How does a traditional craft product innovate to be competitive and relevant in today’s marketplace, but do so without losing its soul? I think about this a lot both in my job as an economist studying the wine industry and, in my other life, as the trustee of a liberal arts college.  Both wine and college need to change with the times while staying firmly rooted to those timeless qualities that make them so valuable. Not an easy task!

Sharking Jumping Risk

Sometimes I am jealous of those folks over in the beer space. They seem to find ways to innovate without “jumping the shark” with ridiculous over-the-top ideas too often. (See shark jumping video below.) Lots of new products and variations on classic brews.

The rapid proliferation of craft breweries and brew pubs here in the United States and around the world means that while beer is clearly a global industry, it often has an intensely local feel and flavor.

I can’t even count the number of on-premise craft beer operations here in Western Washington, each different to fit into a specific neighborhood niche. When a German-themed craft beer hall opened recently in Tacoma it literally had lines out the door. It might be just good beer, but I believe that it is the total experience and that strong beer sales are as much affect as cause.

Wouldn’t it be great if wine could innovate like that, I have sometimes thought, somehow connecting global and local, tradition and new, casual and elegant. I’ve recently learned about two very promising but completely different innovative initiatives tat give a sense of what might be possible without “jumping the shark.”

An Urban Winery in La Jolla

There actually are sharks in South Africa — the Great Whites that you see on TV during the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week. I first met Lowell Jooste in South Africa — his family owned the historic Klein Constantia winery for twenty years before moving to La Jolla, California in 2012.

Jooste’s wine is made up north in Napa and Sonoma, but as the video above shows, he trucks the barrels down south to beautiful La Jolla where he operates L.J. Crafted Wine, a kind of cross between a brew pub and an urban winery. The wines are drawn straight from the barrels and tanks using a propriety technology that keeps them fresh and clean. Customers can drink hand crafted single-vineyard wine by the glass, fill the elegant wine “growlers” or take away cork-sealed bottles.

Barrel tasting on La Jolla Avenue. Who could resist the opportunity to drink fine wine in an elegant yet casual atmosphere like this? Add in cheese and meat platters and finish off with a glass of 2009 Vin de Constance from Klein Constantia (of course). Perfect.

Lowell Jooste’s La Jolla winery raises the wine bar bar, if you know what I mean, giving wine consumers the sort of intimate experience that beer lovers sometimes find at their favorite local brew pubs. The concept and design are innovative and so is the clever barrel thief device that makes it all work. Tests show that the last glass from a barrel is as fresh as the first, which is quite an achievement.

If the goal is to draw upon wine traditions to make meeting with friends for a glass of wine as appealing as hanging out at a brew pub, this is might be an answer. It is certainly going to be on my itinerary the next time we are in La Jolla!

And Now for Something Completely Different

London’s Pall Mall is pretty much the opposite end of the spectrum from La Jolla Avenue. This is an area you might associate with stuffy private clubs — the sort of places that are the home to what I have called (with apologies to Thorstein Veblen) “conspicuous non-consumption.” The wines here are the very best, but they exist to be collected, not enjoyed in the glass. Drinking them — that would be revolutionary! I overstate the case, but you know what I mean.