Big Wine Is Hiding a Dirty Little Secret (Here’s what wine insiders know that you don’t)
Do you ever find yourself at the store staring at rows of wine bottles, feeling overwhelmed, and wishing you had more confidence about what to buy? You’re not alone.
When it comes to wine, more people prioritize taste over tonnage. Wine compliments great food. Wine marks special occasions. Wine is almost always an appropriate gift. So, it makes sense that we want wine that’s memorable and unique.
Most people don’t have the time (or energy) to become “wine experts.” And NONE of us has so much disposable income that we can trial and error our way through bottle after bottle to find something worthwhile. Wine bottles look pretty much the same and wine labels are often vague. The entire process of choosing wine is confusing and stressful.
The ‘BIG WINE’ side of the industry takes advantage of that complexity to sell wine that is, frankly, just not that great. We created WyneTyme to make it easy, affordable, and stress-free to access the wines that are worthy of the moments and memories they accompany.
BIG WINE’S DIRTY SECRET
Wine on retail shelves is (almost always) chosen for sameness and turnover. Is it (mostly) drinkable? Uh, sure. Wine is like pizza, we suppose. Even bad pizza is still pizza. But you wouldn’t compare Heinz tomato sauce and a Kraft single on Wonder bread to a focaccia flatbread with San Marzano reduction and fresh mozzarella, right?
If you’re shopping at a national or regional chain store, the wine on the shelves is typically mass-produced, i.e. manufactured by the big alcohol corporations for tonnage rather than quality.
Retailers order tens of millions of cases of wine each year. They need to restock shelves quickly and mass-produced wine fills that need – tens of millions of cases are produced, shipped, and priced as agreed. It’s all very sterile, predictable, and efficient.
THERE ARE NO SHORT-CUTS TO QUALITY
The companies making mass-produced wines want to get products to market as quickly as possible. To do this, they manipulate their production to speed maturation - a process that typically includes additives and artificial sweeteners. It has a lot more in common with how breakfast cereal is processed than anything resembling traditional winemaking methods.
It’s wine drinkers who get short-changed by these short-cuts. This is no secret among wine insiders. Big wine creates a formula to achieve specific flavor profiles – think “McDonald’s hamburger.” There is consistency, but the trade-off is mediocrity. The final product is technically wine, but has been stripped of any natural and authentic personality. Wine that’s mass-produced is hardly memorable or impressive.
Big Wine also has big advertising budgets. So, they design labels that appeal to their target audience, create a backstory, and launch an ad campaign. They pay for in-store displays. They secure prominent placement during the holiday season. They might even hire a personality to be the face of the wine.
For our money, however, the actual personality should be in the wine.
WHAT WINE INSIDERS KNOW (THAT YOU DON’T)
The best advice for finding wine that is truly special is ‘don’t shop the shelves.’ You deserve wine produced by artisans, not private equity firms. Small-production wine fills that glass, so to speak.
Unlike wine created in mega factories with grapes from dozens to hundreds of vineyards and chemically manipulated for repeatability, small-production wines, aka “boutique” wines, are a farm-to-table wine experience. Boutique wines don’t just deliver the palatial experience we want, they deliver authenticity and romance.
To paraphrase Billy Beane,
“How can you not be romantic about wine?”*
With small-production winemaking, you can trace the wine to the estate that produced it. You can read about the terroir (don’t you love that word? Learn it here.) You taste the skill in the craft and learn the story behind real winemakers and their why for making a particular wine.
The reason boutique wines aren’t as readily available is the predictability, or rather, the unpredictability factor. Boutique winemakers produce as much wine as their harvest allows and no more. That volume fluctuates from year to year. Weather, for example, can have a tremendous impact on whether a particular harvest is robust or modest.
The production of boutique wine is an artisanal, organic process, following revered traditions to achieve excellence. Boutique winemakers embrace techniques, methods, and knowledge acquired and refined over centuries. They craft and age wine into an expression of nuanced flavors and textures that elevates the wine to something extraordinary – an authentic reflection of the land, tradition and skill behind them.
HOW TO DRINK BOUTIQUE WINE
So how can you access these small-production wines? Typically, restaurants and specialty wine shops have been home to boutique wines because they don’t require the same tonnage that big retail does. Chefs and Sommeliers train rigorously to sniff out the best small production wines. By pairing the right glass of wine to a great meal, they can create a singular experience for customers, which is good for business. Moreover, they don’t mind refreshing their wine lists because it encourages repeat visits.
The good news is that the transformative experience of drinking boutique wines is no longer exclusive to these wine insiders. WyneTyme delivers curated Collections of small-production wines to your doorstep affordably.
Consider us your tour guide on an expedition to explore wine the way it is meant to be. We identify and select exceptional wines that punch above their price-point, and curate them into two- and four-bottle Collections for you to enjoy or share with confidence. You’ll discover hidden gems, celebrated achievements, hard to find favorites, lesser-known varietals and revered ones. You’ll discover wines that are memorable, unique and worthy of your time. The common thread between them is exceptional quality priced for enjoyment, not investment.
So, skip the shelves and drink boutique. With each WyneTyme Collection you order, you can be confident you’ll be exploring the best small-production wines from all over the world just like an insider.
*p.s. Apologies for the random “Moneyball” line… but, it really works here, right? Also, #bradpitt. swoon