A few slides to illustrate why the wine industry has difficulty persuading people to buy its better products.

1. Why the wine
industry is stupid.

2. Formule 1 Motel, Montmartre,
Paris - €33/night
Georges V Hotel, Paris –
€915/night

3. Rolls Royce - $250,000
Ford Ka - $10,000

4. Cheese and Ham Sandwich - $5
Cheese Soufflé - $20

5. In each of these cases, there’s a
visible difference anyone can
recognise between the cheaper and
more expensive item.
(Even if one might question the
magnitudes of the differences)

6. Ribera del Duero
wine
Ribera del Duero
wine

7. Ribera del Duero wine - €175
Ribera del Duero wine - €1.80

8. Which other industry packages its
cheapest product in almost precisely
the same way as its most expensive
(75cl glass bottle; capsule; cork; label;
appellation)?
And expects consumers to educate
themselves to understand why one
costs more than the other.

9. Note: I happened to choose a pair of Ribera
del Dueros. The same rules apply to a long
list of other European regions – as well as to
bottles of the same grape variety.
The US and Australia are exceptions to this
rule (there are very few cheap Napa or
Oregon wines, and most of Australia’s
cheapest wines come in bag-in-box or “cask”
form). Maybe that’s why these countries’
wine industries are less broke than Europe’s

10. Intelligent solutions
1) Stop selling supposedly “premium”
wines at discount prices.
2) Stop packaging cheap wines in ways that
mimic premium ones
3) Package genuine premium wines in a
way that sets them apart
Chances of any of these happening: zero