Interesting Test of Marketing for Virginia Wines??? Last week Fox news ran a nearly 5 minute segment of Virginia wines...yesterday I saw what looked like a second piece (under a different title) Putting Virginia on the World Wine Map. I am fascinated by the attempt of the director of state tourism to promote the state wines. There are now 238 wineries...unfortunately I have only been to a few dozen but they were all in the the region that is getting the most attention...the Piedmonte region. I will admit that it has been nearly 3 years since I was there...and I am sure that things could have changed over the last 36 months. Yet when I was there and asked winery people about how far they shipped out of state (there were some of the largest wineries in the state) they looked at me as those I was crazy...most of the wine was being sold at the wineries from their tasting rooms...my wife works for a company based in the middle of Virginian wine country and I know that little makes it onto the local retail shelves. Finding it outside of the state 3 years ago was an impossible task so why are they trying to put the wine to a national audience??? Is tourism an issue today? The other key issue I am dying to see play out is how the Virginian wineries red wines. When I was there (with my wife) we shipped back about 3 cases of wine. Some was pretty good but only after we let the wine age at least a year in the bottle. The virginian wineries release their red wines immediately after bottling. Almost all the better red wines that I have enjoyed are aged at least a year in a barrel and then aged in the bottle another year before being sold to the public...some wines are held even longer. If Virginia and their wineries want to play on the world stage (as the Fox News piece implied) I do not image that drinkers across American and around the world will be willing to buy wines and sit on them for a year (or more) before drinking them. Many American wine drinkers simply do not have the room in their homes to store significant amounts of wine bottles...and for those who have wine cellars I want to see paying for year old reds. The local population apparently got use to going to their local wineries and buying what was being sold...I am very doubtful that they rest of the world will be that understanding????
Posted on: Tue, 29 Oct 2013 15:46:40 +0000
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