Page 57 - Wine Spectator (January 2020)
P. 57
HOW TO BUY WINE
WINERIES Direct Access
Purchasing from your favorite wineries ensures pristine BY HILARY
provenance and often first dibs on exclusive wines SIMS
mere 15 years ago, the direct vintner-to-drinker market- you’re fond of boutique producers, this is a great way to support
place represented only a slender slice of the wine economy. them. “This is how small wineries stay in business,” says Clare
A But since the 2005 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Carver, co-owner with her husband, winemaker Brian Marcy, of Big
Granholm v. Heald, which gave states broad latitude to permit inter- Table Farm in Oregon’s Willamette Valley. Carver says she sells
state winery-to-consumer deliveries, direct shipments of wine in the more than half her 4,000-case inventory directly to consumers. Ko-
U.S. have exploded into a $3 billion industry. ral adds, “As a general trend, the smaller you are,
READER POLL
The effects of Granholm have been amplified by probably the more reliant you are on direct-to-
the get-it-now culture of online sales; many produc- Buy From Wineries consumer shipping, because that’s the only way you
ers now offer “buy” buttons right on their websites. can get to a lot of customers across the country.”
And the direct-to-consumer wine marketplace is 7% Buying directly is also important if you want
only poised to grow as more states loosen their ship- access to exclusive wines. When it comes to blue-
33%
ping laws, says Alex Koral, senior regulatory coun- 26% chip producers, mailing list allocations have been
sel for industry group Sovos ShipCompliant. a hot commodity since the 1990s, and wineries
The payoff for wineries is clear: higher profits, of all stripes often reserve special bottlings for
a stake in the digital economy and strong customer 34% direct sale. At Big Table Farm, Carver holds back
relationships. But what’s in it for wine lovers? wines including her top cuvées—the Earth Pinot
Plenty, according to several insiders. First, if Q FREQUENTLY Q SOMETIMES Q RARELY Q NEVER Noir and the Elusive Queen Chardonnay—for
JAN. 31 – FEB. 29, 2020 • WINE SPECTATOR 53
