This will give you yet another curious view on the Swedish wine scene and the Swedish journalist community. In Sweden there is a retail monopoly. But since a few years back, thanks to EU regulations, Swedes are allowed to buy wine from sellers who are based in other EU countries. This has sparked a budding industry with entrepreneurs who have started web sops based in Denmark, Germany or other countries and selling to Swedish consumers.
Recently, two of the heavy-weight Swedish wine writers, Bengt-Göran Kronstam and Mikael Mölstad commented on these entrepreneurs. The two journalists write wine columns in Sweden’s two biggest daily papers. Both writers are highly critical and negative to the internet wine shops and both praise the Swedish monopoly retailer that they apparently think is doing a wonderful job. In essence it was two frontal attacks on the independent merchants targeting Swedes.
We find this so extraordinary that we had to write a commentary. Should it not be in the soul of a wine writer to promote diversity, to help consumers find new and exiting wines, to encourage every initiative that brings a wider choice to the consumer? Well, apparently those two wine writers do not think so.
Per’s article is unfortunately in Swedish only, but with Google Translate you can get a good idea of what it is all about. You can read it here: Kronstam and Molstad attacks the internet wine shops
