The federal government is beginning to examine anti-competitive practices in industries within the U.S., and the wine industry is included. The threat to small, mid-size, and family-owned wineries is real and growing, and will have a negative effect on competition if the pace of consolidation is left unchallenged and unregulated.
Recently the topic of wine pricing keeps popping up as a media topic, with some writers all waxing on how wine is priced arbitrarily and without any connection to quality. This post explores their arguments and describes what value is.
As clocks tick down to close the Gregorian calendar’s second millennium since the birth of Christ (debate on the true end aside), the wine industry has undergone profound changes in the last forty years, with the last ten the most dramatic. Prior to the nineties, the changes all had to do with the actual making of the wine. There has been a seismic change in perceptions about marketing, sales and distribution. The wine industry is still hobbled by post-Prohibition, three-tier distribution and regulations, but wine producers are finally embracing alternate and new methods of selling wine: the internet and direct marketing.
