Mr. McMillan asserted that young people are skeptical about inauthentic and opaque marketing. I haven’t seen evidence suggesting this is truer of younger generations than anybody else, but visiting a wine bar in a bigger city offers some support. The patrons are often young, and they are drinking wine. Often, it’s natural wine, mostly imported brands, not “clean wines,” which are often examples of opaque marketing.
I will go further about the appeal of natural wine. Perceived healthfulness is important, but authenticity and a spirit of unpretentious fun are the most crucial elements. If boomers portrayed wine as a reward of what Robert Mondavi used to call the “good life,” — epitomized by prosperity, bucolic surroundings and abundant leisure time — natural wine is seen as a feature of any life. It’s a staple of daily living rather than an aspirational symbol.
Mr. McMillan suggested an ideal sales pitch for wine: “Our wine is made from organically farmed grapes and contains natural yeast, natural and added sulfites for freshness and less than 1 percent residual sugar from the harvested grapes. A five-ounce serving has 140 calories.”
This pitch is attractive. It lacks only one element: price. I can guarantee that few, if any, West Coast wines farmed organically and made with natural yeast will sell for under $15, a price that, even if younger consumers are buying luxury goods, is essential for drawing in new consumers.
Back in the early days of the pandemic, I recommended 15 wines all under $15 a bottle. Only two were American: one from the Finger Lakes of New York and the other from Oregon. In my regular 20 Under $20 columns, it’s increasingly difficult to include West Coast wines without repeating past selections.
Plenty of inexpensive American wines are out there, of course. But for the most part, they are not particularly good and the winemakers find it difficult to compete with imports, particularly from historic wine-producing regions.
The reasons are clear, in my opinion. Land, especially on the West Coast, and labor are more expensive in the United States, particularly in places appropriate for making wine. Much of the inexpensive wine in California comes from the Central Valley, a hot, flat expanse devoted to quantity over quality. Many of the wines made there are mass-produced, inexpensive knockoffs of higher-status wines.
