ADVERTISING: Advertorial — Of champagne and ports

Here we are at the beginning of March and perhaps the most dysfunctional segment of the wine market remains as dysfunctional as ever, champagne. At the beginning of last December, we wrote about how many of the most in demand and popular higher end champagnes from Dom Perignon to Veuve Cliquot were out of stock. Not just out of stock in North Idaho but out of stock from San Francisco to New York and all spots in between, and it remains the case now at the beginning of March. The culprit in all this was and remains the back up in the ports nationwide.

In a related story we heard just last week from one of our non-wine vendors that one of their containers of product was on board a freight ship destined for Oakland, the company is located in the Bay Area. The wait to enter the port of Oakland was so long that the ship left the San Francisco Bay and headed north to a Canadian port to off load some of their freight there, in the hopes that on their return trip they would be able to get into the port at Oakland in a more timely fashion.

The ongoing disruption in supplies of champagne is related to the same challenges. We have heard from multiple sources that there is a container ship that simply can’t get into a port to off load all the “bubbly” so there is still no premium champagne anywhere across the U.S. While some of the better brands are available others are still no where to be seen with no estimated time of arrival.

While the champagne market is the worst off, many other parts of the wine market remain unbalanced as problems with supplies of bottles, corks, foils and alternative closures like twist tops continue to rage. It was just a couple months ago that we saw signs of these problems easing, however we are now back to ground zero in many cases with wineries unable to bottle their wines, and other situations where wines are bottled but there is no way to move them around the country to the markets that need them.

While supplies of raw materials are an issue, we continue to run into challenges with getting wine to us because of trucking shortages. The well-publicized lack of commercial truck drivers is very real and affecting the transportation of wine as much as any product category. We are also seeing fairly drastic increases in the cost of transportation. In a simple matter of supply and demand, with not enough trucks the price of each palate of wine is going up, add in the increased cost of fuel and some of the increases we are seeing on a per bottle basis are quite extreme! It is not out of the ordinary to see any given wine come in with 15% to 20% increase in one single move.

Pricing of wine remains volatile too as suppliers work to defend their markets from competition, we have seen prices drop on some wines, only to see them go back up on the next shipment. All of this price volatility tells us now that we are further away from resolution of the inflationary pressures on all things including wine than closer.

Our guess for the missing champagne is that when the wayward ship does make port and the “bubbly” begins to arrive again it will likely be at much higher prices than the last time we had access to these bottles. Additionally, we would caution wine consumers that prices for most every wine is more likely to go up than down and to brace for these price increases to not only be substantial but also sustained at these high levels.

We continue to work diligently with all of our suppliers to manage the price of incoming wines and to keep prices at levels that allow all of us to enjoy our favorites. We devote a lot of time to also keep wines across varietals and appellations in stock while we wait for our regular favorites to arrive. We will keep you all posted on how we are doing.

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George Balling is co-owner with his wife, Mary Lancaster, of the dinner party, a wine and gift shop in Coeur d’Alene by Costco. The dinner party has won the award for best wine shop in North Idaho twice, including for 2018.

George is also published in several other publications around the country. After working in wineries in California and judging many wine competitions, he moved to Coeur d’Alene with Mary more than 10 years ago to open the shop.

You can also follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/#!/dinnerpartyshop.