The Future of Allocations

Over the last few days I received emails from two highly sought-after wineries whose wines are without a doubt expensive and in demand. The wine allocation list is the holy grail for wineries. Allocations go something like this: Our limited production wines are sold by mailing list and are available in select restaurants around the world. Our mailing list is presently full, but we can add you to our waiting list. We move clients onto the mailing list based on when you contacted the winery, as space becomes available.

Demand exceeds supply. More people want to buy the wine than can and the winery limits the amount of wine a customer can purchase. Sometimes, if a client decides to not buy a given vintage, they are removed from the mailing list. Marketing, branding and distribution can take a backseat to the production side of the process and almost an infinite amount of detail can be given to the viticulture and winemaking. Critics give the wine glowing reviews and high scores. Demand increases and the process repeats itself. Waiting lists for the top wineries are often years long, but they've got nothing on the Green Bay Packers' season ticket wait list (see the second-to-last FAQ).

But what does the future hold for allocation lists? Are they really as robust as they seem? Are they the best way to build a customer base?

Five predictions for 2013

2012 has been an eventful year in the wine industry. There are more licensed American wineries than ever before (almost three times as many wineries as breweries...). California (and Colorado) had a bumper crop of high (not exceptional) quality. The Rudy Kurniawan story made headlines in the non-wine world after he was arrested for producing and selling millions of dollars of fraudulent wine. And in probably the biggest news that wasn't really wasn't that big (see yesterday's post), Robert Parker, Jr. announced that he was stepping down as editor-in-chief of the Wine Advocate, opening a second office in Singapore and sold a share of the ownership to three Asian investors (rumor is they aren't all Asian...). So what will 2013 bring in terms of worthy wine news?

Here are five prognostications: