GCOW by the glass—mass production and quality

New short feature at Gus Clemens on Wine (GCOW)

Jun 27, 2025

Can mass production wine be good wine? It depends on what you consider “good wine.”

Meiomi and Mark West are two large production wines that many people consider “good wine.” Meiomi production is 12 million bottles a year, Mark West seven million bottles a year.

Can such mass produced wine achieve quality? The answer is a qualified yes. Mass produced wines cannot achieve the joyous delight single vineyard, artisanal winemakers can achieve. That’s not what mass producers aim for, and not what you pay for.

Mass producers aim for a consistent house style. Champagnes are the classic examples. The chef de cave—cellar master or head winemaker—in a Champagne house blends grapes from various vineyards and vintages to achieve a consistent, predictable “house style.”

Winemakers at Meiomi and Mark West do a similar thing. They acquire fruit from growers throughout California. Meiomi grapes come from Sonoma, Monterey, and Santa Barbara. Those AVAs are quality production areas and wineries there make high quality wines. The makers (winegrowers and wineries) may not sell their best fruit to Meiomi—saving their best for their own labels—but they do sell the leftover fruit, which may include some of their best. And their next-best fruit can be very good fruit.

Extremely strict quality controls, very sophisticated blending formulas (including skilled humans), obsessive attention to details—quality of glass bottles, standardization of yeast, strict temperature controls—work synergistically to deliver a reliably consistent wine product.

The result obviously is considered “good wine” by millions of people. Between them, Meiomi and Mark West sell close to 20 million bottles of wine each year. Wine drinkers have spoken with their cash and credit cards.

Is Mark West, primarily a pinot noir, equivalent to an etherial Willamette Valley pinot that receives rapturous praise from wine writers like me? No. But that is not the Mark West assignment. Mark West’s job is to be an affordable, dependable, tasty. Mark West bean counters will assure you it succeeds. Same at Meiomi.

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Dave McIntyre’s WineLine Longtime Washington Post wine columnist now on Substack. Entertaining, informative.

GCOW by the glass—mass production and quality

New short feature at Gus Clemens on Wine (GCOW)

Can mass production wine be good wine? It depends on what you consider “good wine.”

Links worth exploring

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