Are there too many wines out there?

Up on the OWC, there is a conversation about the vast numbers of wine brands out there and the lack of brand loyalty. Reading through these comments was interesting. I’m not sure if there is a real problem statement here to solve. There seemed to be a common thread that there are a bazillion labels out there and there seems to be a shrinking number of staff out there to guide the consumer properly.

Wine is an agricultural product. But unlike most agricultural products, there is variation. For instance, you go out to buy a tomato. Do you like Big Boy, Beef stake, Roma or those little pink handballs that are grown in a hot house? You can get conventional or organic. Those are the choices.

With wine, there is a wide variation. Perhaps when you step away from the Yellow Tails, Gallo brands and Constellation producers, you get into a level of art. And that is why we are here. To my knowledge, there isn’t a tomato blogging community, people don’t aspire to buy a tomato truck farm in Florida to live the good life. There are no tomato snobs out there.

No, wine is a unique agricultural product. There is an art to making wine and there is a tech to getting it onto the shelves. Before that, the marketing department has to stress over which animal to put onto the label to capture the public’s attention. (I wonder who thought of a using a penguin?)

With wine, I’m rather thankful that we have this problem of which wine to buy. Come on now, isn’t it fun to figure this wine thing out?