Wine’s Oversupply Problem is an Aesthetic Problem

Last week I posted on the central difficulty the wine industry faces—too many wineries with too few customers. The preferred solution is more customers but ideas about how to generate them at scale are few and far between. It saddens me to say that the result will likely be more wineries closing. For wine lovers the question then becomes how can we help ensure that the best wines, the wines that make a difference and keep wine exciting, survive. We need to develop a “conservation of difference” ethic. The goal of the coming correction should not be maximum efficiency. It should be selective survival guided by the value of meaningful variation. What follows are a few ideas about what that looks like. Here is how writers and critics can contribute: 1. Shift criticism away from scores and toward public memory. In a market correction, the wines most likely to disappear will probably be the least visible. This is where criticism can make a difference. Scores are too blunt for this task.…