Why no drinkable $1 to $2 wines in the US?

Hola Leo, I think there are three main reasons why good cheapos are hard to find here.

1) Property values are rising off the charts, especially in good wine regions. 2) The wine distribution system is notoriously inefficient and bureaucratic here. 3) Fuel prices have skyrocketed to about double what they were a few years ago.

Dan-O

If you buy a 5L box wine such as the Franzia Chardonnay or Cabernet Sauvignon, it costs well under $US 20. Some of the less popular types may be close to $10 for 5L in some places. These wines do not have technical flaws, but they are rather bland and often are a bit sweeter than experienced wine drinkers like. Thus you can find wine not too far away from your top limit of $2 per (0.75 L) bottle from as low as about $1.50 to under $3 per bottle. This is cheaper than some fancy mineral water I see in the stores. Of course the large box container likely is cheaper than the several bottles and corks would be to hold the same amount of wine. Since I have never tasted the really cheap wines sold in other countries, I have no idea how the US box wines would compare with them in quality.

Reply to snipped-for-privacy@cwdjr.net .

] Hola Leo, ] I think there are three main reasons why good cheapos are hard to find ] here. ] 1) Property values are rising off the charts, especially in good wine ] regions.

I doubt that decent wine acreage is cheaper in europe. In fact -- due to the limited area -- I'd not be surprised if it's relatively more expensive.

Add to that the cost of labour and taxes in the EU, which are much much higher than in the US I believe.

Example in US add 15% per employee salary overhead, in France add 70%.

] 2) The wine distribution system is notoriously inefficient and ] bureaucratic here.

There are many complaints about distribution markups here, too.

] 3) Fuel prices have skyrocketed to about double what they were a few ] years ago. ]

Again, same for europe. The euro doesn't insulate much because large taxes are added on a % basis. I certainly sympathize with what consumers are going through currently visavis gas-shock, but even at $4/gallon it looks very cheap indeed from this side of the pond. (Of course, we get some bennies, like decent roads, social safety and health nets, etc. Personally I'm perfectly happy to contribute to a socially distributed model for these services, although I find some exaggeration at the pump...)

So I think there must be some other reasons for the lack of cheap servicable wine in the US. My assumption has always been that there is no traditional market segment in this price range, so no US operator is interested in the very small margins. But I'm as perplexed as the next about it!

-E

This is an important point. Historically, the closest thing to "vin de table" in the US was the "jug wine" segment of the market. Nowadays, serious wine drinkers mostly dismiss those wines, but prior to 1970 there were some very decent wines marketed in that format. Even Gallo "Hearty Burgundy" used to be a fairly drinkable mix of old vine Dry Creek Zinfandel with Central Valley Thompson Seedless. I remember fondly the jugs of Charles Krug Zinfandel that used to grace our family dinner table as very honest, foursquare table wine. The problem, of course, was the format: unless you drank copious amounts, the jug would maderize fairly quickly and become undrinkable. I suspect that this same wine didn't make its way into smaller (750 ml) cork-finished bottles because of a cultural bias: cork-finished wine was considered a luxury item, whereas jug wine was considered unpretentious.

Of course, this situation came to an end in the wake of the "Judgement in Paris," when interest in fine wine in the US increased and the grapes that formerly made good jug wine found their way into bottles selling for 5x the price -- a good situation for the growers and wineries, but a loss to the consumers of cheap wine. Fred Franzia is attempting to redress that situation with his "Two Buck Chuck" lineup and Bronco's other ventures, but he has to overcome market resistance to things like box wines, etc.

Mark Lipton

Mark Lipton

[] ] but even at $4/gallon it looks very cheap indeed from this side []

I hope this doesn't appear insensitive, especially as there are millions still suffering or waiting for news from the disaster area. Like many I have friends and family in NO, and the disaster, still unfolding, is unimaginable.

On the subject of gasoline BBC just announced that Britain, Germany and France have opened their strategic reserves of refined petrol and will be shipping to the US the equivilent of the output of Kuwait for the next 2 months. According to the BBC this is already blunting the very damaging speculation going on.

-E

Taxes! In Washington State, for instance, liquor taxes border on the insane. I'm certain other states have similar situations. By the time you add up taxes, bottle price, juice, labor and transportation (not even allowing for advertising), there isn't much left out that dollar for profit.

Twenty-five years ago I used to walk into a little store front in Paris and re-fill an empty wine bottle for two francs. It was decent, drinkable wine. Of course, the French "get" wine, and didn't have to endure Prohibition.

Which reminds me...I find it incredible that, 72 years after the repeal of Prohibition, an individual still cannot legally ship wine to another individual in this country. Anybody want to follow the money on that one?

JJ