Vino Budget Cuts

As 2008 draws to a close, another story on how the current economic situation affects the wine world…

Everywhere you look these days, folks are looking to cut costs. The holiday retail numbers have been pretty telling. Here at WE we’re no stranger to the concept of scrimping and saving, and we try to suggest wine deals and good buys under $15, etc. whenever we can.

A recent article at Bloomberg.com documents the current trends in wine budget cuts. For example, at restaurants, bottle sales are down, by-the-glass sales are up, and the highest price bottles are hardly moving, prompting the restaurants to retool their wine lists with less expensive offerings.

Even the most devout of wine lovers are drinking less, drinking cheaper wines, or have stopped buying new wine, and are instead opening bottles from their cellars and collections.

These changes in spending habits have been a challenge for some in the wine industry, particularly smaller, independent vineyards. Additionally, this year has seen a rise in the costs of barrels, corks and energy, which squeezes the economics of wine-making even more.

The good news is that people are still buying wine. And when they do, they’re not necessarily getting a lesser-quality wine. The article points out that “…sales of wines rated 91 points… increased 44 percent by unit volume in September, while the price dropped 27 percent…” So basically 91 point wines cost less than they used to.

The article includes quotes from one of our favorite wine retailers K&L Wine Merchants, as well as the founder of premier blog-site (and WE friend) Vinography.com. You can read the whole thing here at Bloomberg.com.)

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I’ll say it again: The good news here is, despite tough times, people are still buying wine. I think if we all hunker down and keep pushing forward, we’ll weather this storm, with wine glass in hand. Better times and better bottles lie ahead…