Dr Vino's wine blog

With so many wines hard to find, why do it?

Bob in Minneapolis faithfully prints out the Dr. Vino lists of ten wines under $10 and brings them to his local store. With almost the regularity of the lists, I get an email from Bob to the effect of “why the heck can’t I find any of these?”

Many wine consumers have surely had a similar experience when reading a write-up of a great sounding wine in a wine newsletter or magazine only to call the local shop and find the wine is not available. More than many other pleasurable consumer products, it seems, wine can come with its own disappointments in simply tracking it down. It’s often a lot easier to find a limited edition book or the latest Louis Vuitton handbag than it is to find a wine.

This begs a couple of questions: Why is it so hard to find wine picks in the US? And why bother even making wine recommendations for a national audience?

Clearly supply and demand play a key role to explaining why it is hard to find some wines. A supermarket wine manager often faces a choice among 25,000 wines to stock. And for the more creative wine shop manager the choice is even greater with new producers emerging in exciting corners of the wine world every year. Thus tough competition for shelf space means that a manager may choose not to stock some lesser known or smaller production wines.

Further, many good wines have limited supply. Some of these are limited production from the boutique wineries of Napa. But some good, inexpensive wines are also limited, particularly ones imported from small producers overseas.

High demand also means that good wines, particularly good value wines, often fly off the shelves. Influential critics (the initials RP and WS leap to mind) are an important part of sorting through the rubble but these picks then create demand.

But beyond supply and demand, which affect wine consumers around the world, the American market has the idiosyncrasies of the states. The uneven repeal of Prohibition means that each state really acts like a sovereign state with rules on “importing” wine (even if that it is from remote locales such as California). Since this effectively divides the country into 50 markets, it is no surprise that the distributors (and thus consumers) in smaller states cannot get the attention of producers and importers, especially if the production is at all limited or in high demand.

So why make recommendations at all? There are a few good reasons.

Even if consumers can’t actually try a certain wine, it is at least reassuring that a great wine is being made-whether it is exquisite or simply an exquisite value. Reading a Parker review of Screaming Eagle (500 cases production and $250+ per bottle) is about as close to fun as most wine drinkers will get to this wine. Or reading a Dr. Vino review of the succulent Higueruela wine that sells for around $7 may frustrate bargain hounds like Bob who can’t find it. Knowing might be nice, but drinking is better.

In order to connect consumers with good wines, I provide information on the winery (if domestic) or the wine’s importer (if from overseas). Importers are a good proxy for quality since an importer’s taste permeates the entire portfolio of wines he or she has available. Further, if you like a wine review, then you can contact the importer and find out if it is available in your state or town—or pressure them to make it available if it is not.

For those consumers who live in limited wine markets, there may be the opportunity to ship or travel. Retailers often can ship wine to more states than producers based on the logic that it has cleared the distributor channel somewhere. And what trip to New York, Chicago, or Los Angeles is complete for the wine geek without a trip to a local wine shop? Although security measures post 9/11 restrict carry-on luggage on air travel, there’s always the trunk of the car…

Reviewing wines that sound attractive but are difficult to find also has the advantage of recognizing quality producers and importers. Starting demand at the bottom, repeated consumer inquiries at the local shop may lead to repeated calls to the distributor who then might gain access to certain wines.

In the end, the best wine picks may be local ones since if the critic actually bought them in the local market, then there’s a better chance that you can find them there too—as long as you can beat your neighbor to the store.