Reader Comments on, ‘The Achilles Heel of American Wine’
Since publishing a broadside on Wednesday on the weakness of 
American wines priced at $12 or less, I’ve been bracing for a backlash. I’ve battened down the hatches, donned my flame-retardant ear muffs when checking my voice mail, and refrained from looking at my computer monitor without dark sunglasses before looking at my computer monitor….
And yet, reader reactions have almost uniformly concurred with my assessment. As promised, I’ll post messages from readers in this blog space, starting right now, and will refresh the space with new messages over the course of the next few days.
I should emphasize that I am no less eager to hear contrasting 
opinions from readers, and no less willing to reprint them. I’m especially eager to hear rebuttals from American wine producers or members of the wine trade who are willing to cross swords, whether on the issue of sheer quality, or on the economics of making good, affordable wines. Two messages that have a bit of a rebuttal to them have arrived, and I’m asking their authors for additional information before posting those exchanges. Much more blowback would be welcome.
But as things stand, the broadside against America’s sub-standard performance with wines priced below $12 will continue unabated here, until defenders rise to the challenge. And here we go with two more:
I work at a large retail wine and spirits store in the mid-west. We taste thousands of wine each year as well. I could not agree with you more. Whenever customers want value wine, I find California (USA in general) is the LAST place I go to recommend wine. We sell plenty of American wine here, but why can’t someone in California make a pleasant wine with some soul for less than $10?
It’s sad to say, but I completely agree with your article,
Thanks,
TJ Christie
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hi–
Loved your article regarding the cost of California wines. I have worked in the wine trade in DC for several years now and our business model has always focused on selling the majority of our wines at $15 or less. As the euro inched north over the dollar many of us, I as a buyer and my distributors/importers as purveyors, often discussed the “what are we going to do?” factor of increasing cost of European wines. I in particular lamented this issue, because I knew I had very little domestic wines to turn to. I had already done my fair share of bringing in affordable South American and Australian wines but wanted to round out the selection with something from California. Shockingly, even the “inexpensive” region of Paso Robles isn’t so “inexpensive” these days. I’ve read California has the 10th largest GDP in the world…maybe they’ve [started] their own currency too and against the Dollar things just don’t bode well for the other lower 47.
In all seriousness, because we made a business decision to stay away from the largest California houses and their ubiquitous third and fourth tier brands that wholesale at under $15, we’ve discounted a large segment of the market that offers those wines. Moreover, as you so appropriately stated, those wines have no sense of place. To sell them is so depressing that that reason alone is enough not to touch them! In my opinion, attitudes, overblown pedigrees and a completely out-of-touch perspective on what’s wanted and going on in the rest of the country has led to this predicament. Would it be nice to sell more well-made California wines at lower prices? Of course. But with no change in sight on either mentality or viticultural processes on the part of Californians, I’m more than happy to send the business to producers on the East coast….and yes, even in Europe where the dollar is so weak.
Supply and demand is a funny thing. As we demand less of California’s swill, things will probably fix themselves… after all, overoaked chard and white zin have had their day. Perhaps there’s still hope!
Best-
BRETT H. FREEMAN.
Washington, DC
1