The Quo Vadis Chronicles
If I am invoicing a case of 12 bottles of wine to my importer at let’s say, €100, the first thing I would do is to study the possibility of doing a couple of things. One would be a past billing, let’s say present an invoice for goods long since received, and offer it as a second or third notice.
Another “solution” would be to back off on the price and maybe offer the same case at €50 with the understanding that sometime in the future, if or when the tariff issues are resolved, to bill the additional €50 for the case, bringing the total, in time, to €100. It’s a bit of a shell game, but we’re dealing with a crook, a convicted felon, and someone who has bankrupted 6 companies and is going full bore into his 7th bankruptcy, this time the USA.
A more surgical solution would be to take whatever percentage of tariff it is, let’s say 20%. And that would be for the farmer/winemaker to take a 10% cut and the importer to take the other 10%. Somewhere in there one could even try and persuade the wholesaler/distributor to share in some of that 20%, conceivably from their margins. I’m not hopeful for that, seeing as the big distribs have contract with their big suppliers, some of them American producers, and there will be pressure from those large suppliers to grow their domestic business in these turbulent times. What does the Chinese proverb say? - “A crisis is an opportunity riding the dangerous wind.”
Forget about expecting the retailers or restaurateurs partaking in this exercise. They won’t be by-and-large.
Another would be to sit and wait. But with inventory piling up and lighter red and white wine with a “use by” date, this doesn’t sound like a good idea. But for those who have a larger export base, this could be a partial strategy, especially for long-lasting red wines.
But Italy already has reduced their business with the once-lucrative Russian market, and the Chinese business is flailing, because China is also experiencing tidal waves in their economy.
Along with that, domestic consumption is down, and the younger folks in Italy either don’t have the money to drink more Italian wine, or they’ve moved away from wine to other euphoria-producing products. Or abstinence.
All in all, it’s a bleak forecast, one which I am sure this week at Vinitaly is being discussed every which way.
We also struggled in 2002 with the blowback from 9/11 ad the ensuing conflict that came about in Iraq and Afghanistan. So, Italy and their American counterparts have had to deal with struggles and crisis before, this time seems a little different though. It seems self-inflicted from the American side. And after the 1,300 or so marches all across America yesterday, it seems that hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans are angry about the direction the so-called leaders of the USA are taking Americans, and the world.
Another view of thing (also requiring taking a deep breath and sucking it in) is that this might be a time to reset things in one’s life, one’s business dealings and one’s view of livelihood and all the expectations one might have for that. Easier said than done, I know that. But there are cycles, and this one is definitely a down-cycle, subjugated by the whims of a narcissistic sociopath drunk on power and grievance.
That said, this will not be an easy time. Just when everything seemed to be getting back to normal, with a few exceptions (Ukraine and Gaza) the world economy seemed to be recovering and going back to normalcy. And then, more disruption.
That is what we are dealing with currently. Like I said, putting myself into the shoes of a winemaker in Italy, I think what I would do would be to crank it down real tight, watch my spending, curtail promotional travel, and reduce my production. Make better wine in smaller amounts, for the time being. And in 2025, wait out the storm. And if things don’t get better, I will have trained myself to be more judicious in such uncertain times. And if things get better, I will emerge with the rest of the world, after this giant hiccup subsides and we move on to better times.
© written and *photographed by Alfonso Cevola limited rights reserved On the Wine Trail in Italy
* photos were taken in Southern New Mexico of the patina on an 1954 IH truck
