Thankfully, the 100% tariff proposal is now off the table at least for a few months, so fans of European wines can breathe a little easier.

Speaking of European wines, this article about wine nationalism by Don Kavanaugh at Wine Searcher is interesting and sort of disturbing.

We took a look at wine searches from countries that produce wine and, to be perfectly honest, we assumed the situation would be akin to George Bernard Shaw’s definition of patriotism: the conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it, but it turns out the situation is quite different.

Just four of the 10 countries put their local producers first when searching for wine, while some countries even had merchants who didn’t stock a majority of local wines.

France (of course), Chile, Argentina, and Portugal were the most nationalistic with regard to the number of local wines being offered in wine shops listed on Wine Searcher.

The U.S., Spain, Germany, and New Zealand were the least nationalistic. The figures paint a complex picture especially in the U.S. and Italy. The U.S. consumes mostly domestic U.S. wine (67%). But most of those consumers are not perusing the offers in wine shops or doing searches on Wine Searcher. Only about 43% of the wines on offer in wine shops were domestic. Italy was anomalous as well. Mostly domestic offers in wine shops but lots of searches for global wines.

Praise be to the globalists.

Here is what strikes me as curious. Wine is an aesthetic object and part of what makes wine interesting are the variations it’s capable of producing. And we know terroir matters—the variations are the result of local geography and climate. Drinking some local wine makes sense because it is likely to be distinctive and interesting. But there are interesting terroirs all over the world. If you’re interested in the variation wine is capable of, why would you drink mostly local wine? Of course, cost factors might come into play if imports are expensive and there are environmental reasons for drinking local. But neither explains the fact that the French are exposed to mostly French wine (90% of all offers) and the Chileans are exposed to mostly Chilean wine (93% of all offers).

Now the French invented wine as we know it and tradition dies hard especially in the wine business and especially in France. But if they think no one else can make great wine they’re not paying attention.

And the Chileans? I don’t get it. If you really love wine why the narrow focus?

People in the know have me confused. Last week w. Blake Gray was optimistic that the threat of tariffs on imported European wine had receded after French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted about his “great discussion” with Trump.

An unnamed French “diplomatic source” then told Reuters that France and the US agreed to hold off on a tariff war until at least the end of 2020. This does not mean that the other threat of tariffs on all European wine is completely off the table. But that threat was always less likely than the one specifically against Champagne. It appears that the US wine import industry has dodged a missile. For now.

That was certainly welcome news.

But then yesterday Alder Yarrow warned the threat has not receded.

There’s only one problem. All those people are dead wrong.

Yarrow rightfully points out that the “great discussion” was about the French-imposed Digital Services tax. The threat of 100% tariffs on all European wine was in response to European subsides of Airbus. Those tariffs are still being threatened.

Which is why we all need to be continuing to pressure our representatives, and in particular our senators (despite their current distractions) to push hard against this proposed trade action.

How can you help? By calling your members of congress and senators.

Here’s how to find out the contact info for your congresspeople.

Thousands of U.S. jobs are at stake as well as importers, distributors and retailers who will go out of business if the tariffs are imposed.

And Tom Wark points to another disturbing consequence of all this. Comment threads on articles about the tariffs have predictably been disgusting:

On the one hand, these comments represent the nationalist tide that has begun to sweep over large swaths of the country. On the other hand, they represent the engrained belief among another large swath of Americans that wine is a plaything of the rich and privileged. The nationalist tide is a headwind that threatens the industry’s importing contingent. The “wine-is-a-rich-folks-drink” mentality is a threat to wine sales in general. And both are hints that the current threat of 100% tariffs on EU wines has significant support among Americans—bad news for the wine industry.

As Tom predicts, a “Drink American” campaign is probably in our future:

Who would choose to carry out such a campaign? No one with an ounce of ethics. No one with concern for the American wine industry. No one with any real interest in the American wine consumer. And no one with any true appreciation for the special meaning of wine.

Since that describes about half the country, Tom’s crystal ball seems especially clairvoyant .

Over the past year or two I’ve noticed something troubling about supermarket wine shelves—Italian wines have virtually disappeared. You might find a bottom shelf Chianti, a Pinot Grigio from Santa Margherita, a Prosecco or two, and the ubiquitous Stella Rosa brand but that’s it. It seems to me just a few years ago, Italy was among the best represented of the imports. What happened?

So I read with some interest this post confirming my observation written by Alfonso Cevola, who sold Italian wine in the U.S. for many years.

But I’m finding something about buying Italian wine in high-traffic retail (groceries, convenience stores, drugstores) to be very discouraging, verging on the sinister. The battle Italian wine has waged, interpolating itself into the greater American culture in the last 50 years, has been lost. It’s disheartening. And it’s disgusting. Because it treats Americans in search of Italian wine in those outlets, as if they are a bunch of immature babies just looking for a sweet lollipop.

His explanation of what happened includes a number of details depending on the market segment but there is a common denominator. Big producers crowded everyone else out of the market through consolidation and liquidation. They then used  their market power and marketing prowess to push a few simple options to maximize short term profit.

That’s very good for them but bad for Italian wine and bad for consumers who might enjoy more diverse selections if they knew they existed.

…my concern is more for the hundreds of small producers, who I meet with regularly, who have these lovely wines -Dolcetto, Grignolino, Sangiovese, Falanghina, Nebbiolo, Trebbiano, Montepulciano, Carricante, you name it. what are they going to do in the shadow of the giants? How many individual drums can we beat? And how do we win the battle for Italian wine in America when the largest of the large do not want you inside their tent?

All good questions but I fear there is no solution because the problem is much larger than wine. His last sentence really says it all:

Sounds more like the larger 1%-99% battle that’s being fought in cultural America, doesn’t it?

Indeed it does. Until we lose the winner take all mentality we will not have nice things.

The conversation W. Blake Gray had with Bonny Doon’s head winemaker Randall Grahm was depressing:

“Nobody knows anything about what sells wine,” Grahm says. “I don’t know. I feel like a dinosaur. Everybody older in the wine business feels like a dinosaur.”

Grahm recently sold Bonny Doon to a wine marketing company after revamping the wine lineup to sell more high production, less expensive wines. He remains as winemaker while he develops his new, experimental vineyard, Popelouchum.  As Gray writes:

Randall Grahm is a genius wine marketer.

All of us in wine media thought so. He could drum up publicity with amusing stunts and follow up with brilliant quotes, not to mention interesting wines. And he was rewarded by magazine covers and as much press coverage as any winemaker in the US. But it turns out that maybe Grahm was a genius at marketing to wine media, and not so much to the general public. His sale earlier this month of a downsized Bonny Doon has made me question myself. It’s not my job to sell wine, but if Bonny Doon, with all the publicity it got, couldn’t sell wine, maybe wine media doesn’t matter.

I’ve had a similar conversation with Randall as well other stellar winemakers who have energy and a knack for publicity. The story is the same. Selling good wine is really hard as well as mysterious. And Gray is right. Wine media is for the most part directed at other people in the wine business. Maybe scores move wine but articles, features, and profiles probably not so much.

The problem is that while the market for wine is huge, the market for interesting, pricey wines is comparatively tiny. Most of the public is content with $10 wine from the supermarket with maybe an occasional splurge on a special occasion. Only wine geeks will spend $50 for Mourvèdre from Santa Cruz. Most wine consumers don’t know it exists and don’t care.

There are of course a lot of wine geeks out there. Wine attracts dedicated wine lovers and their numbers have been growing over the past 40 years. But it looks like that growth is slowing, even as the number of wineries in the U.S. and elsewhere is exploding. When you look at wine sales statistics, the disparity is stunning. There are over 10,000 wineries in the U.S. Yet about 50 brands get 90% of those sales mostly at big box stores and supermarkets.

The rest of the 9000+ wineries are forced to hunt down wine geeks and persuade them, not just to try their wines, but to drink them again and again. The problem is wine geeks like to try something new much of the time. They have little brand loyalty because it’s variation that lights up their world and of course most are just as interested in imported wine as in domestic.

Unless the wine business finds a way to boost demand for the good stuff, selling it is going to be a dicey proposition. And so there are constantly conversations about how to make wine more appealing and accessible. In my view that battle probably can’t be won.

Wine is inherently difficult. Its charms are subtle and difficult to discern. It takes practice and cash. And gaining a working knowledge of wines’ variations takes time and dedication. Money and time are in short supply, and for the vast majority of potential consumers, wine just isn’t worth it. Sure you can jazz up the label, and tell stories about how much you love your vineyard and care for the earth. But that won’t cancel out the basic deficits—time, money, and good taste.

We would all like to live in a world where fine wine is everyone’s beverage of choice. I don’t think that is this world.