August 26 2008
So, this Rockaway wine blogging program has ignited some passion, er, some watercooler chatter. I guess it is politics season, might as well debate the issues … just the same, reading the posts and the comments you’d think somebody moved the cheese.
You can see a string of comments at the Winery Web Site Report, Steve Heimoff’s blog, Good Wine Under $20 and my post from last week.
Now, to be certain, it’s not all backlash, I think a lot of people dig the program, understand what we’re doing, recognize the transparency and see it for the genuine activity it is, and how legitimately groundbreaking it is for a large winery to engage in this sort of sampling program.
However, as the old management theory holds, if we all agree with each other than somebody isn’t needed. The gist of the dissension around the Rockaway wine blogging program can be summarized in a couple of bullet points:
• Wine bloggers were too easily manipulated into giving free publicity
• Wine bloggers did this with too much hyperbole it’s not that big of a deal
• Rodney Strong is lazy and didn’t do their own homework to do direct outreach to a wide net of bloggers
• Wine Bloggers are not that different from traditional media and some bloggers get samples all of the time … this isn’t a big deal
• Wine Bloggers are eager for their own fame and don’t ask the tough questions
Here are truisms as I know them:
• Wine bloggers are a smart bunch—technically savvy, professional, above-average income, sophisticated and jaded alpha-consumers. Manipulation is not likely. And, even if there is manipulation, it’s with full transparency, so, uh, not much manipulation in showing your cards.
• Rodney Strong releasing a new wine allocated wine brand and including bloggers in the sampling at the same time as traditional media is groundbreaking. New Brand from old winery. Allocated. Upon release. Price point. Yes, I get Stormhoek--$12 bucks a bottle and on end-cap display in the U.K. Yes, I get Twisted Oak, a revolutionary in their own right for being the first winery to embrace, engage, and execute successfully using social media. However, Stormhoek and Twisted Oak aren’t Rodney Strong. Not a slight, just a fact.
• Why would somebody fault Robert Larsen at Rodney Strong for leveraging his strengths and engaging some help to do a sampling program. Social media is forbidding. I’ve been doing this for a while and everyday I feel overwhelmed, confused and inundated with social media. Somebody not in it might feel the same way. Did I mention I’ve been doing this for a while? And, an ancillary point, if I’m doing a direct mail campaign, I don’t necessarily feel like I have to hand build the list myself, that’s just silly.
• Anybody who thinks wine bloggers are on par with traditional media has been sniffing their own exhaust for too long. And, there are a lot of wine bloggers like that. Get over yourself, accept that we are a pimple on the ass, and do something interesting. You’ll enjoy yourself a lot more and yield better results if you’re not so serious about it
• Wine blogging isn’t journalism proper. Sure I ask questions, but I also take a columnist approach. I have an opinion and I don’t have to be balanced. Newspapers are a dying medium and people scan the AP stories and read the columnists. That is just the way it is and blogging is no different. Being interesting is far more important than being balanced. That said, being interesting can also be being objective, which isn’t always balanced. As my blog as stated from day one, my goal is to be pragmatically idealistic. That is it.
Overall, an interesting week. There has been some good, there has been some ugly, but none of it has been bad, even if some folks act like their damn cheese has been moved.
As a side note, as I write this I’m polishing off my Rockaway, which has lasted 6 days in the refrigerator under a Vacu-Vin, over three drinking sessions. It’s a beauty on day six with no degradation in quality.
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August 20 2008
Many readers of this blog may have noticed that there is an experiment underway in which Rodney Strong’s new allocated wine offering from their “winery within a winery” concept, Rockaway, is being introduced to market with some participation from select wine bloggers.
It is a bold move, coming from Robert Larsen, Public Relations Director at Rodney Strong.
One thing is certain; Robert is getting a lesson on this crazy transparency thing in blogging. Before I review the wine on Thursday, I first wanted to tell how this mini-program came to be and what the guidelines are—in typical PR the journalist almost never talks about how the “sausage was made.” Transparency is a fun quirk to blogging when done right.
In June, I got in contact with Carole Loomis, former colleague and friend at Inertia Beverage Group (RS is their client) and she mentioned that Rodney Strong had an allocated wine coming out and they might want to do some outreach to bloggers, could I get in contact with Robert Larsen to discuss?
This piece of interaction coincided right around the same time that I had some independent thought about a Wine Blogger Review Coalition. You can see posts I wrote on this here, here and here.
In talking to Robert we talked about a number of different things—the first being just simply sending off sample bottles to bloggers if I could give some insight into bloggers who were doing good work. I think most wine bloggers that have been at it a while forget or do not realize that this jet stream that we’re in is somewhat forbidding and not a little bit mystifying to others not in the loop.
I am, however, diametrically opposed to just sending samples off and cannot advocate that for a winery. If the wine is a hand sell, then so is the work with writers. Sending samples willy-nilly is not a model that really works for wineries and traditional media and it is not a model you really want to try to replicate with bloggers.
In my mind, and what I proposed to Robert is to get a small group of bloggers together, I would do the coordination, and solicit their interest in receiving a sample. If interested, I would then do programmatic coordination.
Now, mind you, getting a $75 dollar bottle of allocated Cabernet is not a tough sell, though some did decline to participate, but the proviso with each of the bloggers participating in receiving the sample is you have to write about it. However, the bloggers have full and free editorial control. Nobody is going to ask you to write anything specific. You do not have to like the wine, you do not have to say anything good, but in the give to get for the program, you have to write a post in length from 300 – 500 words and the timing would be coordinated to a set week on the calendar, this week, the week of August 18th.
Why do it this way? Well, because blogs are not limited by space constraints so it is not like you can fall on the canard of their not being enough ink and space. So, if you’re agreeing to accept a sample, it’s a small matter to write about the wine, particularly when you are free to say the wine tastes like twice filtered swamp water, if that’s if your opinion.
I think Robert and Rodney Strong were betting that the wine would deliver, and so was I.
I have been enamored by the way Cameron Hughes has handled sampling, and while they do not request posting, it is clear that their success rate in sampling to post content is stupendous. And the deliverable as a result is very nice. Check it out here. So, that is kind of what I was thinking in terms of execution with Rodney Strong, albeit on a smaller basis.
Is this the correct model? Bloggers have to write about a sample they received? Take the specific winery out of the equation. Is this a scalable model? I am not sure, but I do know that experimentation has to occur and this is as fine of an idea as any. Likewise with the experimentation, you have to have a winery willing to give it a try, and on that count regardless of what anybody writes about the Rockaway wine, good or bad, Rodney Strong has won for taking a risk.
Oh, and yeah, I will write about the actual wine tomorrow, somewhere in between 300 – 500 words.
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August 17 2008
In a bold and prescient move, what I believe is a first for an allocated wine, Rockaway, a high-end $75 Cabernet release from Rodney Strong’s new winery-within-a-winery concept, is including select wine bloggers as a part of their release strategy.
. 
Participating with me this week (and making history) in a coordinated announcement for the release of the brand on September 1st are the following bloggers:
Dr. Debs from Good Wine Under $20
Joe from 1WineDude
Megan from Wannabe Wino
Kori from Wine Peeps
Tim from winecast.net
Renee from Feed Me / Drink Me
Arthur Black, Master Sommelier Candidate, Guest Blogging at Good Grape
It will be an exciting week with each of these bloggers taking their own unique perspective on the wine, the release and the story. Keep an eye out for blog posts from each of these bloggers between Monday, August 18th to Thursday, August 21st.
I will have two posts up this week discussing the release—one a back-story and another will be a review. Arthur Black will be posting on Good Grape on Monday, August 18th to kick off the week.
Please join me in congratulating Rockaway on the pending release of their new wine and for being innovative visionaries in embracing wine bloggers as a part of their launch to market! Check out their site and join the list for first crack at this luscious Cab.
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August 11 2008
My wife is in Hoboken, New Jersey this week, traveling for business, and an occasion, a dinner meeting with a published wine author, came up in which my wife sent me the wine list for three restaurants and asked me to choose the restaurant with the best published wine list for a dinner on Thursday night. You know, all the better to impress this author, who has chops.
Well, first of all, this is a parlor game of the highest order-- which wine list will have the most accurate wine list in person, as listed on their web site? Doubtlessly none of these supposed wine lists are accurate. I would hazard a guess that they might be as off as 20% or more. But, then, what fun would it be if you didn’t get rooked every now and then?
My recommendation based on the below three choices was Amanda’s, though I don’t think any of the lists are sublime. One is crap, one is pretty good, though not great, and one is a California expense account list. Take a look at the three and see what your thoughts are. I recommended Amanda’s, by the way. But, is one crap and one a California sucker list?
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August 7 2008
I don’t pretend to understand why the movie Baby Mama, which opened on April 28th, is still playing on screens in Indianapolis while the new wine movie Bottle Shock, that opened yesterday, isn’t found on a movie screen anywhere in the state.
Nor do I understand why it was praised at Sundance, but failed to pick up distribution. I do know that the movie trailer makes the movie looks as technically authentic with wine as Varsity Blues is with football. Nonetheless, I’m all for a laugh and a popcorn movie. Maybe it will create a rising tide in wine movies. Heaven help us, we all know a rising tide raises all ships. The stoner movie Pineapple Express should do boffo business and Cheech & Chong, perhaps not so coincidentally, are touring this fall. Admittedly, I would buy tickets to Cheech and Chong to see “Basketball Jones” and “Sister Mary Elephant” live.
*Ed Note* Yes, in the Vin de Napkin I spelled “lightning” wrong. Yes, I know this. Yes, it would take a few minutes to rebuild the cartoon to be correct. Yes, it adds to the authentic and human nature of the blog, albeit unintentionally. Yes, at 11:45 pm on a school night, I’m not fixing it.
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