How long before quality suffers, asks an anonymous producer?

So often I am confronted by distributors who try to undercut the prices. Demanding from us the producer to sell our products for less and less. Where do we draw the line between cutting costs in order to remain profitable, and preserving our standards of production to best produce exceptional wines?
 

From Tim James: The contributor doesn't indicate whether it's local or international pressure in question here. This problem is one that has been raised increasingly in different years in, particularly, Britain, where the supermarkets that are responsible for most sales of wine are continually demanding that wine producers fund their competitive price cuts. The results in many cases, have been lower quality. (Is this the reason why, I wonder, why some of the local wines selling big overseas, like Goiya, seem to have lowered their quality in recent years?)

There has been quite a lot written about this matter in the British press. One such article is by Anthony Rose of The Independent. It concludes thus: 'Wine isn't baked beans after all, but the way things are going, it's hard to see how a vicious circle of promotions and demand for low prices at all costs isn't going to stamp out the last vestige of flavour and choice.'

COMMENT

From Fanie Augustyn (21 July 2006):
Tim is 100% correct in his analysis of the strentgth of the British supermarkets. However the comment about Goiya is incorrect, a point which is underlined by the fact that the Goiya Shiraz/Pinotage, currently on the market, has just won a silver medal at the recent International Wine and spirit competion in London while the Goiya Chardonnay Sauvignon Blanc received a 'best buy' award from the Wine Enthusiast in the USA.