Before I moved to Washington, when I was still in Southern California, I started researching Washington, and Washington wines. One of the few Washington wines I could find fairly reliably locally and affordably were wines from Chateau Ste. Michelle. I tried a few, but mostly favored the Riesling. Now that I'm in Washington and have a wide variety of local affordable wines to try, I'm a bit nonplussed to discover that the same thing that's happened to publishing—smaller publishers over the last twenty years have all been swallowed, so that in some ways there are essentially three huge U.S. publishing conglomerates—seems to be happening with Washington wine.
Yes, of course, there are well over 500 wineries in Washington, and no, that number isn't shrinking, it's growing, something I'm very happy about. But in terms of what average consumers (the person who just wants a nice bottle of wine to go with dinner that's somewhere in the $10.00 to $20.00 range) see in local grocery and liquor stores, the shelf space is being taken up by just a few wineries, most of which seem to be owned by a single corporate entity. Now, please don't mistake me here; this is not a complaint as much as it is an observation, having realized that some of my very favorite table wines are essentially all produced by the same corporate entity, albeit the wines themselves come from different wineries, vineyards, and vintners.
For the confused, and the curious; here's a potted (bottled?) history. The very first commercial winery in Washington was Chateau Ste. Michelle, though not under that name. In 1934, in Washington's Columbia Valley, the Pommerelle Wine Company and the National Wine Company were both born, in part as a response to the end of Prohibition. They planted grenache vines, followed by other varieties, in Washington's Columbia Valley in 1951. In 1954 they merged together as American Wine Growers; they mostly produced sweet fortified wines. They planted white Riesling vines in the Valley in 1965. In 1967 American Wine Growers began to experiment with a new line of wines that were intended to be premium, single variety wines from vinifera grapes grown in eastern Washington under the new label of Ste. Michelle Vintners. The initial release included Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot noir, Semillon, and Grenache rosé. Ste. Michelle planted their first vines on 500 acres in Eastern Washington's Cold Creek Vineyard in 1972. Those vines are still producing grapes today, though admittedly, the resulting wines are out of my usual price range. Ste. Michelle chose Woodinville, WA as their headquarters in 1972, and built the French chateau on their labels on the estate of former Seattle lumber baron Frederick Stimson. In 1983, a new winery opened at the River Ridge Vineyard, producing varietal wines and eventually named Columbia Crest.
Over the course of years, Ste. Michelle became Ste. Michelle Wine Estates (SMWE). SMWE is owned by UST Inc., UST Inc. is essentially two different businesses; wineries, and smokeless tobacco. UST Inc., as of January 6, 2009, became a wholly-owned subsidiary of Altria Group, Inc. with SMWE as one of its subsidiaries. SMWE includes the following wineries and labels:
In Washington: Chateau Ste. Michelle, Col Solare. Columbia Crest, Domaine Ste. Michelle, Northstar, Red Diamond, Snoqualmie, Spring Valley Vineyard, 14 Hands. In California: Conn Creek, Hawk Crest, Stag's Leap Wine Cellars, Villa Mt. Eden. In Oregon, they own Erath winery. Keep in mind that some of these wineries themselves own other, smaller wineries, and many have more than one vineyard label.
In other words, SMWE is the Random House (or the Gallo) of Washington wines. Now, obviously, I don't know much at all about wines, or wine production and distribution, but I wonder if the shelf presence of SMWE wines is serving to limit the shelf presence of smaller wineries, much the way the distribution prowess of Random House or Von Holtzbrinck Publishing can crowd out smaller indie publishers with books that are just as good as the mainstream John Grisham, Stephanie Meyers, and Nora Roberts?
Granted, I'm talking about wineries—particularly Columbia Crest—whose wines I look for, and enjoy. Yet Columbia Crest alone sold over 2 million cases of wine in 2008. Keep in mind as well that the marketing behind this conglomerate is very much aware that there are people like me, who buy wine regularly as part of our meal planning, that is, table wine, but who will also buy mid-range, and sometimes, even higher priced wines. We are a separate market; we are not generally those oenophiles with temperature-controlled wine cellars, and insurance policies for our reds. The marketing materials for SMWE speak pointedly, and specifically about "tiered wines," and tier marketing. They don't actually use the phrase "upselling," but the concept is there (I note that I routinely buy in the two lower tiers; so sue me).