What should be the cheapest price for a bottle of wine in
the UK?
And should wine critics recommend very cheap wine?
I've been mulling this over after enjoying some pretty
decent cheap wines lately with mixed feelings.
You might argue a wine critic's job is to recommend any wine
that's good value, and the cheaper the better. The critic is meant to be on the
side of the consumer.
But - a big but. What's good for the consumer in the short
term - very cheap but tasty wine - might not be good for the winemaker and
retailer, and in turn the consumer, in the long run.
What if it's a race to the bottom with winemakers getting
less and less income until the decent ones who can't afford to take the losses
drop out?
Should we be willing to pay a bit more per bottle to make
sure the people who make our wines earn a sustainable living?
Or should we let the market decide: get the best wine we can
at the cheapest price we can get hold of it, especially when we have very
little money ourselves? After all, spending a few more quid doesn't bring any
guarantees of ethical production.
I try to earn a living from writing, so I can empathise with
winemakers who feel they're trying to do something meaningful or creative for
little reward. I recently saw an advert for apprenticeships for 16-year-old
school leavers with a couple of GCSEs, and the apprenticeships paid as well
(/badly) as many freelance writing jobs. This is after you've got into debt
studying and got work experience over several years; minimum wage territory.
So - I appreciate the frustration of winemakers or anyone
else who cares about doing something properly and gets barely a liveable
reward.
But in another sense, because of that I feel less bad about
buying cheap wine, for now at least. If winemakers are paid as little as I am,
I'm pretty sure they might, for example, choose to read a newspaper for free
online instead of paying for a print subscription, even though journalists'
jobs are dropping faster than vines in a storm.
I suppose what I'm saying is, the chance to spend a few quid
less on anything is pretty useful for many people right now. It's a bit
depressing, it leaves a bad aftertaste, but is it a necessary evil?
What is a fair minimum price for a bottle of wine?
