Distributors, don’t block up the hall, for the times they are a-changin’
The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers
Shakespeare, Henry VI (Part 2)
So I blogged last week on cult wines and got a private email. The only reason I’m not identifying the sender is because he explained he didn’t want to comment publicly on my blog, which is why he emailed me. (I have edited the original to shorten it).
Appreciated your article on “cult” wines and how to get them marketed…what you said really resonates. I am a small, “boutique” producer who uses a custom crush (Crushpad), and am very hands on, basically the wine maker. I am just releasing my 2005 Napa Cabernet – it’s from Beckstoffer ToKalon, and it is fantastic…and yet, it is still almost impossible for me to market it. The sad, general, response I get is “we love your wine but it has no scores and no name recognition.” One distributor told me it was “the best Cabernet I have ever tasted…” but added “I won’t distribute it because it won’t sell, my clients are shallow and only buy wines Wine Spectator and Robert Parker have rated…” Oh boy! What an uphill climb.
Look, we have got to assign some blame here. The distributors routinely say, “Don’t blame us, we just reflect what we hear from buyers.” Well, let me tell you something about wine distributors. They do not have passion for wine. You, dear reader, have passion for wine, or you wouldn’t be reading my blog. I have passion or I wouldn’t be writing it. Wine magazine owners and editors have passion for wine, because Lord knows, wine magazines don’t make a ton of money. Wine merchants have passion; that’s why they work at wine stores. Winery owners have passion, or they wouldn’t have gotten into this business in the first place. Winemakers have perhaps the greatest passion of all. Everybody who works in the wine industry has passion, except for one class of people: distributors. Their passion is for a paycheck.
Without passion, wine becomes a commodity, no different from selling sub-prime mortgages or toilet paper. Without passion, a wine salesman becomes Willy Loman — not an heroic tragic figure, but someone to be pitied for his pedestrian outlook. There can be no moving forward in wine without passion, which is what the guy who emailed me sadly discovered. He put everything he’s got on the line, trying to do something new (not that there’s anything particularly new about another Beckstoffer To Kalon Cabernet, but that’s a different story). And what happens? Distributors break his back.
And it’s not only this guy, it’s hundreds of other small family brands in California, and thousands around the country, whom the distributors are trying to kill off. I don’t buy their crocodile tears: “Oh, we wish we could sell you. We really do. We really, really like your wine, and we really like you. But we’re afraid all we can offer you is this middle finger. Cheers!”
And by the way, who are these “shallow clients” the distributor referred to, the ones who demand Parker/Spectator scores? Certainly not fine wine stores that pride themselves on making their own selections. Certainly not fine restaurants, whose sommeliers or wine managers go to great lengths to choose wines that complement the chef’s food. Supermarkets? I don’t think the typical Safeway shopper knows or cares who Robert Parker is. So what is the origin of this Parker/Spectator thing? Sometimes, we see and hear what we want to, not what’s really there. I think distributors have convinced themselves that they can’t sell anything without Parker/Spectator’s approval. They remind me of the McCarthyites of the 1950s who saw Commies under every bed. Distributors see Parker/Spectator behind every sale, but it just ain’t so.
As for that distributor who told the emailer his Cab was the best ever “but I won’t distribute it”, he’s the poster child for everything wrong and stupid with the system.
We have got to break down the stranglehold the distributors have on the U.S. wine market. I say, the first thing we do, let’s…well, like Shakespeare said.
