Dolcetto, and questioning the status quo

[Craig Winchell]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/09/dinin ... wanted=all

I picked up this link from Tom Hill's post about Dolcetto on the other forum. An interesting perspective on how to think about wine, and brings my mind to question the tiered solutions of many wineries, producing their top-line Cab, for instance, then leveraging the brand name over various tiers of Cab, as opposed to perfecting other, less expensive varieties and championing them as top-tier wines in lesser price ranges. With the increasing number of brands, and wines within brands, and the seemingly finite shelf space, would it not be the better strategy for a shop to stock only top-tier wines within a number of price ranges, promoting variety as well as a price spectrum? Will a winery ultimately find its success with a multitude of different "series", or with a well-thought-out spectrum of varieties?

[YoelA]

In my opinion, Dolcettos can be very pleasant, but shouldn't cost $ 20 and up.

[Gabriel Geller]

With the increasing number of brands, and wines within brands, and the seemingly finite shelf space, would it not be the better strategy for a shop to stock only top-tier wines within a number of price ranges, promoting variety as well as a price spectrum?

This is what I'm doing, the more or less.

[Alexander F]

Most shops in Israel work with specific wineries and importers. Therefore, they provide a full range of that wineries and select imported wines, also often in several series from the big wineries.

Barrel aged Dolcetto can cost more than $20. This grape didn't catch me yet and I would avoid ordering Dolcetto in a restaurant for this reason. I find these wines dry, tannic and too simple to enjoy. Italian Barbera on the other hand can be a very pleasant and inexpensive wine. Hope that kosher Barbera is made in Italy too.
Many of the notes in the article describe the wines as bitter or tannic.

To the question about the wineries. I think it's all business and marketing. Wineries tend to produce series of wines. They probably do what they can under the price constraints, less aging, lower quality grapes, less volume control of the harvest.
Some wineries like Barkan and Carmel we know not because of their top-tier reds, but because of their lowest/mid series. Not that they excel in that , but they try and improve over the years and for that a credit.