Half a believer.
February 16th, 2009
This past Friday, Jeff Lefevere wrote an interesting post about wine bloggers and wine samples. He makes some excellent points fleshing out the nature and utility of wine blogging to wine producers, marketers and consumers.
Jeff also makes the contention that wineries should send out wine samples in half bottles. I recognize that this has economic appeal, on the surface, but I must disagree with him.
While half bottles do have commercial appeal – particularly in the restaurant setting – producers tend not to bottle into 375 ml bottles for two reasons:
First, it may represent a lower potential profit when all is said and done. The cost of this size packaging and labeling may make up an inordinately high proportion of the cost of production of each unit. On the other hand, producing 375 ml bottles for press sample purposes only may be more attractive, from a fiscal standpoint. In this scenario, a larger portion of the cost of production per unit is the cost of packaging (bottle and label). More importantly, less wine is being given away allowing a larger portion of the lot to go into bottles which will actually be sold.
Although doing an additional bottling run with 375ml bottles may be cost-prohibitive to some producers, there is a more significant reason why many may avoid producing half bottles: half-bottles are said to age faster than 750ml bottles (which, in turn, are believed to age faster than magnums and other large format bottles). This is felt to be a function of the ratio of wine volume to ullage volume in a given bottle. As the ratio of wine to ullage volume increases, longevity and, perhaps stability, are felt to increase.
I don’t have a definitive stance on this issue yet – although it sounds very plausible. This Saturday night, though, I came a few more steps closer to being a believer.
We visited Monterey this past weekend (no… NOT for the golf tournament… jeesh!). After a day of wine tasting in Carmel Valley, we sat down for a late dinner. We were utterly wined out and the prospect of a full bottle on the table just did not sit well (especially given this restaurant’s markup). We ended up ordering a half bottle of a 2005 Santa Barbara County viognier (which I’d had before) to go with our sanddabs.
The wine was oxidized and faded. These were not the kind of changes you see in a three-year old viognier. It was amber-colored, smelling and tasting like bruised apples, wet leaves and molasses. There was no unusually large ullage, but the bottle was closed with a synthetic cork – the kind with an extruded core. These types of synthetic corks have been said, and shown in some tests, to have a higher rate of oxygen ingress than natural cork or screw caps. Thus a faster deterioration and oxidation of the wines finished this way.
One could argue that the cork was faulty or that the wine was stored improperly or did not have the stuff to last a few years. Even if this viognier had come from a warmer climate and even if it had been made in a sweeter, lower acid style, a viognier should not be like this at three years off the vine. I’ve had half bottles in the past that seemed rather forward but this bottle was an extreme case. I think that the same wine in a 750ml bottle, closed with an identical cork would have been considerably fresher. So, I do think there may be something to the idea that the same amount of air/oxygen will have a much lesser oxidative impact on a larger volume of wine.
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February 16th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
This is and interesting chain – the bloggers sampling and the viognier in half bottles. Thanks for pointing me this way. Maybe soon I’ll develop the time to blog about my experiments with bottling, different yeasts wine flavor development, etc. Until then I’ll have to follow you around – ha,ha!
As far as the viognier, I have found that they develop similar to as you describe here. I’ll fill you in with results when available!
Cheers! Scott
February 17th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Thanks for the mention, Arthur.
I don’t disagree with you on 375′s for retail wine, my overall point, perhaps lost in trying to cover too much terrain, was that I don’t get bad wine samples and I don’t tend to get inexpensive wine samples, either.
Fundamentally, the blog sampling strategy that wineries are employing is incorrect. They don’t need me to add to the chorus for wines that have already received critical acclaim via traditional media.
Instead, wineries should consider employing a wider net of sampling across their varieties so that I might get turned on to the winery and develop an affinity for them, as opposed to me simply being a reviewer of one already good wine that has already been judged in the court of public opinion.
The easiest way to do this from a cost perspective, if they are going to “seed” online media, is to spread their costs out and do it in smaller bottles.
Since wineries are sitting on a fair amount of inventory these days, it might make financial sense to re-bottle wines into 375s via a mobile bottling line and go on an aggressive sampling campaign.
Good post — you always take an angle that I haven’t thought about the ageability is a good one for bottles destined to a paying consumer.
Jeff
http://www.goodgrape.com
February 17th, 2009 at 11:33 am
Arthur,
It sounds like you hit the perfect storm for prematurely aged wine. In my experience 375′s do age ‘less gracefully’, ( I now close mine with screwcaps). I am also a diehard believer in the notion that synthetic corks are only slightly better than no closure at all. I also question Domestic Viognier’s ability to age ( with the exception of those produced by Dominio iV, they have acid ).
So it sounds to me like trying to put your finger on the ‘one thing’ that led to this disappointing bottle will remain hopeless; you’ve been hit with ‘grand slam’ of over the hill wines.
February 17th, 2009 at 2:39 pm
My experience with California viognier (limited as it is) suggests these wines reach their peak about two hours after bottling and begin to fall apart soon thereafter. But it sure was a hoot to see that our photograph from a 2005 Uncorked blog entry is still alive and kicking in the blogosphere! THAT made my day …
February 17th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Hi Mark,
I think there are a select few producers of viognier whose offerings do last for several years. Most. however, do not as you point out. Much of this is tied to the American aversion to acidity in wine and the subsequent cultivation of this variety in places and ways that diminishes its acidity.
February 18th, 2009 at 1:04 am
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February 21st, 2009 at 2:35 pm
I tried to post a similar response to Jeff on goodgrape.com but his comment stuff was broken…
There is some utility to packaging wine in smaller packages, as long as it is to be consumed soon after bottling. Many consumers do appreciate being able to enjoy a smaller bottle over dinner. That said your points are spot on – the packaging cost to put wine in a 375 is either similar to a 750, or can even cost more if you are doing fewer 375s than 750s.
While I could package smaller samples just for the trade, there are a couple reasons why I am not inclined to. First, if I do this while bottling 750s the small run will likely end up costing just as much as if I just did 750s, possibly more. If I bottle by hand at another time, ditto the cost.
Second, if I want the trade to evaluate my product honestly, I need to send it in a form that the consumer also experiences, so that the reviewer can write about it in that context. It just makes sense.
Frankly, I’m surprised that more wineries don’t send out a broader sampling. Samples are a cost of doing business, and you allow for that in your pricing. At that point sending out samples is mostly a shipping cost, and the cost difference between sending two or six is incremental.
And BTW Mark – I am surprised at your Viognier experience. I’ve had tasted many Viogniers that have held up very well for years, and in fact gain more complexity. Our own Viogniers are doing the same. Perhaps I could send you a vertical…?