Here's why wine doesn't ship for free — and shouldn't if you want small wineries to survive

“People just don’t realize how much shipping wine actually costs,” says Terra Jane Albee, who recently launched an online wine subscription service, Ownroot Collective. “It used to be you could charge $40 to ship a case (from California) to New York, and that felt like a good deal. Now you charge $20, and people still don’t feel like it’s a good enough deal.”

Albee charges a flat rate of $20 to ship a case of wine anywhere in the U.S. That is heavily subsidized. “For me to ship a case of wine to New York is almost $90,” she says.

No, that’s not a misprint. First, a winery or merchant like Albee has to buy a permit for each state it wants to be able to ship to, plus pay the taxes to that state. While larger businesses, like corporate wineries and chain stores, may be able to execute their own shipping and negotiate their own rates with FedEx or UPS, smaller wineries have to go through fulfillment companies.

Their rates can vary, but one Napa fulfillment company charges more than $40 to ship a case anywhere in California. Kentucky: $120. Michigan: $77. Alaska: $292. That’s ground, not three-day express. When they’re setting their costs, they have to account for the fact that wine is heavy, fragile and vulnerable to heat, humidity and vibrations.

That doesn’t represent the full expense for a merchant like Albee, though: She also has to pay for storage in a warehouse, packaging, inserts. There’s a $15 fee associated with her fulfillment company picking up wine from her warehouse. And in the summer months, when hot temperatures could ruin the wine, there’s the added cost of ice packs in the box or transportation in a refrigerated truck. Many small wineries simply refuse to ship wine in the summer months because those costs are so prohibitive.

Online wine sales have soared during the pandemic: Wine.com, based in San Francisco, reported that from April through September its revenue grew by 217% year-over-year. The growth in e-commerce has led many wineries who can afford it to offer intensely discounted shipping, sometimes as low as 1 cent or $1. That can also be a workaround for a winery to offer discounts without lowering its wine prices, which some high-end producers fear could diminish the prestige of their brand.

Still, Albee worries that those sorts of shipping incentives set a dangerous precedent that smaller-scale wine sellers, who can’t afford to discount their products, won’t be able to keep up with.

There’s an easy way to explain this consumer psychological effect, of course: Amazon. We’ve all been groomed by now to expect free (and, in many cases, free two-day) delivery of our online purchases. But the degree to which we’ve been groomed is pretty astounding. According to a deeply insightful Atlantic article from early 2020 that I think about all the time, people will actually pay more for items to avoid a shipping charge. “What bothers them most is the nickeled-and-dimed feeling, not the total amount of the tab,” writes author Amanda Mull.

I get it. I’m completely in thrall to the free-shipping hypnosis too. This week I was shopping online for pajamas as a Christmas present for my mother. When I got to one online retailer’s checkout and saw that my shipping charge for two pairs of PJs would be almost $30, I immediately closed the tab, disgusted. I didn’t even stop to consider whether the overall purchase was still a good deal, given that other online shops that offer free shipping would probably have just adjusted the cost of the products to make up for it. What I resented was the “gotcha” — that sense that I was being hit with an unexpected cost at the last minute.

This points to a tension in our lives as consumers right now that goes far beyond wine. Economies of scale, and increasing consolidation, mean that it often requires an act of extraordinary willpower to forego the dazzling bargains of big retailers like Amazon in favor of supporting smaller, independent businesses.

My hope is that the COVID-19 shutdown has reinvigorated our collective sense of those businesses’ importance. As we’ve watched so many of them permanently close — especially restaurants — we’ve realized in a new and profound way the vital role they played in our lives and communities.

The same is true for small wine businesses, which have been struggling to survive this year as their sales to restaurants have all but disappeared and their tasting rooms have been intermittently closed or restricted. Already this week, many wineries throughout California had to stop hosting visitors; Napa and Sonoma’s tasting rooms are still open for now, but will likely have to close again by the end of the month under the state’s new lockdown protocol.

All of that is just to say: Support the little guys. Buy good wine. And please, don’t close the tab the next time someone asks you to pay for shipping.

Wine of the Week

I swear I didn’t plan it this way, but my latest Wine of the Week comes from a small, independent winery that’s offering a very attractive deal on shipping! The La Combe Verte Chardonnay, from Oregon’s Walter Scott winery, is absolutely one of the most soul-stirring, delicious Chardonnays I’ve tasted all year. It’s $28, and the Walter Scott team is currently covering the cost of shipping if you buy more than six bottles (of any of their wines, not just this one). If you’re a Chardonnay lover, the La Combe Verte will make you weak in the knees. If you think you’re not a Chardonnay lover, you’ll see what you’ve been missing out on this whole time. You can read my full review here.