I already wrote that around 50% of the Spanish wines featured at the Great Match 2010 on October 7 in New York were in the $9 to $15. The pricier offerings ranged from $30 to $80.
With the recession, the mainstream wine buying public draws the line at $20 and under.
Of course there will always be collectors and wealthy individuals ready to splurge.
So is wine going more and more the way of fashion with a wide range comparable to Zara or H&M while the middle range ($20 to $100) is Ready to Wear and expensive Bordeaux and Burgundy is Haute Couture?
French trade publication, Le Journal du Vin echoes with mention of upcoming Universite de la vigne et du vin on October 21 under the theme of Pret a Porter du Vin at Ferals in Corbieres (France) on October 21.
Participants will discuss the place of wine in the world and whether it is a luxury, pleasurable or needed.
More ambiguous is the question of what wine to produce to meet trends and whether the region of Languedoc-Roussillon will find itself producing what they call 'ready to wear' wines but in my mind means more 'made to order'.
Another topic they raise is what in consumers minds make a wine 'haute couture' rather than 'ready to wear'?
On a less prosaic and more poetic note, attendees will also discuss shared language in the description of wines and fashion, words like texture, elegance, robe, body, legs.
Maybe there is too much strategy to this University yet these are questions worth asking.
Even though Universite du Vin will look at the issues from the perspective of vignerons in Languedoc-Roussillon, questions and answers are relevant in other parts of the world.
Should winemakers toss all this to the side and follow their nose and intuition?
There is still a difference for some of us wine lovers and bon vivants between buying laundry product and buying wine after all.
Does wine make you sing like a bird as a footnote on their site suggests?
(* programme for Universite du Vin is in French only)