There is some utility to packaging wine in smaller packages, as long as it is to be consumed soon after bottling. Many consumers do appreciate being able to enjoy a smaller bottle over dinner. That said your points are spot on – the packaging cost to put wine in a 375 is either similar to a 750, or can even cost more if you are doing fewer 375s than 750s.

While I could package smaller samples just for the trade, there are a couple reasons why I am not inclined to. First, if I do this while bottling 750s the small run will likely end up costing just as much as if I just did 750s, possibly more. If I bottle by hand at another time, ditto the cost.

Second, if I want the trade to evaluate my product honestly, I need to send it in a form that the consumer also experiences, so that the reviewer can write about it in that context. It just makes sense.

Frankly, I’m surprised that more wineries don’t send out a broader sampling. Samples are a cost of doing business, and you allow for that in your pricing. At that point sending out samples is mostly a shipping cost, and the cost difference between sending two or six is incremental.

And BTW Mark – I am surprised at your Viognier experience. I’ve had tasted many Viogniers that have held up very well for years, and in fact gain more complexity. Our own Viogniers are doing the same. Perhaps I could send you a vertical…?

I think there are a select few producers of viognier whose offerings do last for several years. Most. however, do not as you point out. Much of this is tied to the American aversion to acidity in wine and the subsequent cultivation of this variety in places and ways that diminishes its acidity.

It sounds like you hit the perfect storm for prematurely aged wine. In my experience 375′s do age ‘less gracefully’, ( I now close mine with screwcaps). I am also a diehard believer in the notion that synthetic corks are only slightly better than no closure at all. I also question Domestic Viognier’s ability to age ( with the exception of those produced by Dominio iV, they have acid ).
So it sounds to me like trying to put your finger on the ‘one thing’ that led to this disappointing bottle will remain hopeless; you’ve been hit with ‘grand slam’ of over the hill wines.

I don’t disagree with you on 375′s for retail wine, my overall point, perhaps lost in trying to cover too much terrain, was that I don’t get bad wine samples and I don’t tend to get inexpensive wine samples, either.

Fundamentally, the blog sampling strategy that wineries are employing is incorrect. They don’t need me to add to the chorus for wines that have already received critical acclaim via traditional media.

Instead, wineries should consider employing a wider net of sampling across their varieties so that I might get turned on to the winery and develop an affinity for them, as opposed to me simply being a reviewer of one already good wine that has already been judged in the court of public opinion.

The easiest way to do this from a cost perspective, if they are going to “seed” online media, is to spread their costs out and do it in smaller bottles.

Since wineries are sitting on a fair amount of inventory these days, it might make financial sense to re-bottle wines into 375s via a mobile bottling line and go on an aggressive sampling campaign.

Good post — you always take an angle that I haven’t thought about the ageability is a good one for bottles destined to a paying consumer.

Jeff
http://www.goodgrape.com

As far as the viognier, I have found that they develop similar to as you describe here. I’ll fill you in with results when available!
Cheers! Scott