Good cheap wine in Bulgaria
I have long asserted that one of the stumbling blocks to wine being more widely accepted in developing countries is the price, especially when compared to beer. I may be changing my mind a bit on that position.
I have only been in Bulgaria a few days, and I have only had a few very inexpensive wines so far. I would no sooner judge the Bulgarian wine scene from these examples than I would judge the whole of the US from 2 bottles of the cheapest wine I could find. That said, the $4 bottles of Cab and Merlot I tried were not bad. No real varietal character, but not bad.
Like I said, wine starts about $4 a bottle here, and beer runs closer to $.40 for a 1/2 liter bottle. At first blush this seems to support my original contention that wine cost so much more than beer that the locals eschew wine. In China where it is all about the alcohol this may be more accurate than here, but even then I have to wonder.
China's prices are similar, so if I just look at the alcohol content I see that it takes about 4 beers to equal the buzz of 1/2 bottle of wine. That makes the comparison much closer as the wine runs $2 and the beer then would be $1.60.
So the price difference is not as great as I originally thought, unless you are comparing volume to volume. As any neo-prohibitionist will tell you with alcohol equivalence one drinks more volume of beer than of wine.
And so I am rethinking what it takes to make wine acceptable to emerging countries. Maybe price is not the bugaboo I have always asserted it is. Culture, familiarity and habits play a much bigger part. Here in Bulgaria they have a rich tradition of wine that makes it much more likely that the locals will enjoy wine now and then, and not just beer.
In China they have no such traditions, and so just like the US not so very long ago, they are a nation of beer drinkers. India and Asia in general are in the same boat. No history of wine consumption. It is not just a price obstacle, it is a cultural one.
I will be bringing you more details on the wines of Bulgaria and in 3 months, even a look at the Indian wine scene, stay tuned.
I have only been in Bulgaria a few days, and I have only had a few very inexpensive wines so far. I would no sooner judge the Bulgarian wine scene from these examples than I would judge the whole of the US from 2 bottles of the cheapest wine I could find. That said, the $4 bottles of Cab and Merlot I tried were not bad. No real varietal character, but not bad.
Like I said, wine starts about $4 a bottle here, and beer runs closer to $.40 for a 1/2 liter bottle. At first blush this seems to support my original contention that wine cost so much more than beer that the locals eschew wine. In China where it is all about the alcohol this may be more accurate than here, but even then I have to wonder.
China's prices are similar, so if I just look at the alcohol content I see that it takes about 4 beers to equal the buzz of 1/2 bottle of wine. That makes the comparison much closer as the wine runs $2 and the beer then would be $1.60.
So the price difference is not as great as I originally thought, unless you are comparing volume to volume. As any neo-prohibitionist will tell you with alcohol equivalence one drinks more volume of beer than of wine.
And so I am rethinking what it takes to make wine acceptable to emerging countries. Maybe price is not the bugaboo I have always asserted it is. Culture, familiarity and habits play a much bigger part. Here in Bulgaria they have a rich tradition of wine that makes it much more likely that the locals will enjoy wine now and then, and not just beer.
In China they have no such traditions, and so just like the US not so very long ago, they are a nation of beer drinkers. India and Asia in general are in the same boat. No history of wine consumption. It is not just a price obstacle, it is a cultural one.
I will be bringing you more details on the wines of Bulgaria and in 3 months, even a look at the Indian wine scene, stay tuned.
posted by Wineguy at 3:25 AM
2 Comments:
I'm always amazed that, for a place that produces so much wine, Bulgaria doesn't have a bigger foothold for sales in the U.S.
I am sure that will change, but it may just be a matter of economy. Most of the wines I have found have been quite inexpensive. Great values to be sure, but it is hard to justify the increase in price that exporting as far as the US would bring.
The British have all but claimed Bulgaria as their own, at least as far as the beach property goes, and that seems to go for the wines too. I haven't been to London in a very long time, but I would bet their wine shops have a whole lot more Bulgarian wine than the US does.
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