Who's the enemy here?

Yesterday, I was struck by the ways in which wine suppliers (producers or importers) have the odds stacked against them despite certain tied-house laws that protect them. As we learned from Pete Mondavi and Christine Wente, distributor consolidation is occurring at a rapid clip, giving distributors more power than ever. Charles Krug and Wente have 60-70% of sales going through Southern Wine and Spirits. Today we heard how big box stores also have increasing power. To play on the national scene, wineries have to deal with large retailers like Total Wine. Suppliers have to work with distributors to get shelf space in these big boxes and then they have to compete against the store's private label. Given their limited supplier power, why do wineries gang up on each other? Why don't they band together to sway the market in their favor?

In class yesterday, we heard about the SaveMart wine event. Wineries violated tied-house laws by  tweeting about the event and the ABC went after the wineries. One thing that was not discussed in class was that it is widely believed that another winery reported the offending wineries' social media activity to the ABC. In doing so, the reporting winery was hoping to damage the offending wineries. We've seen in class that over the last 30-40 years the number of US wineries has grown exponentially.  As a result, wineries compete for shelf space and sales more than ever. However, what happened to the belief that the enemy (other wineries) of my enemy (distributors and big box retailers) is my friend? For anything to change in alcoholic beverage regulation, wineries will have to band together but right now that seems far from possible!