook us up with some premium tastings at those vineyards. I guess Diageo has since divested.

[sagegrouse]

The only time I have visited Napa was in 2011. At that time, BV and Sterling (along with some others like Acacia and Provenance) were owned by alcoholic beverage conglomerate Diageo. Fortunately for me, Diageo was a client at the time, and one of their in-house TM lawyers was kind enough to hook us up with some premium tastings at those vineyards. I guess Diageo has since divested.

My approach is to tell the sales staff what I like -- and go from there. I may buy something different, but at least they can assess my tastes and interests. My #1 request in the Oakville/Rutherford area was "Rutherford dust" -- it's a dry coating on the tongue that comes from good Cabs from grapes in the Rutherford area of Napa. Worth trying -- you may not like it -- but it is distinctive in the wine world. Anyway come up with something -- most of the customers who wander in have no specific knowledge or interests.

[budwom]

Really good wine clubs are pretty much limited to the ones that come directly from a single producer, in my experience. If a winery directly sponsors a wine club (and you can afford it), their wine clubs are predictably good, offering decent discounts on wines you already know you like and access to one-offs in exchange for locking in a regular purchaser. Very few others are reliable enough to bother with, IMO.

Yeah, we'd be unlikely to sign on with any wine club, but if we did, we'd do it with a really good vineyard we know...hopefully we can start offloading stuff from the Chateau Bob collection...