The Wine Mule
Dave Erickson
I'm a retailer, right? I'm the last stop on the chain. Somebody else grows the grapes, performs the vinification, puts it into bottles, sells it to some middleman who exports/imports, passes it through a distributor, delivers it to the store. And I take it out of the case, and put a price on it, and put it on the shelf, and hope to Christ I can sell it. I'm the last stop before the person who actually purchases the bottles and takes them home. I refuse to call this person a "consumer." Yes, wine is consumed, but one hopes not in the same way that gasoline or Big Macs are "consumed." If I have a goal as a wine retailer, it is to hope that something more than simple "consumption" is the basis of wine purchases.
And then December comes, and all of that high-falutin' thinking goes out the window. It's the Holiday Season, and I don't really give a fuck about anything other than moving bottles out the door. So when people come into the store, and they want six bottles for their brother-in-law under $10, I am counting on their indifference to move all the stuff that's been gathering dust on the shelves over the last 11 months. I'm not talking about bad wine, but about wines that for some reason just didn't generate any enthusiasm. So away go all those '04 Chardonnays, those generic red blends (the ones that have 12% Petite Sirah), the budget Priorats, the Languedoc Pinot Noirs, the Santa Barbara Lagreins, the Cremant d'Alsace that we were all high on, but nobody else wasall our failures.
And you know what? The people who bought them will be happy, because they're not going to drink them, they're just fulfilling obligations, and the people who receive these as gifts will either put them in a corner and forget about them or "re-gift" them (I hate that coinage, it's such abstract corporate bullshit).
So there's a happy ending: People who don't care about wine give the gift of wine to other people who don't care about wine, the stuff gets sold, and when the day is over, we go to the bar in back of the store and open some Delamotte and some Vilmart bubbly, and recount how we sold the last bottles of such-and-such, and moved some big-ticket bottles for some high-rollers (their ranks are decimated this year, no shit). And the Earth continues to turn on its axis.
Happy Holidaze to all you Outlaw Wine Snobs. I wish you all the esoteric pleasures your constitution will stand.
Click here to read the same bullshit!
And then December comes, and all of that high-falutin' thinking goes out the window. It's the Holiday Season, and I don't really give a fuck about anything other than moving bottles out the door. So when people come into the store, and they want six bottles for their brother-in-law under $10, I am counting on their indifference to move all the stuff that's been gathering dust on the shelves over the last 11 months. I'm not talking about bad wine, but about wines that for some reason just didn't generate any enthusiasm. So away go all those '04 Chardonnays, those generic red blends (the ones that have 12% Petite Sirah), the budget Priorats, the Languedoc Pinot Noirs, the Santa Barbara Lagreins, the Cremant d'Alsace that we were all high on, but nobody else wasall our failures.
And you know what? The people who bought them will be happy, because they're not going to drink them, they're just fulfilling obligations, and the people who receive these as gifts will either put them in a corner and forget about them or "re-gift" them (I hate that coinage, it's such abstract corporate bullshit).
So there's a happy ending: People who don't care about wine give the gift of wine to other people who don't care about wine, the stuff gets sold, and when the day is over, we go to the bar in back of the store and open some Delamotte and some Vilmart bubbly, and recount how we sold the last bottles of such-and-such, and moved some big-ticket bottles for some high-rollers (their ranks are decimated this year, no shit). And the Earth continues to turn on its axis.
Happy Holidaze to all you Outlaw Wine Snobs. I wish you all the esoteric pleasures your constitution will stand.
Click here to read the same bullshit!