The wine industry has itself a bit of a marketing problem. For the past 20+ years, the entire industry has built itself around critics scores.

The problem of course is that critics only score a small number of wines each and every year, so how can anyone without a score (or a high score) expect to sell their wine?

In comes the Other 46. Based on the simple idea that the major wine producing states of California, Oregon and Washington along with media darling New York dominate most of the media attention for wine, the Other 46 has helped to lead a wine movement which focuses on quality of local wines more than critics scores.

New Mexico is a perfect example of this. The best New Mexico producer focuses on sparkeling wines, hardly a critical favorite and barely offers its own set of wine clubs but it does offer some of the best value available anywhere. If a wine isn’t a 90 point wine, but a 89 point wine does it have value? If it is priced at $10 instead of $100 for the 90 point wine, the average consumer has already voted that it does.

Specifically when it comes to Cabernet Sauvignon there is a major disconnect between what the average consumer believes to be a fair price and the price being charged by the average winery.

So how does the industry fix this problem? It becomes hyper local. A hyper local wine industry focuses the average consumer on what is available from a winery 50 miles away from their house, or closer. Prices would be lower overall and if they wanted something of higher quality, they would be willing under the current system to have a wine shipped to them, or to simply visit a local wine store to make a higher end purchase.

Doesn’t that sound like a better system?