inspiration v aspiration; thoughts on the yawning gap between the US and UK wine markets

"Part of [the] job of [the] critic [is] to inspire people". Tim Atkin's tweeted comment is not one with which most people would disagree.

But the comment begs a little analysis. Does it matter how many or how few people one inspires? Is it enough for a critic to say that he or she has truly inspired a few hundred or even a few thousand people? And what is the quality of the inspiration?

As a former UK wine critic who was most active - in the Sunday Telegraph, through the Good Wine Guide and Wine International magazine between 1985-2005, I think I can fairly claim to have been one of a group who helped to inspire rather a large number of people to experiment with then-unfamiliar wines ranging from South West French whites and Eastern European reds, to Australian Shiraz, New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Chilean Cabernet and Argentine Malbec. Collectively, we probably helped to turn millions of British people into wine drinkers.

We encouraged them to find wines that were good enough - and affordable enough to keep them happy. And in this effort, we were aided and abetted by Britain's importers and supermarkets who eventually introduced a discount-driven pricing regime focused on ensuring that there were always bottles on offer that were attractively affordable.

The result of our efforts in 2013, is that, despite Britain's famously high duty rates, fewer than five out of every hundred bottles drunk at home now sells at over £8. This could be compared to 22% in Australia selling at over AU$15 (£8.80). Looked at another way, 95% of the wine sold by UK retailers leaves European cellars at well under €3.50. There's plenty of delicious wine on offer at this price; my own le Grand Noir wines are a pretty good buy at under €2.50 ex-cellars, and they're very attractively labelled, but I'd still hope to be served something a little better at a dinner party. But at the most recent dinner I attended, at which no-one around the table earned less than £100,000, we drank Villa Maria Pinot Grigio (£9.99 down to £7.49 at Ocado); McGuigan Bin 528 Grenache Shiraz Mourvedre (£7.99 down to £4.50 at Sainsbury) and Kumala Zenith Merlot Cabernet Shiraz (£9.99 at Morrisons; £3.99 on promotion at Ocado). When the former BBC economics editor Evan Davis (another person with an income of over £100,000 I'd bet) talked to Tesco wine supremo Dan Jago on the Radio 4 In Business programme, he freely stated that the price he was prepared to pay for a wine on a special occasion, was around £12.

Stated simply, we failed to inspire British consumers to aspire to buy more than fairly basic wine: to taste and drink - and serve their friends - something a little bit better. So why was this? Were we simply not inspirational enough - despite all those prizes we got for the quality of our writing? Were we just too weak to match the strength of the supermarkets that were ranged against us: Davids whose catapulted stones bounced off Goliath's brow? Were we insufficiently ambitious in our aims: happy to bask in the attention of the small coterie of readers of a couple of specialist magazines and a few unloved newspaper columns? Or was it that what we offered was in itself, simply not very inspiring?

I suspect it was the latter. If you want to spark a novice's imagination into tennis, football - or jazz, you're better doing it with Nadal, Man U and Miles Davis than with mid-range performers. In the US, writers and critics have always talked about the best, the greatest, the champions: the 100-pointers. In the UK we talk about great value at under £15. What's inspiring about that?

It's far, far too easy to blame the supermarkets for everything we've failed to achieve. Other countries have supermarkets too - with similar power to ours. Supermarkets with pricy bottles on their shelves that are there to be picked up by customers who've been "inspired" to buy them. UK supermarkets are no different. They quietly offer some very smart bottles in branches where they know they'll sell.

Few UK critics ever acknowledge the way we're losing a war, contenting ourselves in pointing at battles we win in the shape of the few tens of thousands of well-heeled enthusiasts who attend the Burgundy en-primeur tastings or show up to Three Wine Men or Wine Gang events. For my part, I'd like to man up and ruefully admit to my share of the responsibility, and for walking away from the fight when I effectively stopped being a wine critic in 2006. 

On the other side of the Atlantic, there was another kind of inspirational programme on offer during the period when I was scribbling away here. With the 100-point system, Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator, in particular, inspired millions of Americans to dig deep into their wallets in the expectation of getting something really special. Typical of the US approach is this comment by Stephen Eliot of Connoisseurs’ Guide to California Wine

So just how do I know that great Cabernet abounds? Because I actually taste them, and, going over the lengthy list of stellar efforts reviewed in CGCW over the past year as Charlie and I compile our annual lists of personal top ten favorites, I am struck by the number of extraordinary examples we have seen from 2009 and 2010. Suffice it to say that it has been a very, very good year.

I only wish that I could afford to drink them more often than I do, but then there are great restaurants I would frequent more regularly, and I would drive a fancier car than I do if I could. Top-shelf Cabernet may be an occasional indulgence, but it is one that I relish, and Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon remains for me one of the world’s benchmark wines. (Stephen Eliot, Connoisseurs’ Guide to California Wine)

Eliot is not alone in his affection for Napa Cabernet. Last year, US consumers bought 568,000 cases of that variety - nearly 7m bottles - directly from the wineries. At an average price of $62.75 (£38.70). The Napa Cabs were only the priciest of the 38,400,000 bottles that were shipped from US wineries to US consumers in 2012 at an average of $38.42 (£23.70). These numbers only apply to the bottles that were bought directly from the producers; anyone who has browsed the shelves of US wine shops will have seen plenty of US and imported reds and whites on offer for $30-100. Bear that in mind when you hear UK importers complaining about how hard Britain's much-vaunted "independents" find it to sell anything at over £20. As Simon McMurtrie of Direct Wines said at the Wine Vision conference last week, "we offer the same wines in the UK and US. We charge more for them in the US but our customers there say how cheap they are". McMurtrie has said separately that his company turns over half as much on the western seaboard of the Atlantic - but generates nearly as much profit.

The US picture is not perfect, however. Where the critics there have failed to inspire large numbers of their compatriots to switch from grain to gape; 20% of Americans are still drinking 80% of the wine. But the US is a vibrant wine market whose younger drinkers - the millennials - are among the readiest to experiment and spend their money on premium wine - not something anyone has ever said of the same generation of Brits. Most observers expect that premium and super-premium wine drinking will become an increasingly popular - and, for producers and distributors, profitable - pursuit.

Meanwhile, as the average price of wine in Britain fails to keep up with rising duty rates and inflation, and as producers steadily walk away from this market, Britain's wine critics seem increasingly like musicians in the Titanic ballroom enjoying the applause of their number of fans and congratulating each other on the skill of their playing.