And small producers probably know how many of their one or two thousand cases they’re likely to be able to move. So, if you’re a small producer and you’ve made two thousand cases but know you’re probably only going to be able to sell fifteen hundred, what can you do with the excess?
Obviously, you’re going to want to sell it. But, assuming your usual price point is somewhere in the mid-twenties, how do you move the excess without damaging that price point?
That dilemma isn’t confined to small producers. A significant factor in the Aussie wine glut is the vast quantities of Kiwi sauvignon blanc we’re pouring down our collective gullets.
When ‘Er Indoors and I headed off for a drink with a few friends just before Christmas one of the party, someone who fits right in the demographic I’m writing for, produced a $6.99 New Zealand sauvignon blanc cleanskin with an apology that it probably wasn’t up to the quality that some of the rest of us were used to.
I’d been expounding the virtues of various establishments we’d recently visited in the Barossa and the Clare Valley, so you can probably understand why the apology was made.
On the other hand, the Kiwis generally turn out a decent sauvignon blanc.
This one was so decent that Jimbo, who knows his wine, took half a dozen when he beat us to the liquor barn the following day by a mere fifteen minutes. Guess what we were looking for?
I suspect that Jimbo cleaned out the single bottles that were on the top of the display beside the front door, because when we came in search of a box and sighted one at the bottom of the display, the attendant had to do a bit of rummaging to extract it. In the process she unearthed another half-dozen and asked whether we’d like that as well.
Predictably, it was the last box they had, and the same wine hasn’t been sighted there since. Or maybe it has, in a labelled incarnation at a significantly higher price point.
In cases like that, why would anyone in their right mind pay eighteen dollars for a bottle when they can buy the same wine for seven? Some restaurants are having the same sort of problem when diners spot something on a wine list that they know they can buy on special at a third of the price.
So if you’ve wondered why those piles of clean skins are stacked up near the front door of the bottle-o, wonder no more.
Of course, when you buy one you pays your money and you takes your chance but chances are you’ll be getting something that’s more than drinkable.
