Why Allowing More Massachusetts Grocery Stores to Sell Wine is More Impactful Than You'd Think

Map of Massachusetts

Some interesting news on the Massachusetts wine legislation front: It looks like a bill and threatened ballot initiative to bump the number of retail alcohol licenses a corporation can hold from 3 to 20 has been withdrawn in favor of a compromise that would gradually increase the limit over the next decade.

People are often confused why some grocery stores in Massachusetts sell wine while others do not. It's complicated. Some towns don't allow alcohol sales at all so that explains some of it. But beyond that, current laws permit a maximum of 3 liquor licenses per corporation in the state. This explains why big retailers like Costco, Whole Foods, and Trader Joe's only sell wine at 3 of their locations.

Here's a list of the grocery stores in Massachusetts that currently sell wine

The gradual schedule slated to be ratified should the compromise go through looks like this:

  • 2011 (now) 3 licenses per corporation
  • 2012: 5 licenses
  • 2016: 7 licenses
  • 2020: 9 licenses
My first thought upon hearing the news was: Which grocery stores are most interested in expanding liquor sales?  Ironically perhaps, natural and organic grocer Whole Foods was one of the first that came to mind. When they chose to sell alcohol at their recently opened flagship store in Dedham they had to relinquish their license in Wayland. It wouldn't be surprising at all if they brought alcohol back to the Wayland location. Or perhaps their Fresh Pond (Cambridge) and Derby Street (Hingham) locations are even more desirable for the first wave?

The challenge any grocer (or retailer) will face is that this change won't increase the number of licenses available at the state or local level. In Massachusetts, licensing decisions are largely delegated to the city/town level and is determined by population. As a result many towns have doled out all of their licenses and in order for a new grocer to pick up a license they'd need to demonstrate the need for an additional license -or- buy one from an existing licensee.

One of the things you'll notice if you visit a place like Massachusetts is the current laws have created a situation where liquor stores are placed conspicuously alongside grocery stores. What changes would this change bring about over the next ten years?

It's hard to say. On one hand, you've got to believe stores like Whole Foods, Trader Joe's, Costco and conventional grocery stores would love to sell alcohol at all their locations. But at the same time many of these have liquor stores right next to them and they'd have to convince each town there's a need for an additional license and that the nearby retailer isn't meeting the demand. That's going to be a hard sell in the most desirable towns where licenses are already sold out.

And what about those retailers? Doesn't this give them an opportunity to expand and meet the demand as well?

When I think of big retailers in the state that aren't grocery stores, I think of local operations like Kappy's, Blanchard's, and Gordon's, many of which are already near, at, or above the 3 license limit (thanks to existing stores being grandfather in before the 3-store limit was in place). They're a formidable presence in the area but it's hard to imagine this change benefiting their model substantially. They're already able to purchase in adequate quantities to achieve maximum discounts from wholesalers - what leverage would opening additional stores give them? Not much as far as I can see.

The retailers this change would most benefit? The big guys with a track record of success in other markets: retailers like Costco, Total Wine (not here yet but Wine Nation is), and Wegman's (just arriving and eyeing to expand). The only question I'd have is whether they can stomach the other restrictions in place in Massachusetts which limit their ability to drive prices low and control a sufficient portion of importing business for private label wines.

This is an interesting change. On the plus side this creates more competition at the retail level which could be good for consumers. On the minus side, good independent retailers who currently make some of their money selling commodity wines may suffer.

I'm thinking I like the California model: Make wine available everywhere and let specialty retailers differentiate on selection, service, and business model. With fine retailers like K&L, The Jug Shop, JJ Buckley (WWP Advertiser), BP Wine, and The San Diego Wine Company (to name a random few off the top of my head) doing well alongside stiff competition from Costco, BevMo, Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and virtually every grocery store and drugstore in the state, it's hard to imagine this change being a bad thing for wine enthusiasts.

I think boutique stores like The Wine Bottega, The Urban Grape, and VinoDivino will do fine with these changes because the differentiate on service and selection. Discounters like The Wine ConneXtion, Bin Ends Wine and The Wine Cellar of Stoneham will continue to differentiate with their unique assortment of wines at rock bottom prices. Fine wine guys like The Hingham Wine Merchant, The Spirit Shoppe (WWP Advertiser) and Vintages will do fine too because people trust their editorial selection. All of these retailers have business models people like.

The retailers that might suffer from a change like this? The run down Massachusetts package store. You know the type: The few windows letting light in are covered with tacky signs. You're greeted by the stench of stale beer coming from the bottle deposit machines located near the entrance (why do we still do that?). Half the fluorescent lights are burnt out while the other half are buzzing. The wine assortment looks like it was done completely by one or two distributors. They only interact with you when asking you to move out of the way so they can restock the dusty shelves. As you make your way towards the register WEEI crackles on the radio and you're met with a dazzling display of impulse buys: Nips, smokes and scratch lottery tickets.

Would you rather go to a place like this to buy your wine and beer or pick it up while you're grocery shopping? I think the answer is obvious and that's why run down liquor stores could be threatened by this change. But it's also the type of store most likely to benefit from selling their license to a large chain at a premium. Every liquor license in the state suddenly becomes more valuable.

I'd like to see other changes along with this. Let's open up the state for direct shipment from out of state wineries and retailers. Everyone in the Commonwealth would benefit from improved access and increased excise tax revenue from incoming shipments. Massachusetts House Bill 1029 would finally permit out of state wineries to ship to Massachusetts. I haven't heard a peep about it since attending hearings on it and other alcohol-related bills last May. Let's push that through so we can work next year on out of state retailer shipment.

Let's allow Massachusetts retailers to ship out of state. This would provide innovative retailers leverage to tell their stories and sell their wines to a broader audience without increasing overhead. Massachusetts is the only state I know of that disallows their retailers from shipping out of state. Massachusetts House Bill 1030 would change this - its passage is long overdue.

And let's open up competition at the wholesaler level. Massachusetts wholesalers sell some wines to Massachusetts retailers for more than consumers in other states can buy them from retailers. That's got to change to give retailers here a fighting chance to compete at the national level.

Let's Free the Grapes.

Drinking moderately and responsibly makes certain that you will not need alcohol abuse rehab in the near future.

Further Reading:

Question of the Day: What do you think about these changes? More competition is better for the consumer? Or are specialty wine retailers going to be hurt by these changes and that's a bad thing for consumers?


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/52knz_Ard3c/why-allowing-more-massachusetts-grocery.html

wholesale wine wine wholesale the wine library type of wine wine type

Shut the Front Door: A Vinsane, Pay-it-Forward, Drinks 4X the Price Wine Recommendation

The problem with sleuthing out good wine under $10 is the recommendations usually come with provisos like, “This is pretty good for the price,” or “This isn’t bad for the style of wine.”  Rare is the time that a wine recommendation for vino under $10 is just, “This is a fantastic wine.”

Who can blame the wine recommender for their caveats and written sleights of hand when they’re left to tout the middling amongst the insipid; the redemptive within the felonious?  It’s like the back-handed compliment from the parents of an axe murderer who note plaintively from the front stoop, “He has a good heart.”

Adding insult to this injury, it seems like nearly all domestic wines under $10 are manipulated to appeal to a demographic.  Far too often, they are oak chipped to a formula, softened, vortexed and plumped back up into a wine beverage complete with a label that screams, “Benignly vague and blandly appealing.  I am inoffensive to a large group of people.”

And, forget about pairing under $10 bottles of vino with food.  Do so only if your idea of wine pairing centers on condiments with artificial coloring and HFCS, so duotone are the wine flavor profiles.

image

When it comes to what should be reliable international value wines, forget about it – most of them aren’t even has-beens, they never were.  France and Italy – I’m talking to you.  For a sawbuck, these are sad, middling, barely potable wines evocative of an athlete whose entire identity is wrapped up in jockdom, but for whom life’s fate never provided him acclaim beyond the local playground. The fact that these wines often taste like a sweaty gym sock may, in fact, be no small coincidence.

Harrumph. 

What I want is what most wine consumers want: A non-spoofulated wine with quality that stands on its own—a good wine at $9.99 that is a good wine, period.  No half-hearted caveats associated with it.  If the wine pairs with dinner, instead of being a digestif, all the better.  Tie me up, spank me and call me Shirley if this mystical and elusive under $10 wine also has any of the following characteristics: Organic, old vines, unfiltered, native yeast, judicious oak, and complexity whilst being food-friendly.

I’m pretty sure I won’t have to have any dalliances in the wine S&M dungeon save for one emerging country.

Recently, I started to see glimpses of where quality, inexpensive wines might be coming from in the future when I tasted through a sampling of wines from the Navarra region of Spain. One $5 bottle of wine was so screamingly good it defied the law of reason. 

image

And, then, I received a recommendation for Masia de Bielsa’s 2009 Garnacha, a Spanish wine from the Campo de Borja area in the Aragon region of Spain, southeast of Navarre and La Rioja.  Adam Japko, a wino friend and author of Wine-Zag, and I did some horse-trading on bottles and he threw in a bottle of wine in a wine shipment to me and noted, “Curious what you think of this…”

What do I think?  I think I owe you favors to last a month of Sundays for turning me onto a beauty.

Of course, wine recommendations don’t happen in a vacuum and the Masia de Bielsa 2009 Garnacha is no different even if it follows a certain circuitous Internet-borne dynamic that seems unusual even in this day and age of “brand vs. land, there are no secret wine values anymore…” online battle.

Jose Pastor is a wunderkind (30 years old) wine importer with a fast growing reputation amongst wine insiders for his portfolio of Spanish wines that are typically natural in style – producers who farm organically when possible, emphasize terroir, use ambient yeasts, filter sparingly and use minimal oak.  In other words, his wines, and especially his inexpensive wine selections, are the anti-brand.  Or, should I say, “They’re the antidote to brand wines.”  The good stuff. 

image

Jose’s wines won’t have an end-cap in stores with promotional materials, nor will they follow you on Twitter or ply you with faux-flattery for a “Like” on Facebook. Ditto that for Pastor playing the points scoring game.  He doesn’t do it. The wines and wineries in his portfolio simply represent something good and honest and rely on smart trade buyers who know good juice when they taste it and are interested in paying that forward to consumer’s one bottle at a time.

This formula isn’t a recipe for getting rich, but it is a recipe for long-term, slow-burning growth based on a purity of vision.

When Richard Schnitzlein, a longtime wine buyer in the greater Boston area, took over the wine section at Ferns Country store in Carlisle, MA in early 2011, he started to remake the selection of wines on offer and that meant much more diversity, spreading the selection from two distributors to 14 over a seven month period.

A part of that remaking was to engage Genuine Wine Selections, a wine distributor in Massachusetts, who carries the Jose Pastor portfolio.

When Genuine Wine Selections partner Dennis Quinn showed up at Ferns in the spring with samples to taste, the ’09 Bielsa was a part of the mix.

Enamored, Schnitzlein started stocking the wine.  “Initially (the Bielsa) was a hand sell, but (it) soon became a wine that people were asking for,” he noted.

Japko was turned onto the Bielsa from Schnitzlein and mentioned the Bielsa on his site in June.  A September Ferns promotion dropped the price on the Bielsa from $11.99 to 9.95 and that yielded 15 cases of the Bielsa moving through the door for Ferns including a stock-up from Japko.

Within a week of receiving my bottle from Japko, I had taken to the Internet to find this wine and I bought a ½ case online from Marketview Liquor in New York state who sells it for $7.99 a bottle.

I’ve gifted a bottle to a friend at work, and, well, I’m writing extensively about this vino, too – my own pay-it-forward juju for having been tipped off to this wine.

The moral of this story?  Finding a gem of a wine for $10 or under isn’t a hopeless process, but you do have to sift a lot of muck to find the gold nugget.  In my opinion, you’re more likely to find a gem by keeping your ears open for word of mouth recommendations from wine-inclined friends or a local wine shop then to take to the wine aisles of your supermarket wine section playing brand roulette.  Here, the internet and Wine-searcher.com is your friend, as well.  In addition, Spain is a country that is producing some excellent wines across all price tiers, and my very recent and very anecdotal track record at the lower-end has been very good.  And, finally, it pays to know people.  It pays to know what Jose Pastor is all about, and it pays to know the Richard Schnitzlein’s and Adam Japko’s of the world who freely share where to find the good stuff, even if finding the good stuff requires an Importer in California, a wine buyer in Massachusetts, a generous friend and internet ecommerce.

2009 Bielsa Vinas Viejas Garnacha

Huge, pure nose with mulberry juice, black cherry, orange peel, earth and a meaty savory quality that gives way to an expressive palate with plum, black cherry, spice and fresh squeezed orange juice.  The finish lingers with plum, pepper and earthiness.  This is a varietally correct, gorgeous, natural, unfiltered wine that screams for food and would be a bargain at 4X the price.  Highly recommended.  At under $10 a bottle, you’d be foolhardy not to find this wine.

Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/shut_the_front_door_a_vinsane_pay-it-forward_drinks_4x_the_price_wine_recom/

ice wine good wines dessert wines vintage wine sparkling wines

Tasting Report: 2009 Cameron Hughes Russian River Valley Pinot Noir Lot 271

Costco in Waltham, MA had a road show featuring wines from the Cameron Hughes portfolio this past weekend. Strangely, the wines weren't open for tasting but I did take note of the inclusion of a Russian River Valley wine in the portfolio - their Lot 271 Pinot Noir.
Cameron Hughes is the original American re-labeler who pioneered the art of bringing outstanding wines to consumers at a fraction of their original cost by working with wineries looking to shed excess finished wine inventory without tarnishing their brand. Over the past ten years they've expanded their endeavors into other labels and have become more involved with the winemaking progress. But the flagship "Lot Series" is where the majority of the action is and it's the wine we see around stores most frequently.

California's Russian River Valley in Sonoma County is one of the most prestigious appellations for Pinot Noir in America, so it's worth taking note of this bottling from Cameron Hughes. It is not necessarily the most consistent however, so as you're considering bottlings across appellations from a given producer be sure to sample wines from other areas. There's fantastic Pinot Noir being made in the Sonoma Coast, Anderson Valley, Carneros, Santa Lucia Highlands, and the Santa Rita Hills in southern California to name a few.

Here are my notes on this wine:

2009 Cameron Hughes Russian River Valley Pinot Noir Lot 271
14.4% Alcohol
7,205 Cases Produced
$15 Release Price ($11.99 at Costco)

Medium bodied visually, the wine seemed impaired aromatically when I first opened it. However, after about 4 hours of breathing in the bottle it came around nicely. Varietally correct aromas and flavors for the appellation (the Russian River Valley of Sonoma County in California) - strawberries, black cherry, florals and a touch of cola. I'd like it more if it had more depth and intensity. It kind of hints in the right direction but fails to make a confident statement. That said - I like it a lot at the price point.

86/100 WWP: Very Good

Buy it directly from the Cameron Hughes website
Get other opinions on CellarTracker
Find it for sale on Wine-Searcher

Lots of reviews coming up in the next couple weeks here - I'd love it if you subscribed to the site to get regular updates!

Question of the Day: Have you tried this wine? If so - what did you think?


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/OK1gGQxRcHI/tasting-report-cameron-hughes-2009.html

best wines wine reviews fine wine wine on line red wines

Yao Ming Retires

It hasn’t been often that I’ve either written about sports in this space as of late, or frankly updated this blog. That has a lot to do, of course with being largely responsible for writing our official company blog over at Uncorked Ventures. While I certainly enjoy the work, it isn’t easy to write two [...]

Source: http://winewithmark.info/archives/649

wine distributors strawberry wine wine decanter wholesale wine wine wholesale

Cowan Cellars Announces First Release

With much anticipation, Cowan Cellars has announced its first release. Way to go, Jim and Diane!!  We wish you both much success in this and upcoming releases. The wines are: 2010 Isa (skin-fermented white) 2010 Pinot Noir, Bennett Valley 2010 Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast. You can read about these wines on here. You can read [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gangofpour/uncZ/~3/LPvVhL7ZNmU/cowan-cellars

wine list cheap wine sweet wine rose wine white wines