There is something magical about wine. The excitement any oenophile gets when trying a new wine is indescribable. You can tell from the first sniff, that this wine has been made with love, persistence and lots of hard work. The truth is, no sane person would ever choose to cultivate vines. But whoever said a person in love is not crazy, has clearly never fallen in love.
Wine is a very diversified industry. It consists of thousands of businesses all around the world, from the high altitudes of Mendoza, to the smallest Greek islands. Of course, there are giant companies, who treat wine like a commodity, and big family wineries that have been making wine for many centuries, but for the most part, wine is a small family business.
In family businesses, everyone chips in to get the job done. There is no 9-5 timeline, after which you leave work and forget everything about it. In a family business, work is your life. The producers may have to work in the vineyards in the morning, bottle wine in the afternoon and then having to look relaxed at a wine-tasting in the evening.
Wine is romance. This is why having to sell it in order to survive is a secondary concern to many producers, with quality being of the upmost importance. However, many of those adventurous winemakers, blinded by their love of wine, rarely take into consideration the business aspect of running a winery.
Furthermore, many generations may be involved, giving rise to conflicts about the right way to run the business. But in reality, there is no business to run. There is no proper cost logging. Bottles are priced mainly on the fixed costs, those that are easy to spot: bottle and labeling costs, grape costs especially when buying grapes, electricity, tax, extra workers. “Let’s just add a little bit more for our work”, the family says. But there isn’t really a payslip for the ones who do all the work. They get what’s left over. But margins are small. Sometimes they even have to endure losses.
Lost in all the wine magic, it is easy to forget that wineries are businesses too. It is not right for someone to be a slave of his own product. To work day and night and struggle to bring food on the table.
Someone may say the issue lies with the consumers, who are unwilling to pay higher prices for wine. I disagree. The core of the problem lies with the producer. A lower level of education of most producers of the older generations in the traditional vitivinicultural areas doesn’t help with understanding the functioning of a business. In my opinion though, the producers love what they’re doing so much, that they feel bad charging for it.
The dynamics of the wine industry are built on the producers’ forgetfulness to get paid. On one hand this makes unique wines affordable, but on the other hand it discourages the younger generation to follow this path, seeing first-hand the hard work with no returns their family is going through. Producers should demand for themselves what they deserve. A salary.
Until next time,
Evmorfia
