Myth of the Level (Vineyard) Playing Field

April 11, 2010 By Mike Veseth in Economic impact, EU wine market reforms, speculation, Supply and Demand, trade policy, wine investment, wine markets 4 Comments

Terrain matters, both in wine and in markets. Many of the world’s best vineyards cling to hillsides or follow natural contours (like the famous Pewsey Vale vineyard shown here).

While wine people seem to appreciate the challenges and opportunities that complicated terrain presents, economists are drawn (at least metaphorically) to tabletops. We think of the world in competitive terms and seek out “level playing fields” where our favorite theories are most applicable.

The Difference Between Vineyards and Soccer Fields

As a wine economist, I can appreciate the flat and the steep of the wine world and I have come to upon a particular irony. Wine market reforms in the European Union are intended to create a level playing field and to encourage, induce and sometimes force winegrowers to compete. The days of big subsidies and routine “emergency” distillation are gone, or will be soon, we are told.

But wine markets are as complicated as the vineyard shown above and establishing a flat competitive arena is not a simple matter. Wine markets are more like vineyards than we like to think. Tariffs, quotas, subsidies and selling regulations can be brought into line, of course, but that is just the beginning. The uneven contours of the market run very deep.

Whither/Wither the Vines?

I was reminded of this by a recent post on the Tablas Creek Vineyard Blog titled “Whither inexpensive, artisanal California wine?” (Tablas Creek is a well regarded maker of Rhone-inspired wines in California’s Paso Robles area.)

The question that the article posed was whether it made economic sense for the winery to develop a new vineyard property to produce high quality reasonably priced wine (the $20 price point plus or minus a few bucks). The answer? Probably not, but with a rather thorough cost analysis provided so you can see how the various factors (land cost, debt service, planting cost, operating cost, even opportunity cost) factor in.

It’s a really good article for anyone who thinks that the decision to start of vineyard or a winery is an easy one. (The sommelier in the video above would do well to read it!)

At the end of the day, the single most important factor was the cost of the land. Even in a depressed market, land costs create a hurdle too high to overcome in Paso Robles.

(Note: I was also struck by planting and operative cost differences associated with dry farming the vines. Much lower cost, somewhat lower yields — worth serious consideration where feasible given the growing water shortage.)

Why are vineyard land prices so high that they make the vineyards themselves uneconomic? Well, the land has many uses aside from the obvious one of growing wine grapes. Speculators might want to buy it to hold and resell, not operate for the long run. Lifestyle investors push up the price because they consider the amenity value of a vineyard home more than the economic value of its grape crop. These alternative demands can push the price above the level growers can afford.

Tilting the Playing Field

This distorts the playing field on which international wine markets operate. Land costs are a big factor for many expanding New World wineries because those costs are so recent that it is difficult to ignore them.

Land costs are often ignored for Old World producers, I am told — especially the thousands of small winegrowers who have owned their land for several generations. Ignoring the cost of capital allows them to sell for less, depressing prices (and therefore, ironically, the value of their land, too). Poor economic choices in the Languedoc tilt the playing field against Paso Robles.

But the loudest cries I have heard in this regard are from Australia, not California, where vineyards that produce grapes for bulk wine find themselves more directly in competition with those economically untutored Languedoc vignerons. The low prices that result when French winegrowers ignore the cost of vineyard capital are not the only or even the biggest source of Australia’s current crisis, but they are certainly a contributing factor.

Wine Recession: Winners & Losers

August 30, 2009 By Mike Veseth in Argentina, Australian wine, Barefoot wine, economic crisis, Economic impact, Hedges Cellars, Supply and Demand, Washington wine, wine bargains, wine markets, wine price 2 Comments

Some people think that the long hard winter of the economic crisis is coming to an end and “green shoots” are emerging. It is too soon to tell if this view is correct, but not too early to begin to assess which parts of the wine economy have been hardest hit by the recession and which have actually benefited. Herewith a brief analysis of winners and losers.

Wine Market Breakdown

There are several ways to break down the winners and losers in the wine market. The first and most obvious is by price segment. Distributors are finding wines in the $25 and up category difficult to move through normal retail or “off premises” sales channels. This doesn’t mean that everyone is buying Two Buck Chuck, however. The “super-premium” $10-$15 segment continues to grow, for example, although the trading down effect is still significant. The woman who was willing to pay $20 two years ago now aims to spend $15 or less, with similar changes further down the line.

Some wine brands have been particularly well positioned to attract value-seeking buyers. Gallo’s Barefoot wines, for example, have gained market share among the “fighting varietals” and the CMS by Hedges red and white blends have done well in the $10-$12 category, as have many others.

Since most Wine Walls are arranged with the most expensive wines on the top shelf and the cheapest at the bottom, it is almost as if the top shelf has been eliminated and all the other wines moved up one rank. Whether this is a temporary or a permanent shift remains an open question. I explicitly do not assume that everything will reset back to “normal” once the recession’s game of musical chairs has come to an end.

On-premise sales have declined, too, as restaurants have felt the recession’s sting. It has been especially interesting to watch as restaurants adjust by switching to lower cost wines from beyond the “usual suspect” regions. Reds from Spain and whites from Oregon, for example, can be sold profitably at lower price points than the better known French and Californian alternatives. Because buyers may not be as familiar with these wines they can enjoy the adventurous experience of “switching over” rather than simply “trading down.” Restaurants can maintain their margins at lower prices.

Wine Geography

Inevitable the recession has had uneven effects on different regions and countries. The news from Northern California is not good, for example, with many reports of surplus grapes, some that will not find a buyer this year. Cost is a big factor. Napa and Sonoma are high cost growing regions. The rule of thumb is that $2000/ton grapes produce $20/bottle wine — that’s how it pencils out when all the costs and mark-ups are accounted for. It is difficult to know who will buy wine made with $3000/ton grapes in the present market if, as we are told, the $25+ segment is a “dead zone.”

There is better news here in Washington state, on the other hand. Sales of Washington wine are rising at a 9% rate according to recent data. This makes sense because so much of Washington’s wine is positioned in the $15 and under category. About three quarters of all Washington wine is produced by Ste Michelle Wine Estates’s brands such as Chateau Ste Michelle and Columbia Crest that provide good quality and good value.

Argentina is another winner. Much like Washington State, Argentina produces good value wines at every price point and has increased sales across the board, although I suspect that Malbec at $10-$12 leads the way. While the overall US wine market has grown by 4.8% over the last year according to the most recent Nielsen Scantrack numbers, sales of Argentinian wines have risen by 46.8% — a tremendous if unsustainable rate of growth. By comparison Chilean wines sales have risen by 12.7%.

New Zealand’s wine industry is heading toward a crisis, as I have written before, but this seems less about the recession than a simply matter of demand and supply. You cannot double and redouble vineyard acreage forever and expect the export market to absorb every drop.

Australia is suffering, too, but like New Zealand I think the recession is a secondary “tipping point” factor. Wine imports from Australia are down 2.5 % for the last 52 weeks and Syrah/Shiraz sales are off 5.2% for the same period. Australia is facing all sorts of problems — drought, fire, recession and so forth — but the biggest problem maybe that “brand Australia” has gone out of sytle, taking the whole Syrah/Shiraz category with it. Even unfashionable Merlot has done better, with 0.8% growth.

The French Connection

I think France is the big loser from the recession, especially the segments that previously earned a “prestige premium,” particularly Bordeaux and Champagne. There is enough Champagne squirreled away in producer cellars to supply the market for several years. I think the big houses would pass on making any new wine this year if they could.

Even the famous chateaux are cutting price in Bordeaux this year, so I can only imagine what things are like for the producers of ordinary bottlings and bulk wine. French wine is a drag on the market even in Britain, where South African wines are surging ahead. Brand France, like Brand Australia, is in steep decline, although for different reasons.

There is a lot to be learned from a close study of the wine recession. The most important, at this point, is that it is more than a decline in demand. There are hints of more profound structural changes taking place. The more things change, the French say, the more they stay the same. I wonder if that will be true this time as the recession’s grip slowly weakens?

8/31/2009 update: An article in today’s Times of London suggests how severe the crisis is in Champagne. (Click on the link to read the rest of the story.)

Hopes of a glut of cheap champagne are set to be dashed when vineyards meet next week to agree on a big cut in production to prop up prices.

With sales falling, producers may be ordered to leave up to half their grapes to wither on the vine in an attempt to squeeze the market.

Merchants are pushing for an historic reduction in yield as they seek to ensure that champagne remains an expensive luxury. “Everyone agrees that production has to be cut because no one here wants to see prices fall,” an industry insider said. “The only disagreement is on the scale of the cut.”

The backdrop to the debate is a slump in sales for champagne makers, from 338 million bottles in 2007 to 322 million last year and a predicted 270 million this year. The fall stems in part from a slide in demand, estimated at about 10 per cent, and in part from destocking by distributors, notably in Britain and the United States.

9/3/2009 update: A great article in today’s Wall Street Journal on the crisis in Champagne. Check it out!

Stein’s Law and New Zealand Wine

August 20, 2009 By Mike Veseth in British wine market, decanter, economic crisis, Economic impact, globalization, Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand, wine markets, wine price 1 Comment

Stein’s Law, named for presidential economic advisor Herb Stein who coined it, holds that if something cannot go on forever it will eventually end.

If that sounds like an obvious conclusion remember that, Freakonomics aside, most of what economists do is point out the obvious to people who somehow fail to see it.

Think about everyone who was surprised that the housing bubble imploded and that credit crashed. Everyone knew that rising housing prices and expanding mortgage debt couldn’t go on forever, but many acted like it would never end. If only they had remembered Stein’s Law!

I wonder if this is a Stein’s Law moment for the New Zealand wine industry?

Objectively the New Zealand wine industry has all of the classic characteristics of a bubble (and I’m not talking about sparkling wine here). The industry has expanded at a break-neck pace in recent years, fueled by foreign investment. The home market is quite small, so increasing output has been pushed into export markets, especially Australia, the U.S. and Great Britain. New Zealand wines are best sellers in each of these markets.

Incredibly, New Zealand has been able to continually expand export sales while maintaining its historically high export price. (No country has received a higher average price for its table wine exports in recent years.) The high prices, of course, draw in more investment, so production continues to grow and the cycle repeats.

Chateau Ponzi

If I told you a story like this about a financial investment of some sort you’d probably tell me that it sounds like a Ponzi scheme — no way this can go on forever. Pretty soon the market will be saturated and prices will have to fall. This is what worried the New Zealand winemakers I talked with when I visited there a few years ago: the moment when exports at a premium price would become unsustainable. They worried that their fine wines would become commodities, sold in bulk at permanently lower price points.

Any luxury good retailer will tell you that it is hard to push prices back up once buyers come to expect discounts.

Yesterday’s Marlborough Express suggests that the tipping point may have been reached. The article reports that

New Zealand Winegrowers’ annual report released yesterday shows exports surged 24 per cent to $992 million and the industry is on track to reach the $1 billion mark this year, a year ahead of expectations.

This was largely driven by bulk exports, which Mr Smith said were a concern to the industry. Historically, bulk wine exports have accounted for less than 5 per cent of total export volume; in the past year this quadrupled to nearly 20 per cent as producers looked to shift excess inventories.

Bulk exports might relieve pressure on wineries in the short term, but in the long term they could damage the market positioning and the reputation of New Zealand wine, Mr Smith warned.

The fact of falling prices due to bulk sales is hard to dispute. I have not seen big discounts on New Zealand wine here in the U.S., but the Marlborough Express reports that

A surplus of Marlborough sauvignon blanc is driving down wine prices, says a Nelson wine producer. Brightwater Vineyards’ owner, Gary Neale, says his company is up against an oversupply of discounted Marlborough sauvignon blanc exports.

Mr Neale sells his wine for 10.50 (NZ$25.80) in Britain, but British consumers are being offered three bottles of Marlborough sauvignon blanc for 10 , or 3.99 for one bottle. An email from his Sydney agent tells of New Zealand wine being sold at A$4 a bottle, and Marlborough sauvignon blanc is selling there for as little as A$2.75 when buying six bottles.

“In the past, Australia has been a very easy and a profitable market, but Australia is absolutely flooded with cheap Marlborough sauvignon blanc,” says Mr Neale.

Two Buck Kiwi Wine

With the Australian dollar trading at about 83 U.S. cents this morning, that makes makes the Marlborough six-pack price a little over $2.25 US per bottle — Two Buck Chuck (TBC) range.

An article posted today on Decanter.com reports low prices in the U.K. market, too, although not so low as in Australia, and sounds an optimistic note.

The sale of £3.99 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc is a short-term ‘blip’, according to the European head of New Zealand Winegrowers.

Following the record 2008 and 2009 vintages, increased production created an oversupply problem, giving rise to the first-ever £3.99 New Zealand wines as producers tried to clear tank space.

But David Cox, European director for New Zealand Winegrowers told decanter.com: ‘We are going to see the odd £3.99 New Zealand wine but not very often. I don’t think the consumer will ever get to the stage where they think they can get New Zealand wines for under £4.’

£3.99 translates to about $6.50 US — well clear of the TBC price, but frighteningly low for New Zealand wines in the UK market. Let’s put this price in context.

New Zealand producers received an average price of $6.00 for their exports in 2001-2005. Retail prices in the export markets were necessarily much higher to reflect transportation and distribution costs, tariffs and retail mark-ups. No wonder so many Marlborough Sauvignon Blancs have been priced in the $15-$20 range in the past.

If NZ wines are retailing for the equivalent of $6.50 in London then, working backwards, this suggests that net producer prices have plunged to less than $3, at least for the bulk wine product. That’s a huge drop and it is hard to see how production is sustainable at this price point.

All Black?

So is this it? Has the bubble burst? Is the future of New Zealand wine all black? No. The reputation of New Zealand wine is very strong and it may well be that consumers will be able to differentiate the bulk product at bulk price from the premium product higher up on the shelf as they do for products from France and California. The danger is that the whole national brand is devalued. That would be a devastating blow.

It would be a mistake to over-react to this news, but it would also be a mistake not to react at all.

Stein’s Law holds here as it does in so many cases and the surpluses will go away one way or another — either because the growers act to control them or else because the market collapses and they get sold off at bulk wine prices.

American Wine Laws: Time for a Change?

August 13, 2009 By Mike Veseth in alcohol, Economic impact, Trader Joe's, wine distibution, wine markets, wine taxes 1 Comment

No food for sale in this NYC Trader Joes. No wine for sale at the Trader Joes next door.

Only in America? You can't buy food at this NYC Trader Joe's wine store. And you can't buy wine at the Trader Joe's next door.

A European visitor pulled me aside recently to complain about American wine laws, which considerably restrict the what, where and how of wine sales and consumption compared to more relaxed European practices.

“I thought there was separation of Church and State in America,” he said, showing that he hadn’t forgotten what he learned in Civics class years ago as a high school exchange student in Cleveland. He put the blame for America’s wine parochialism squarely on the influence of conservative religious groups.

Church and State vs. Special Interests

Religious groups are political powerful, I told him, and they no doubt have had some influence on the development of America’s wine laws. But that’s not the reason the laws don’t change, I said. It is the interests of those who gain from the current set up. He wasn’t convinced. He seemed to think that a moral explanation was inherently more persuasive (or more American?) than an economic one. But I still think I’m right.

My explanation — that economic forces organize around any set of regulations, become entrenched and use their political and economic clout to prevent change — has a good economic pedigree. It is the theory of structural rigidities developed by Mancur Olson in his two classic books, The Logic of Collective Action and The Rise and Decline of Nations.

Olson’s theory is elegantly simply. Restrictive economic arrangements benefit a small number of actors a great deal, so they have a strong incentive to organize and fight change. Eliminating the restrictions benefits a larger but widely diffused set of actors who have correspondingly smaller individual incentive to take action.

Even though the collective gain from liberalizing arrangements is likely to exceed the collective loss, the concentrated established interests have more of an incentive to influence legislators and regulators than the general public. This is why regulations, once enacted, are difficult to change. Public gain cannot seem to trump concentrated private interests.

Olson developed this theory in The Logic of Collective Action and used it in The Rise and Decline to explain why rich, stable economies sometimes experience slower growth rates. Stability allows interests to become entrenched and structural rigidities to solidify. Change becomes more and more difficult and potential collective gains from innovation are systematically sacrificed on the altar of vested interest.

Every once in a while, Olson argued, advanced nations need something that will shake things up and weaken the grip of special interests. Then all sorts of change becomes possible.

A Loaf of Bread But No Jug of Wine

An article by Graham Rayman in the August 11, 2009 Village Voice provides evidence to support this theory. New York is one of 15 US states where it is illegal to purchase wine or beer in a supermarket (and you can’t buy bread or cheese in a NY wine shop, either). It isn’t so much separation of Church and State as the division of Wine and Cheese. Supermarkets can sell wine, beer and spirits as provided by the law, and some do this, but they must have separate stores with separate entrances, checkout stands and so forth.

Two doors, two lines, two sets of store staff. Greater legal control alcohol sales is possible, I suppose, but at a considerable sacrifice in convenience. It is probably not a surprise that wineries and wine enthusiasts would want to change this, but it isn’t an easy thing to do.

The Village Voice article explains how liquor store interests organized and lobbied the NY legislature to kill a recent bill that would have permitted supermarket sales. The main force behind the proposal was the state government’s need for revenue — the state projected that increased sales though supermarkets would have added to state tax coffers. The story focuses on the anti-reform lobby — it would be interesting to know more about than the author reports here about how supermarket chain and corporate wine producer interests reacted to the bill. But the point about the blocking power of small but concentrated interests is well made.

Shake It Up, Baby

Supermarkets are just one distribution vector for wine, of course, and New Yorkers have many competitive specialist stores to keep prices down and service up, so we don’t need to feel too sorry for them. But it does seem that the increased convenience of grocery store sales would help expand the wine market and promote wine as a lifestyle choice. It’s too bad the reform effort failed.

The inconvenience of wine buyers in the 15 supermarket-ban states is important, but the grip of special interests on wine regulations extends to other areas.The cumbersome three-tier distribution system and restrictions on inter-state wine shipments are two other areas where entrenched interests have successfully fought off liberalization efforts.The result is the restrictive system my European friend finds so difficult to understand.

If Mancur Olson is right, restrictive regulations will be difficult to change unless something happens to shake things up. Maybe the economic crisis, which has put every link in the wine value chain under stress, will ultimately provide just such an opportunity. Consumers, wine producers and even state tax departments all have something to gain from changing the system now.

We Will Sell No Wine [Reform] Before Its Time

I told my European friend not to hold his breath waiting for wine reforms to trickle up from grassroots wine enthusiasts. The real hope is that the big players will push for liberal reforms.

Personally, I pin my hopes on Costco, the largest single wine retailer. And I wonder if Wal-Mart will get involved now that it is selling wine in many stores (it even has its own version of a Two Buck wine called Oak Leaf). OK, Wal-Mart is a long shot, given its Arkansas roots, but these are unusual times — almost anything is possible.

The New York defeat is a definite setback (and the California plan to increase wine taxes is a step in the wrong direction) but maybe European-style wine market regulations are an idea whose time has finally come.

8/27/2009 Update

Interesting article in the New York Times about Whole Foods’ failed attempt to open a wine shop in New York City.

Whole Foods learned the hard way that opening a wine store in New York is not easy. The wine shop at its market in the Time Warner Center was closed by the state liquor authority because the shop was deemed part of the supermarket; state law bans selling wine in food stores. Then Whole Foods’s license request for a wine shop near its store in the Bowery was denied because of community opposition. But the company succeeded in starting a wine store in the same building as its newest store on the Upper West Side: it opened on Aug. 24, and the supermarket will open on Aug. 27.

Read the whole story at

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/26/dining/26whole.html?_r=1

Will the EU Wine Reforms Work?

August 11, 2009 By Mike Veseth in decanter, economic crisis, Economic impact, EU wine market reforms, EU wine reforms, Supply and Demand Leave a comment

The September 2009 issue of Decanter arrived today and it features three articles about the European Union wine reform regime that went into force last week (on August 1). I wonder if the reforms will work and dry up the EU’s wine lake by making this important economic sector more competitive?

The EU wine regime is part of the larger Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which is not so much an agricultural policy as an incomes policy — a set of regulations and subsidies designed to support the incomes of European farmers. The CAP payments have provided income security and, in some areas, social stability, for regions where winegrowing is a marginal economic activity, but where there are few viable alternatives.

Bottle Shock

The subsidies have also served to delay what we now see as inevitable structural adjustment to a declining EU domestic wine market. The new reforms are meant to pull out the props and force adjustment. It’s not exactly shock therapy, but it will have some of the same effects.

You can see the problem if you just look at some of the vineyards in Spain and the South of France where the surplus wine originates. Many of the wines that are produced are poor products, without much market potential, which flow the into EU wine lake and end up in crisis distillation. These winegrowers need to get into a different business. Structural adjustment in this circumstance doesn’t mean changing from grapes to olives or some other crop, however, it probably means selling out, packing up and moving to other regions, a very expensive and disruptive process for both the individuals and their communities.

It’s like an economic Dust Bowl; if you have read The Grapes of Wrath you know what I am talking about. No wonder there is so much opposition and foot-dragging.

The current economic crisis both compounds and confuses the problem. Solving the long term problem demands that crisis distillation disappear, for example, but the short term crisis makes a case for keeping the price supports just a little bit longer. With the Cash for Clunkers program so popular right now it is hard to rule out Cash for Carignan on principle alone. It is difficult to know how these political and economic forces will shake out in the future.

Label Laws

The first evidence of the new EU regime will show up on the labels of some European wines quite soon. AOC (Appelation d’Origine Controlée) is being replace by AOP (Appelation d’Origine Protegée) on French wine labels, for example, and Vin de Pays wines will now be labeled Indication Geographique Protegée as EU standard terminology in introduced.These changes will confuse some buyers, I think, but the damage shouldn’t be too severe.

The Decanter story uses the English versions of these new classifications: PDO (protected designation of origin) and PGI (protected geographical indication). The PIG wine acronym is thankfully avoided.

More useful is the fact that wine producers will be able to list grape varietals on their labels, bringing them into line with New World market practice. Since Old World wine consumption continues to fall (and imports of New World wine now crowd European supermarket shelves) leveling the playing field this way makes good sense, even if it is not a perfect solution.

The new label and designation rules are just one part of the EU reform package (other elements including payments for grubbing up and support for export marketing programs), but you have to ask if they go far enough. While labels will be streamlined and made a bit more market friendly fears that hundreds of geographical designations would be eliminated have proved groundless. The confusing thicket of EU wine regions remains and will act as a barrier to supermarket sales, which is where this war will ultimately be fought.

Get Smart

An industry group in the UK that includes Tesco and Bibendum and 23 other retailers and importers want European winemakers to go beyond the EU reform template. They have produced Plan B, which calls for France’s regional wine authorities to set aside their seperate interests and differences and unite to collectively market their wines. The idea is that the French regions don’t compete against each other so much today as they compete with the rest of the world. A united front is needed and regional bickering only gets in the way.

The proponents of Plan B admit that it is unlikely that French producers will give up their local designations and controls and pull together, but they think it is the only way to reverse that country’s continuing decline in the British market. Plan B, whatever you might think of its merits, is about as likely to succeed as any of the “Plan B” schemes in the old Get Smart television series.

The EU is convinced that European winemakers can compete and will compete with New World makers under the new regime. I suspect that are right but, for now, it is too soon to tell.

The wine market has a way of surprising even the most hardened sceptic. Who would have thought 50 years ago that France would be considered a basket case in the wine business? Who would have thought 10 years ago that Australian wine would be considered passé?

I have great respect for innovators in the Languedoc and other threatened EU wine regions. But even with the recent reforms, things could still go either way.

Prime Time for Fine Wine?

July 17, 2009 By Mike Veseth in economic crisis, Economic impact, robert parker, Supply and Demand, Wall Street Journal, wine distibution, wine markets, wine price 1 Comment

The Wall Street Journal reports that USDA Prime beef is now available in your supermarket meat case. Bad news for your cholesterol count, perhaps, but maybe good news for supermarket wine sales. Do you think it will last?

Steak-Out at Ruth’s Chris

USDA Prime beef is usually almost impossible to get outside of restaurants. Prime is the grade reserved for the top 1-3% of all beef — it is sort of like beef with a 93+ rating from Robert Parker. Fine dining establishments, including steak houses like Ruth’s Chris (which advertises itself as “The Best Prime Steakhouse Restaurant”), pay a premium for the limited supplies of this top quality beef. It is unusual, therefore, to find much Prime beef in the regular retail food distribution chain (USDA Choice is usually the top grade you will find at your store). It is especially rare to discover choice cuts like Filet Mignon in a supermarket meat case.

So then why did some shoppers recently find USDA Prime ribeye steaks at Costco for $9.99 per pound? The answer, according to the WSJ article, is the slump in high end restaurant sales. (I don’t know how Ruth’s Chris in particular is doing, but the fine dining industry overall is taking a beating. due to the economic crisis.)

The recession is bad news for restaurants and for the businesses that supply them. I have already written about the effect on wine. Some hard-to-get, winery-list and restaurant-only wines are now relatively easy to find — a few have even shown up at Costco — because distributors are diverting the wine that restaurants won’t buy to their other selling channels. The same thing, apparently, has happened to Prime beef.

Prime Time on the Wine Wall

Some of the folks who used to splurge on expensive restaurant meals are now sometimes treating themselves to fancy home-cooked meals, which can be less expensive even when they use similar ingredients because high restaurant labor costs are supplied in house for free (or lower cost, anyway, if you have to pay your children to be waiters, prep-cooks or dishwashers). Prime beef and excellent wines are now more readily available to these home chefs, as the WSJ article indicates and, while they may be expensive in an absolute sense (compared to Kraft Macaroni Dinner, for example) they are still cheap relative to the restaurant experience. Good food and wine at home can cushion the recession’s hard knocks.

My friend Patrick, wine manager at a local upscale supermarket, has a front row seat as these shoppers assemble ingredients for a special meal. His Wine Wall is located strategically at the corner of Meat, Fish and Produce, so aspiring gourmet chefs inevitably pass through his territory once or twice and he is happy to help them select a nice wine to complement their home creations.

Patrick thinks that this fine-dining shift from restaurants to residences may not be a temporary phenomenon. People are educating themselves about food, ingredients, cooking methods — and wine of course — and they may find themselves drawn more deeply into the home dining experience. As they become more skilled and knowledgeable they may begin to identify themselves as “foodies” who enjoy planning menus, shopping for and preparing food, not just eating it, and change their fine dining behavior for good.

I’m sure this won’t happen to everyone everywhere, but I think I agree with Patrick that a noticeable structural shift could occur. If sustained, this trend could have important implications for several industries, including wine. A major shift in sales from restaurants to supermarkets, specialty stores and big box retailers would force some winemakers to reevaluate their business plans and perhaps shake up the whole wine market.

Now, where are my car keys? I feel an urge to go to Costco …

Decanter’s Wine Power List

July 14, 2009 By Mike Veseth in British wine market, Constellation Brands, cork vs screwcap, Costco, critics, decanter, Economic impact, EU wine reforms, globalization, Tesco, wine brands, wine critics, wine distibution, wine magazines, wine markets, wine ratings Leave a comment

Decanter, the self-proclaimed “World’s Best Wine Magazine,” takes its rankings very seriously. Wine rankings, of course, and, in the July 2009 issue, Power rankings. Who are the most powerful people in the world of wine and what does the power list tell us? Let’s see if we can find the message in this bottle.

The Power List

The names on the power list are very interesting but the story that they tell about wine today is perhaps more important. Here are the first ten (top ten) people on the list.

Richard Sands, USA, Chairman, Constellation Brands
Robert Parker, USA, wine critic
Mariann Fischer Boel, Denmark, EU Commissioner for Agriculture
Mel Dick, USA, Southern Wine & Spirits (wine distributor)
Annette Alvarez-Peters, USA, Costco wine director
Dan Jago, UK, Tesco wine director
Jean-Christophe Deslarzes, Canada, President of Alcan Packaging
Jancis Robinson, UK, wine critic, author and journalist
Nicolas Sarkozy, France, President of France
Pierre Pringuet, France, Pernod Ricard

Since Decanter is a British magazine with very small US distribution you might be surprised that three of the top ten positions (and both of the top spots) are held my Americans, but don’t be. Constellation Brands is the largest wine company in the world and accounts for one out of eight bottles of wine sold in the UK. And Robert Parker is best known for his ratings of French wine, not Napa bottlings, which is important to British buyers and merchants. The presence of Sands and Parker at the top of the list does not reflect any sort of US-centrism, just the realities of the global marketplace. It really is a global list. Or at least, like those famous New Yorker cover illustrations, the globe as seen from London.

I won’t list the second ten names (out of 50 in total), but the I think they illustrate the global reach of the wine market today: America, China, Chile, Australia, Spain and so on. Even India, an emerging wine market, makes the top 50 ranking.

The list is complete and up-to-date (Gary Vaynerchuck, the US internet wine guru, shows up at number #40), but there are some interesting gaps. Fred Franzia, the godfather of Two Buck Chuck, is nowhere to be found, for example, despite his obvious influence on the US market, while Judy Leissner of Grace Vineyard in China, who perhaps represents the future of Chinese fine wine, makes the “Ones to Watch” list.

No wine economists make the list, alas. Greg Jones, the respected Southern Oregon University wine climatologist, is the only professor (#33). Maybe next year …

The Story

It is fun to see who makes the list and who doesn’t (why Jancis and not Oz?), but the ranking is more interesting if you strip out the personalities and consider what market forces they represent. Herewith my version of this story.

The world of wine is very unsettled. Although wine is one of the most fragmented global industries (much less concentrated than beer or spirits, for example), size matters more and more as consolidation continues. [Hence the power of Constellation Brands, Pernod Ricard and Southern Wine & Spirits.] Reputation matters, of course [Parker and Robinson], but the world is changing and everything is up for grabs from how and where wine is sold [Costco and Tesco] to how the bottle is sealed [Alcan].

Although change is generally associated with New World wine, this is no longer the case. The biggest threats to “business as usual” for Old World wine come from inside the European Union itself. On one hand, the new EU wine regime [Mariann Fischer Boel] will pressure Old World wine to compete with the New World head-on and without continuing EU support. On the other hand we have an unexpected prohibitionist movement [symbolized by Sarkozy] that seeks to regulate wine like the Americans do (even as some parts of America are changing) — as a dangerous controlled substance. It is thus imperative for Old World wine to master the tricks of the New World industry — tricks that Constellation and Southern and Costco symbolize.

These changes take place, of course within the context of the expanding global market, global climate change and a continuing global economic crisis (that’s where a wine economist would have been a useful inclusion).

I won’t pretend that the Decanter Power List is a scientific ranking (Decanter doesn’t claim this in any case), but it is an interesting peek into how wine insiders view their industry. I’ll be curious to see how the names and the story lines change when the next Power List appears.

Luxury Fever Cools Off

July 8, 2009 By Mike Veseth in book reviews, economic crisis, Economic impact, wine investment, wine markets, wine price 7 Comments

An article in today’s Wall Street Journal about the collapsing market for expensive wine provokes an essay on luxury goods. (Click here to read previous posts on wine and the economic crisis.)

Conspicuous Consumption

In his 1999 book Luxury Fever: Money and Happiness in an Era of Excess, Cornell economist Robert H. Frank analyzed the economic consequences of the status-driven arms race that has raged for some years among the group that I call the affluenza. I guess affluenza is both the social class and the disease that afflicts them rolled into one.

The affluenza don’t simply consume goods and services, they use them to construct identities much as the singer in the video above (see note). Identity building is a complex process (ask the parent of a teenager) and sometimes an expensive one, too. You need to send status signals to others, of course, and you’ve also got to convince yourself. The acquisition and display of consumer goods (including but not limited to luxury products) is one aspect of identity building. Thorstein Veblen coined the term “conspicuous consumption” to describe it.

Private Choice, Social Consequence

Affluent consumers purchase increasingly expensive and scarce commodities as a way of telling others (and convincing themselves) of their status and taste. Robert Frank was concerned about the rise of luxury fever because of its boundless ability to soak up resources that might be better used somewhere else.

If you are just buying a car for transportation, for example, you can get pretty much what you might need for less than $30,000 (much less, in fact). But if you are building a self-image or staking out a place in the social pecking order, then the sky is the limit, both in terms of the car itself and the gadgets, accessories and so forth. Pretty soon you’ve got enough automotive wealth parked in your garage to feed and clothe a small Africa village for several years.

Luxury fever isn’t a new phenomenon. Affluent citizens of renaissance Venice engaged in competitive conspicuous consumption that threatened to bankrupt the city and its great families. In desperation, sumptuary laws were enacted to protect the citizens from their own excessive zeal. Such conspicuous displays as the number of rings that women could wear in public were strictly regulated.

To this day the gondolas that ply the waters of Venetian canals must by law be painted plain black — a regulation that dates back to the era when elaborate and expensive decorations threatened to sink both the boats and their owners “under water.” I think about sumptuary laws whenever a Hummer fills my rearview mirror.

Positional Goods

Robert Frank isn’t the first economist to express concern about luxury fever. John Maynard Keynes wrote his famous essay “The Economic Possibilities of our Grandchildren” in 1930, in the depths of the Great Depression. Keynes’s main point in the essay was that the temporary problem of the Depression would eventually disappear leaving a bigger problem, which Keynes called the Permanent Problem: how to live a rewarding, fulfilling life.

Keynes meant the essay to both calm panicked citizens and to inspire them to think beyond their wallets and purses to bigger issues that matter more in the long run. I have been thinking a lot about this essay recently, since 2009 bears a family resemblance to 1930.

Keynes thought that we would be getting to that point where the economic problem was fading and the permanent problem being solved right about now. He thought we would be rich enough, most of us in the developed world, to have enough stuff to satisfy our needs and be ready to think about more important matters than material goods. He put a number of conditions on this forecast, however, and one of them was that we would get over our interest in positional or status goods — that we would get over luxury fever. But I guess he was wrong.

Luxury Fever Cools

Or maybe I am being too hasty. “Luxury Wine Market Reels from Downturn” is the story in today’s Wall Street Journal. It reports a collapsing market for high end wines in the United States with lower sales, discounted prices and the prospect of industry consolidation as the wine market shakes out. Some of these wines are the sort of rare, expensive luxury products that have an irresistible appeal to the affluenza. Their value goes beyond what’s in the bottle to the people who long to own them.

The collapsing luxury wine market is bad news for the wineries, distributors, retailers and restaurants that earn a living on luxury wines. Good news for bargain hunters and collectors, I guess.

And possibly good news for our grandchildren. The decline in luxury wine sales is probably simply an exaggerated reaction to the economic crisis and this market will likely bounce right back when the economy starts looking up. But maybe, just maybe what we are seeing here is a reassessment of the economic and social role of fine wines, designer clothes, and other luxury goods.

I’m not saying that luxury goods will disappear, but if they become a mere end in themselves, not a means to a more complicated psychological goal, then they will lose a little of their toxic social effect. Perhaps the economic crisis will change public perception of conspicuous consumption and encourage individuals to define identities in the ways that Keynes imagined. It’s a long shot, I know. Or maybe it is just a beginning.

Video note: Elton John and Tim Rice wrote this song for their Disney musical Aida. The cartoon characters are from the Disney series Kim Possible. Enjoy!

Wine Recession Reports

May 20, 2009 By Mike Veseth in Constellation Brands, economic crisis, Economic impact, emerging wine regions, globalization, Supply and Demand, wine markets, wine research Leave a comment

Economists joke that data usually come in one of three forms: the incomplete, the inaccurate and the forthcoming. No wonder we are such unreliable oracles!

Wine economics data generally takes one of three forms, too: highly processed statistics, persuasive but unscientific anecdotes (bloggers are a big source of these) and public reports, such as newspaper and magazine stories. Each type of data has its uses and each has its weaknesses.

The wine economist’s job is to try to piece them together to get a reasonably accurate picture of what’s going on. This post tries to do just that — I use a recent statistical release, a personal anecdote and a magazine report to reveal an outline of some of the ways the economic crisis is affecting the wine market.

Lies, Damned Lies and Statistics

There are three kinds of lies, Mark Twain said, and statistics are the worst of them. They can be pretty useful, however, if you know how to handle them. The Global Drinks Market: Impact Databank Review and Forecast has just released data about worldwide wine consumption and the news is a bit grim. Global per capita consumption of wine was down in 2008. At 3.5 liters per capita, the global average is a full liter per person per year than in 1990.

A close look at the data indicates that the falling average is the net effect of two opposing trends. Wine consumption in the New World continues to grow in volume terms (the increase in terms of value is somewhat less due to the on-going trading down effect). At the same time wine consumption in the Old World, where both production and consumption are still the highest, has fallen off the table (also continuing a trend).

New World consumption is rising, but not enough to compensate for falling Old World demand. The falling per capita average is real, but it masks somewhat an even more important trend — a fundamental global restructuring of the wine world.

A Wine Spectator’s article reports that

Until recently, overall wine consumption was growing, thanks to emerging markets. But the recession has depressed total consumption as well. The United States still represents tremendous potential for the world wine market—Americans consumed an average of only 9 liters per-capita last year, compared to 51 liters and 44 liters, respectively, for the French and Italians. Canada, Chile, South Africa and Australia have all enjoyed steady consumption growth also, as have the emerging markets of India, Taiwan, South Korea and Norway. But China will probably account for much of the future growth in global wine consumption, as the Chinese drink less than a bottle of wine per person annually. The financial crisis has slowed down this growth momentum somewhat, but huge opportunities still abound, especially for large multinational wine companies doing business in China.

I remain suspicious of the potential of the Chinese market, especially in the short run, but I agree with the gist of this. When examined closely, the data tell an interesting story.

Listening to the Wine Wall

Anecdotes are a second source of wine market information. Anecdotes are dangerous because, while they are usually more casual observations rather than rigorous studies, people find them incredibly persuasive. It is their personal nature that is so appealing, I guess, and the fact that you can dine out for weeks on a really good story. A good statistic or table of econometric results (sigh) just can’t compare.

My anecdote is about a particular wine, Leonetti Cellars Merlot. Leonetti is an iconic Washington State wine producer. The conventional wisdom is that you cannot buy it — they sell out every year to insiders, people say. The Leonetti Cellars website hints at this without saying it. The “mailing list,” it says, is full. There is a waiting list to get on the waiting list, but it will probably take 5-8 years to get to top of the wait list.

My friends who are on the mailing list (or the wait list for the mailing list) vouch for Leonetti’s scarcity. They snatch up their allocated 3 (or however many) bottles quickly, knowing that people like me, lacking insider status, will never get a taste. (Note: Leonetti doesn’t say that their wine is impossible to buy, only that their waiting list is limited. And I think that limiting the wait list is a good business decision.)

Many people tell me that iconic wines like Leonetti are recession -proof because they are so hard to get that there will always be a market for them. So (here is the anecdote) I was a bit surprised to see Leonetti Merlot advertised a few weeks ago in a Wednesday supermarket ad for a local upscale farm store. Yup, we’ve got it, the wine buyer told me — want some? We’re even doing a tasting later in the week, she said. Further conversations with my wine business friends suggest that Leonetti (and some other “impossible to buy” wines) have often been available, although they are a bit easier to come by now. You just have to ask.

I suspect that some wine distributors find themselves with more high priced wine that they would like to carry in stock right now, especially with restaurant sales slumping in many areas, and the surplus is filtering down the distribution chain, even showing up on farm store shelves. It’s only a story, but it suggests that the economic crisis is hitting wine producers even at the top of the ladder.

And the grocery store ads that arrived today (anecdotally) back this up — they feature more hard-to-get wines and, unlike the Leonetti case, they are being sold below their release price!

RH Phillips, RIP

The Sacramento Bee reports today that Constellation Brands is closing the RH Phillips winery. Here is an excerpt from the report

R.H. Phillips Winery is being shut down by its parent company, Constellation Brands Inc. The Victor, N.Y.-based company, which also owns the Robert Mondavi Corp., is the world’s largest wine company with annual sales of 95 million cases of wine.

R.H. Phillips Winery’s 1,700 acres of vineyards, in the Dunnigan Hills area of Yolo County, will remain under the ownership of Constellation Brands.

“(The closure) is part of an ongoing strategic initiative for efficiency,” said Nora Feeley, a Constellation spokeswoman. “We could produce the wines and keep the grapes, but produce them with no damage (to quality) to the wine at Woodbridge.“

RH Phillips and Toasted head wine will still be made, but production is being shifted to the big Mondavi plant in Woodbridge, which apparently has some excess capacity. A big loss for the local community, apparently, and an opportunity to save cost through consolidation for Constellation.

What does this article tell us? Well, it is more like an anecdote that a statistic in that it reports just one story that may or may not be representative of the broader population. It tells us, I think, that the weak wine economy is putting pressure on even the largest players to cut costs and increase efficiency. The wine recession is affecting the entire market, not excluding Toasted Head and RH Phillips, wines that sell in the intensely competitive $8-$12 range.

Surrounded by Data

It is pretty hard to prove anything with wine economics data but sometimes you can use a combination of statistics, anecdotes and news reports to sort of surround a question. The three stories I’ve reported here don’t prove anything, but taken together they suggest that the wine recession is being felt globally, nationally and at the local level and at every shelf on the wine wall.

The wine recession is real. Restructuring is already under way. Or is that just a rumor, too?

Wine Distribution Bottleneck

May 5, 2009 By Mike Veseth in Charles Shaw, Constellation Brands, Economic impact, Rabobank, Supply and Demand, Trader Joe's, Two Buck Chuck, wine distibution, wine markets, wine spectator 9 Comments

I have often argued that to really understand an industry you first need to understand where the bottlenecks are in the value chain. Bottlenecks disrupt the efficient flow of resources and so industries tend to evolve around them. I believe that this observation holds especially true for wine. Herewith a brief update on the current situation.

Do the Math

Silicon Valley Bank released their annual State of the Wine Industry Report yesterday. SVB is a major lender to US wine producers and thus has a strong interest in producing clear, relevant wine economics research. (I also admire the wine economics research produced by the Dutch agricultural lender Rabobank.)

The report provides some good news along with many worrisome observations (click on the link above to download the study) and fresh data on the biggest single bottleneck in the U.S. wine industry — distribution.

Here’s the basic math. SVB estimate that there are 6000 wineries actuve in the US market producing about 7000 wine brands. All these brands need to squeeze through the U.S. three tier distribution system bottleneck. This means they need to go from maker (first tier) to state-licensed distributor (second tier) to local retailer (third tier). That’s the law here in the United States, where we still think of wine as a controlled substance.

There are only limited opportunities for producers to skip a step. I understand that Bronco Wines, for example, can sell its Charles Shaw brand directly to Trader Joe’s in California because of a legal loophole there, but has to use an independent distributor in other states. That’s why Two Buck Chuck costs $1.99 in L.A. but $2.99 here in Washington State. That extra buck is the cost of the extra distribution layer.

The Big Squeeze

Now we get to the big squeeze. These 7000 brands get funneled through about 550 major distributors according to SVB (obviously this does not count many smaller Mom-and-Pop and specialized distributors that I am familiar with), which is about half as many as a few years back. Hopefully you can appreciate the bottleneck — 7000 brands worth $30 billion in retail sales have to squeeze through 550 distributors in 50 states on their way to 76 million wine consumers. Any blockage in the distributor tier backs up the whole industry.

And the problem gets worse because the distributors are obviously getting squeezed themselves by the economy — falling sales, trading down, shrinking margins, credit limits and counter-party risk. Expect distributors to consolidate in some cases and pull back to reduce cost and risk in others.

The net effect is clear — distributors are reducing their SKUs (stock keeping units to non-economists) and focusing a smaller number of reliably profitable products lines. This means that it is harder and harder for new and niche wineries to get on the warehouse pallet.

The Missing Middle

I’m not sure exactly how this all will shake out, but I suspect the problem will be worse in the middle market. Very small wineries can often successful self-distribute. Very large ones will probably get distribution because of the volumes they can generate. The middle falls awkwardly in between — too big to sell it all yourself, too small to be worth a major distributor’s time. The fact that the distribution system is fragmented into 50 (plus DC) pieces just makes the situation worse.

In the same way, SVB data suggest that lower priced fine wines ($35 and less on their scale — remember that a lot of SVB’s customers are in Napa Valley) are still selling pretty well and very expensive icon wines apparently are doing OK, too. The mid-range is in trouble. SVB calls $35-$50 a “gray area” and $50-$125 a “dead zone.” Ouch.

I would hate to be a new 3000-5000 case winery trying to sell wine made to be priced in the dead zone. Unfortunately, I think there may be a lot of new wineries coming on line now who planned to do just that back when economic conditions were sunnier. It will take exceptional effort (or truly exceptional wine) to make this business model work in the current economic environment. I recently talked with one middle-sized premium winemaker who has already figured this out and pulled back — lower output, lower prices — to get clear of the dead zone.

This is the “missing middle” effect that economists are familiar with in other contexts (small family operations and huge corporate businesses survive, the middle simply disappears). The distribution bottleneck isn’t necessarily the cause of the coming missing middle effect in the wine industry, but it will certainly make it worse.

The Wine Economist

Category Archives: Economic impact