How To Market California 



Wines. 



PERCY T. MORGAN 



THE science of enlisting the attention of consumers has been but little 

 followed in the marketing of California wines. 

 It is true that a few individuals owning their own vineyards 

 have from time to time attempted to create a demand for their 

 branded product in original packages direct to the consumer, but 

 for the most part these efforts have been local, or when more ex- 

 tended, have been doomed to failure, partly from lack of continued effort, 

 but principally from the fact that the source of supply in an individual 

 vineyard is too uncertain in quantity and irregular in quality to satisfy any 

 permanent demand. 



The larger dealers have confined themselves almost entirely to the 

 distribution of California wines in bulk to distant jobbers, who either bot- 

 tle them under brands known in their particular localities — perhaps with 

 a domestic and perhaps with a foreign label — or sell them to retailers, who 

 pursue a similar course. 



Very few of these secondary distributors have the cellar facilities to 

 properly hold wines in bottles until they attain the ripeness and finish which 

 is essential to giving the satisfaction to consumers attained by foreign 

 wines, which, after being carefully selected and matured, are bottled 

 abroard under some well known label like those of the great bottlers of 

 Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhine and Moselle wines. 



The few California houses which make a specialty of bottling wines 

 are too small in influence and capital to make any great impression on the 

 consuming public in favor of high grade California wines. It is not in- 

 tended, however, to belittle their efforts, for they are in the right direc- 

 tion, and if their facilities for acquiring good wines and storing them in 

 bottles for the proper length of time should be extended so that a product 

 uniformly of standard grade and even quality is assured, the reputation 

 of California wines cannot fail to be greatly benefited. 



Only a very large house, however, with almost unlimited capital and 

 the selection from million of gallons of wine, on the lines of the great Bor- 

 deaux houses, can hope successfully and permanently to create a market 

 under a brand which will command the confidence of wine drinkers, whether 

 in Maine or in Florida or in New York or California. 



The same methods pursued in Bordeaux and on the Rhine must be 

 followed in California. The fine wines must be bottled in the cellars in 

 which they have matured and immense vaults must be established for the 

 proper ripening of wines in bottles; then, through proper channels, whole- 

 sale and retail, these wines must be marketed in the original package, so 

 that the consumer can be assured of a standard of excellence under labels 

 which have everything to lose by any variation in quality or purity. Then 

 so-called wines, which are often blends of manufactured stuff, which never 

 saw the sunny skies of California, but which are injuring our reputation by 

 being masqueraded under the name of California wines, should be driven 

 from the Eastern markets by the strong hand of the law, which if properly 

 directed is especially severe on those who practice the misbranding of 

 articles, and this should be further strengthened by the passage in Congress 

 of a National Pure Wine Law which would render dangerous interstate 

 commerce in frauds. 



Another reason why California wines are not more highly regarded in 

 the East by connoisseurs is that, however carefully they may be aged and 

 tended in bulk in California, all responsibility to their originators practically 

 cease when they are loaded aboard the cars by the great California wine 

 houses. 



How they are handled thereafter and by whom, whether they are put 

 out pure or adulterated and what prices are asked for them from consumers, 



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