It was Tuesday at 11:50AM, Eastern Time. I got a call from someone wanting to know about a place to stay in Italy. I asked them if I could call them back after the new president took his oath and gave his speech. “What you’re listening to that used car salesman?” was the reply from the other end of the phone line.No matter what your political leaning, we were witness to a rare piece of history that wasn’t cataclysmic. A new era, a time when the torch has been passed to a new generation of leaders. But no, my caller wouldn’t have anything to do with that.
Yesterday in the office, I was overhearing conversation after conversation with our programmers (folks who deal directly with the wineries and importers about their mutual business). I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We just finished a very difficult quarter for sales and January is traditionally a slow time. A time to catch our breath. To analyze our year and to plan our new year. But no, these well-rested (and well-tanned) winery folks wouldn’t have anything to do with that. They wanted to send palate after palate of overpriced wine into already bulging warehouses. As if they have been taking a siesta these last six months and think things are just as they have been. Business as usual. What a rude awakening they are in for.
The blatant reality is out in the streets. For two nights this week I have been in high-dollar Texas steak houses. And they have been empty. No one is picking up $150 Napa Cabs. They just aren’t. Sorry folks, but if you were to get away from your computer screen and go out and see for yourself, we wouldn’t have to push back so often.Oh, I get it; the owners want to move their inventory. They’ve made big investments. We have to find a way.
Yes we do. But no we cant. Not right away. Not this time. If those same folks who were mocking the events in our nation’s capital had been listening that day, they would have heard that we all are going to have to make sacrifices. All of us. Well, the end of the line consumer already is making sacrifices and they still want to drink wine. But they want to be able to afford to pay for it. What is so wrong with that and why as marketers, do some of our colleagues not “get it?”I sat in a few meetings lately and my mind wandered off. I wasn’t hearing any new ideas. I wanted to think we could brainstorm, but I seemed to be picking up the feeling of desperation from people who have run out of ideas and just wanted us to take their products off their hands. Or else.
Or else what? They’ll take their products to another house? As if the conditions on the other side of the road are any different? Large or small, these times are calling for new ideas, for folks willing to sacrifice their margins, or their pride, and get on with the show. Make ‘em laugh.I heard the story of an uber-wealthy Napa Valley wine producer. They make a red that sells for $80-90. So already you can surmise their business isn’t tearing it up. But sitting in a second floor office with a 360 view of the vineyards on a beautiful winter day in Napa Valley, how can the sale manager not think the rest of the world is equally blessed. “Just take your allocation. Or else.” That’s the extent of his strategy?
Or else what? You’ll surprise all of us with an original idea? You’ll come down, off your lofty perch, and get on the dance floor? You’ll actually talk to a front-line retailer or one of those struggling steakhouses and make them see the sense of your argument? The evil of their ways?And importers, too. They’re thinking Obama is going to save their world? Obama is drinking Prosecco, so now Prosecco will outperform Champagne. Poor, poor Franciacorta.
Or the Tuscan producer whose basic Chianti Classico has been designed to sell for $25? Now it’s not selling so well. But of course it is the fault of us here in America for not understanding the value of their product. Value is not the driving force. Money is. And money has dried up. Disappeared.The French and the Italians, too, are being unbearably thick about this situation. This is not the time to cast a deaf ear. Don’t believe me? Just walk around Manhattan and see all the empty restaurant spaces that cannot sell your wine anymore, for any price.
The game is still the game. Folks still gotta want to be receptive. Ya dig?
When my father and his sister were born in Dallas, it wasn’t too much later that the family moved to Los Angeles. My sisters and I were born in Southern California and they still live there, as does most of my father’s family. Most of my family in California have very good business and are in good shape for the future.
Somehow, thirty years ago, I decided to move back to Texas, one step closer to the Italian reality that my grandfather left 100 years ago. And while I doubt I’ll complete my grandfather’s circle and return to Italy permanently, I somehow am attached to Italy more than my grandfather. All of this through a period of change, revolutionary change. It seems the last 100 years has been one giant change machine. And it looks like more is on the way.
I look at the life we hold up and want to continue, but know it was never sustainable. The large fast cars and even larger houses, the piles of money needed to warm a 9,000 square foot home that houses two, maybe three people, those days are coming to a close. Maybe not in two or three years, but in the next 50, most likely that will all be a memory of a time when folks took more than they needed.
Just like the book, “The Leopard", by Giuseppe Tomasi Di Lampedusa, which chronicled the last days of an era that had outlived its purpose, so now we are living in a time when in order for us to keep an equilibrium in our lives we must be agents for change, embracing it and moving with it. I am ready for this. Looking forward to it. This is our destiny and it is an electrifying time.
And because of the comfort zone that some folks in the Italian wine business have arrogated, I feel Italy is unwilling to go forward in these times. Some of it from hubris and some from lack of hope. But the numbers don’t lie. If Italy does not get beyond personal self-gain and self-inflicted drama, the market will leave them behind. There is too much energy coming from places like Argentina and Australia and California, wines and people who will tap into their spirit of place and send creations that will commend our new era.
Two areas, dollars and cases. Important for both because of the fluctuation of the dollar/euro exchange in 2008. For the most part, dollars showed greater increases (when they did) than cases. More with less. I analyzed sales from Italy, France, Australia, California, Japan and the whole kit and caboodle, that being everything wine, beer, spirits. Interesting year, but I already said that. It bears repeating.
Australia and Italy were neck and neck in dollars this year. Impressive showing by Italy, seeing as the bulk of the sales of Australian wine are in the Yellow Tail price range. Foster’s wine sales in Australia have been lagging and that accounted in part for the Italian/Australian photo finish. Except Italy was trending up and Australia was trending down. The Italian market is in a bit of a sweet spot because the folks, who in the past would spring for a bottle of wine, say at $40-50 retail, are now looking to the $20-30 range. And there Italy has a great range of viable products. Not Brunello or Barolo maybe, but certainly a better than average Chianti Classico, an Aglianico, Barbera, plenty of options. And Italian culture is just hitting its stride here in America. What used to be a phenomenon on the coasts now is becoming more integrated in the developing cultural life of America and how she eats and drinks. That, along with a new political atmosphere, would be in most times a moment for a spike in growth. But seeing as we are still enveloped in the world financial meltdown, I remain optimistically cautious. This isn’t the year to gamble the dance contest on a newly learned tango. Maybe something like a waltz or a rumba. I have no idea what that is supposed to mean, but my inner editor let it get by.
I broke the analysis down to three areas of comparison: December 2008 vs. December 2007, 4th quarter 2008 vs. 4th quarter 2007 and all of 2008 vs. all of 2007. I was looking for patterns.
California was mixed. High dollar volume and cases, but there is resistance to the prices. $60 and up California wines are dormant for now. Italy is in a good position to take some of that business, as long as we don’t let the Brunello consortium steer the ship.
Pinot Grigio, by the way, showed growth in sales from production areas outside of Italy. That would be California, Oregon, Argentina and Australia. If the trend continues at the pace it is right now, in 3-5 years more Pinot Grigio will be sold from areas other than Italy. So a country that defined a category is threatened with losing the lion’s share of the business, out-hustled by California and Australia. Today I was in a retail store and saw California Pinot Grigio’s in the set with Italian Pinot Grigio’s. The 
We’re deep in the thick of winter now. The seersucker has been shoved to the back of the closet. Wool and other warm fabrics shelter us from the cold. And our wines? What comfort are we getting from them in these days?
For some reason a 1955 Biondi-Santi Brunello comes to mind. When I drank this wine we were profoundly ensconced in the 1980’s, a decade where velour was foundering. But the wine wasn’t. I remember the color as being this deep clay going towards the ripe crimson of an early morning sunrise. And the wine had some stuffing, real meat in the flavor, something you could wrap your palate around. Gorgeous, juicy, classic Sangiovese. And gift wrapped in velour.
In the heady days when California wines were styled as big immense reds, there were too many to recall on this post. I’d have to say a wine like Randy Dunn’s Howell Mountain Cabernet, in those early days, ran the plays for everybody on the valley floor. Now we have too many players on the field and those high price tags have a lot of them looking for an arena they can play in. The 4th quarter meltdown gave ‘em all a bit of a concussion.
Is there a plush red or two we can ride for the next six months or so and get on over it? Something you can get for a 
The Italian stays true to his roots. Milk is milk, sugar is sugar and velvet is power. Velour is recombinant command. These two pictures illustrate.
Not to dwell in the past, especially one which, one might argue, has little significance for the new generation, folks from 14-30. There were barely paved roads, or toilets. Nano I-pods? Bluetooth? How about a toothbrush? No, it was like it happened a million years ago, to the inheritors of the future.
Wines in those times. Now we see them nostalgically, their wild yeasts and oxidation-rich profiles, and we’re not talking micro-oxidation either. A shame, because we talk about the heritage of great wine from Italy, but is there really much to ponder on before 1945, when the world experienced a change on such a level that in the Olden Times it would have been called Biblical? We sexy it up and call it “quantum change” as if the atomic age affected winemaking. Which it did, if not directly.
The linear acceleration of agricultural progress hasn’t been without its casualties though. The story teller, the master and the apprentice, the craft of the wine business, all this has morphed into some 15 minute superconducting version, where, in their place, now, young sommeliers walk on water in restaurants across the planet. I was there too, man. We have all been there before.
Maybe I should get out my 
When it comes to Italy, one can actually do this quite easily. Calabria or Liguria would be a great place to start looking for those core experiences in the Italian landscape.
I’ve found the Italian of our imagination and our dreams can be a better substitute Italy than the reality on the ground now or 93 years ago.
Andrea Fassone decided to start an Italian wine import business in the last quarter of 2008. Timing is everything. But unlike General Motors, he didn’t take 3 years and numerous trips to Italy to get rolling. He knew what he was looking for before he even got to America. The timing aspect has been a bit of a surprise, but in this short, end-of-year interview, I think you can feel Andrea’s sense of entrepreneurship and willingness to go boldly through the fog. Anyway, here he is in less than three months, up-and-running with his new baby, Enotria Imports. I caught up with him by phone as he was delivering wine through the holiday season. He sounded like he could use a little help, sales are brisk.
Q. How did you manage to start your own company and get the wines in so soon?
Q. Any particular surprises about starting a business in these economic times?
Energy in the USA? I like what I see in Austin and in Atlanta toward Italian wines.
