Party survives, wine economy not so well

Everyone made it through the Christmas party, even though there was the problem with the broken punch bowl, which seemed to fall apart on its own. The Hostess stayed gracious and good-natured, even after repeatedly mopping the sticky floor, and did a great job of saving the day with a lovely porcelain bread-making bowl to hold the punch. It wasn't really made with Champagne but that's understandable. Why waste good Champers when you're mixing it with cognac and assorted other liquid refreshments? Most of the people came as strangers and left as friends, which is what a good party will do to people, and while many of the folks drank beer (Sam Adams Boston Lager, which is a really good beer) not surprisingly the conversation bounded around the topic of the economy. Not another capital-D depression seemed to be the general assumption, although there's obviously a wide-trending desire to hold the line on spending. That, of course, lends itself to the wine market, and a recent report on Wine Business News said Reuters reported customers are looking farther and farther down the list of wines. Wine Business also cited a story in the Los Angeles Times that said, "Sales of wine for $9 or less make up the fastest-growing segment of the wine market, while sales above that price are starting to trend down," and quoted Jon Fredrikson, a Woodside, Calif., industry analyst. This reflects what some local retailers have said, that bottle sales are up although revenue is down. Which means buyers are opting form it takes several $6 wines to have the same income effect as one $20 bottle. That same story linked to an e-mail from Danny Brager, who tracks the wine industry in the United States for the marketing information source Nielsen Company, that said the wine industry's "15-year bull run seems to have stumbled a bit." "The stumble is that while it's growing, it's not growing as fast as it was last year," Brager said. And another story compares recent consumer trends to the dark moods following 9/11. “We’re in a 9-11 mode, where people are hunkering down a little,” said David Freed, chairman of the Napa-based UCC Group, whose investments include hundreds of acres of vineyards in the Central Coast and North Coast. It's not that people aren't buying wines; it's just they are buying lower-priced wines. Premium wines, the ones that once were in the $15-$20 range, fell steadily in price until now it's the $5.99 to $9.99 wines that are making up the bulk of the sales. And many retailers are saying wines priced above $25 are moving sluggishly, if at all. Which brings us to the unanswerable question of what 2009 will bring. One guess is we'll see more Internet wine sales (Amazon is about to undertake on-line wine sales), more emphasis on organic and biodynamic wines, better wines at lower prices (competition will see to that), and "affordable wines" from countries such as Chile and Argentina commanding a larger portion of the marketplace. There's more, of course, but that will wait until the New Year's Eve party. If we can find another punch bowl, that is.