Good stuff, Tom. I think in your coming discussions, it's important to point out that in the early '70s when I got in the game, there were only about 250 wineries in the U.S. offering a couple thousand wines. It was a seller's game, and every winery had national distribution. But now we have 11,000 bonded wineries and thanks to custom crush, something like 25,000 domestic brnds offering over half a million wines. Imports that desire U.S. distribution are perhaps a similar number. The numer of these that are actually successfully distributed through TTS is probably about 20,000.
Since these distributors vet each wine, they are turning away well over 99% of the wines that are out there. The rest need to go DTC. The paradox is that wine professional in shops and restaurants have legal access for resale to less that100th of the wines the average Joe can buy direct from the winery.
Good stuff, Tom. I think in your coming discussions, it's important to point out that in the early '70s when I got in the game, there were only about 250 wineries in the U.S. offering a couple thousand wines. It was a seller's game, and every winery had national distribution. But now we have 11,000 bonded wineries and thanks to custom crush, something like 25,000 domestic brnds offering over half a million wines. Imports that desire U.S. distribution are perhaps a similar number. The numer of these that are actually successfully distributed through TTS is probably about 20,000.
Since these distributors vet each wine, they are turning away well over 99% of the wines that are out there. The rest need to go DTC. The paradox is that wine professional in shops and restaurants have legal access for resale to less that100th of the wines the average Joe can buy direct from the winery.
Tom Under WA rules, I think you meant to write 'in state and out of state producers" not 'retailers'
Joel