The Wine Guy
As I’m starting to write this week’s column, I find myself, perhaps like many of you, wholly unable to write or even think of anything humorous in the face of so much death and disease. Prior to this year, it had been 60 years since I was in a hospital overnight for extended stays when I was small; within the last two months I’ve had to deal with two events that caused extended stays twice-I was told I had cancer and most recently, I had a heart attack. But to be struck by something you can’t see or even feel in many cases though, is something else entirely; I hope that everyone reading this and your families and friends, will stay well. Be thankful for every day you get.
While I haven’t talked to any of the wine people I deal with in Europe since early February, I have talked to people in the business in Argentina, Chile and South Africa, all Southern Hemisphere countries and all with less than 60 deaths, respectively. Viruses don’t like hot weather, but colder weather is coming, and I worry for the people I know there. The wine business is similar to the oil business in some ways. For example, there are “reserves” in the form of wines that have been made several years ago that won’t be sold for a few years yet. Mass producers, like Cavit in Italy or Frontera in Chile, still have some 2018 inventories to ship, as well as the 2019 harvest which is still aging. However, if the virus does become seasonal and there’s not a sufficient response in the form of a dependable vaccine, the chains of winemaking, like many other product chains, will severely contract and in some cases collapse completely.
I have used my time at home to call several Commercial Attaches attached to the U.S. embassies of wine-producing countries and the collective feeling is that there will be some price increases in Mass Market wines and smaller-volume producers.
I was also told that without a vaccine that will allow workers the ability to do their jobs, yields and prices will have to be severely re-calculated. In countries like those of South America, wine, like other agricultural exports are given priority support by their countries’ banking systems because of the U.S. dollars they bring in. In other cases, countries that produce higher-priced goods than wine, like Australia and New Zealand, as well as many European countries, won’t be as well supported. Many Mass Market labels that are familiar fixtures at U.S. stores today may not be or may be, but in smaller quantities and higher prices.
The whole process of growing, making and marketing this product on every level will be hopeful, but different, to some degree going forward. It will all be different now. Stay hopeful. I am.
Talk To The Wine Guy at jdris8888@gmail.com
