• Cupcake CEO speaks: David Kent, who runs The Wine Group, was interviewed by the MarketWatch trade magazine. Excerpts ran here and here. Kent’s company makes Cupcake and the Franzia boxed wines (among many others) and is one of the biggest in the world, and he knows the cheap wine business: “We prefer to define wines priced under $4 on a 750-ml. basis as ‘popular-priced,’ since many of their consumers don’t fit the classic definition of an economy shopper. Just ask our friends at Trader Joe’s. Popular-priced wine consumers know what they like and know what they need to pay for it. Franzia is an extraordinary brand because it appeals to consumers across all age and income demographics. It’s built on the idea that consumers prefer fresh, affordable wine to stale, potentially overpriced wine. It works.”
• Mega-event canceled: And the high-end wine business still isn’t what it used to be, if this is any indication. France’s Vin-Expo is the ultimate in wine trade shows, featuring the best wines in the world – including all that stuff that most of us will never get a chance to taste. It had scheduled a New York consumer event for this fall, but couldn’t sell any space to wineries, reports the drinks business trade magazine. Only one-third of the producer slots were filled, so the event has been canceled. Two things stand out – first, that high-end wineries didn’t want to participate in an event like this, which speaks to their unease with the economy (as well as how much the organizers were charging them to participate). Second, even it had attracted enough wineries, would consumers have paid $180 to $300 to attend?
• Best airlines for wine: Yes, I know – an oxymoron. But Departures, an on-line magazine, lists the five best anyway: Qantas, Air New Zealand, Malaysia, Qatar and – hard to believe – the bankrupt and legendarily poorly-run American. The caveat here is that the rankings only include wine service in the premium cabins, and not coach. Where, I know for a fact, the American wine selections often make stuff I won’t review on the blog seem good. (Full disclosure: I still do an occasional article for the company that publishes American’s in-flight magazine.)
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