State of the Wine Collector w/ John Jackson, Dallas

Checking in on how collectors are weathering current economic conditions, John Jackson (IG: attorneysomm; YouTube: attorneysomm) provides insight into the Dallas, Texas wine market.  From their wine clubs to how collectors learn about new wines and buy them, John delivers deep insight into the Dallas market as of May 2023.  John also details some of his journey on social media with Instagram and YouTube.

Detailed Show Notes: 

John’s background

• Attorneysomm on Instagram (27k followers) and YouTube (7,000+ subscribers)
• Dallas based collector, lawyer, WSET Diploma
• Cellar is ~2,000 bottles

Dallas Wine Clubs

• Like a country club for wine lovers
• Each club has ~100-125 members
• Annual dues (~$1,500-2,500/year) and must meet a minimum wine spend through the club’s retail
• Includes a wine locker (48 bottles), hosts winemaker and distributor tastings, sells wines through distributors and brokers wine collections
• Driven by TX wine laws - restaurants w/ full bars are not allowed to do corkage
• Graileys - more focused on celebrities and athletes now
• Roots and Water - John is a member, currently 2 locations
• 55 Seventy - opened 1-2 years ago

Collector demographics are becoming more female over time from heavily male

Dry January is relevant, but interest in wine is increasing

Regional buying focus

• Top 4 regions - Bordeaux, Champagne, Napa, Burgundy
• In John’s collection - he buys the most Champagne, but California is #1 in the cellar (due to large prior buying), with Bordeaux and Rhone next
• Spain and Italy are relevant but smaller
• Pichon Lalande is popular in Dallas - more expensive in Dallas than in other markets

Introductions to new wineries

• Primarily through club distributor tastings & winemaker visits
• Visits to wine regions (collectors go ~2-3x/year)
• Social media

Wine pricing

• Increases have made people more selective w/ purchasing; some have paused and drinking down cellar, waiting for pricing to come down
• Some prices are double what they were before, especially Burgundy
• Auction house reached out soliciting wine to sell, claiming the market is at all-time highs
• Price increases in bad vintages (e.g., 2017 & 2020 Napa) are negative buying signals

Wine buying

• From club - ~33%, mostly at distributor tastings
• Online sources - ~33%, for older bottles, back vintages (e.g., Benchmark wine); collectors drinking mostly ‘90s Bordeaux and earlier
• Winery direct - ~33%, for domestic wines, mostly mailing list/allocation systems, don’t like clubs b/c no control over what they receive; John was in ~15-16 mailing lists, now ~4-5); people culling their lists
• “Cellar Defenders” - wines to drink that protect wines in the cellar; e.g., Willamette Valley, Rioja (Lopez de Heredia), Châteauneuf du Pape (Pegau)
• Harder to get older wines than before (e.g., Champagne, Napa)

Social media

• Instagram - spends less time engaging and more preparing content; posts more high-end wines
• YouTube - active wine community, tends to be more value-focused, took a long time to reach critical mass (1st 3 months - 100 subscribers; +6 months to 1,000; 15 more months to 7,000); people want to know what wines to buy (e.g., Top 10 wines under $50)
• Influencers now need to be more proactive in finding opportunities vs. being actively approached during the pandemic

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