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July 25 2007
When the American Wine Blog Awards came out earlier this year I thought I had my bases covered, I already read most, if not all, of the sites listed. What a difference a couple of months can make. The number of wine bloggers continues to explode in size and my guess is that the voting for next year’s American Wine Blog Awards is going to look at lot different.
There’s a shift happening in the wine blogosphere …
The recent Fermentation survey, managed by Tom Wark, about the influence of wine blogs is illustrative of this and was a real eye-opener for me—notably around how influential blog wine reviews are—68% of respondents have purchased a wine based on a blog review.
WOW! That’s about all I can say.
Well, the other thing I can say is shame on me because I was not in the camp of being actively engaged with blogs that focused more exclusively on reviews. This is not the case anymore as my blog reader is now a cup runneth over with new blogs to keep up with from all corners of the wine blogosphere.
Ironically enough, this epiphany happens at the same time that I make the conscious decision to not renew my paper subscription to The Wine Advocate. Perhaps coincidence, or maybe my sub-conscious is guiding me, but If I’m going to get exclusively wine reviews and tasting notes, I think I want to follow somebody who insinuates a personal style in four colors.
That said, here are six quality blogs that are either new in the last 12 months, or new to my radar. Check them out and mark my words: The American Wine Blog Awards coming up will be 180 degrees different in terms of nominees and potentially winners then the 1st edition.
The Cork Dork: http://corkdork.typepad.com/corkdork/
Domaine 547: http://www.domaine547.com/
Joe’s Wine: http://joeswine.blogspot.com/
Purple Liquid: http://manageyourcellar.blogspot.com/
Rockss and Fruit: http://rockssandfruit.blogspot.com/
The Wine Chicks: http://thewinechicks.typepad.com/
Posted in, Around the Wine Blogosphere. Permalink | Comments (7) | Print |
July 4 2007
Since we’ve been talking about medals, wine ratings and such, I think it’s time to re-visit Justwinepoints.com
Back in March, when the wine blogosphere was doing a post-mortem (Good Grape included) on the train wreck that was WineX magazine, Tom at Fermentations did something of a redemptive post on WineX founder Darryl Robert’s penultimate act, Justwinepoints.com.
I’ve come to trust Tom’s opinion and leadership, so I mentally backed off my own vituperative response … and I subscribed to their weekly newsletter.
While re-visiting the Tom’s original post (found here) and then reading through the comments in which co-founder Jenna Corwin claims their dead serious intentions and not the satirical nature that Tom suggests (perhaps in good p.r. spokesperson mode he’s attuned to always looking for the silver lining), I decided it’s time re-review this thing.
As a quick refresher, Justwinepoints.com’s position to market is eyebrow raising, to say the least. As excerpted from their home page:
You never settle for less, and you’d prefer never to drink another wine that has scored less than 90 points. But who has time to filter through hundreds of pages of excess “information” during their ultra-busy day to try to find the right wine? justwinepoints to the rescue!
justwinepoints represents 20 years of research into why and how wine aficionados purchase wine. After examining and categorizing our data, we believe our easy-to-use, risk-free system presents wine reviews exactly the way you – the wine savvy consumer – want them: by the numbers, and numbers only.
So use justwinepoints to find the highest-rated wine without any distractions. Use our convenient, quick-access system to cut through the clutter of magazines and newsletters that spew descriptors as if someone might actually use them. Use justwinepoints to find that near-perfect wine before someone else does… or your lifestyle may be compromised by drinking sub-90s wines.
Um, okay. Pull this leg and it plays jingle bells. Except, unfortunately, just as Tom thought this was satire, I, too, want to think this is some sort of farce, but it’s not. They play it true which is cause for my blood pressure to rise to a near boil.
A friend tipped me off with a forwarded email from Sam’s Wines and Spirits that Justwinepoints.com is, obviously, reviewing wines for Sam’s, evidenced by the 95 point rating they gave to a Zinfandel, the 2004 Sobon Estates “Rocky Top” Zinfandel, more on this in a second.
As I was reviewing some files from last year, I noticed an advertorial that I had clipped, coincidentally, from Saveur magazine that talked about Sam’s and wine sales online. The brief article says, in part:
“Selling via email is great,” says Chris Durbin, head wine sales specialist for e-commerce sales. “We have the ability to send information immediately to a customer base of more than 33,000 people. We can sell 100 to 150 cases of a wine in a matter of hours.”
Durbin loves the email “perfect storm” of “a good price, a review over 90 points, and a wine that people are looking for.”
Understanding this context, quotes from last year, before Justwinepoints.com came on the scene, becomes important when you consider the email offer for the Sobon Estates that I received in the Sam’s email forwarded from a friend—which, typifies, to me, what seems to be a MANUFACTURED “perfect storm” so eloquently described by Mr. Durbin:
Durbin intros his passion for all things Tennessee football and goes on to say, “… being a sucker for all things Big Orange, when I first saw the Sobon Estates “Rocky Top Vineyard” Zinfandel, I knew that would be bringing a bottle home with me. Just because of the name. I am sure I did not need another excuse to bellow “Rocky Top” loudly and tunelessly, but I could not pass it up. I had no idea about the wine inside the bottle, nor did I even really care for Zinfandel, as I had never tried a good one. This one, however, did not disappoint.”
The email goes on to give a tasting note for the Sobon Estate and this parting word,
To top off all of that, Justwinepoints.com just awarded this beautiful bottle a staggering 95 point rating.
So, let me get this straight, we have a guy emailing a Zinfandel wine offering that admits that he loves a “perfect storm” of “a good price, a review over 90 points” in addition to noting, “nor did I even really care for Zinfandel, as I had never tried a good one …” and we have an online service dedicated to providing scores for a vacuous audience in order to, “use justwinepoints to find that near-perfect wine before someone else does… or your lifestyle may be compromised by drinking sub-90s wines” and we’re supposed to believe and buy this wine, however good, based on this garbage charade?
Maybe I’m starting to get old and steeped in minding the boundaries between right and wrong, but this just smacks me as wrong—manipulative, disrespectful of wine consumers and a complete error in judgment. Is it too strong of a statement to say that somebody in this equation is morally bankrupt?
Maybe it’s me that’s wrong and manipulative—maybe I’ve done a pastiche of quotes that isn’t representative of the situation, but somehow I doubt it.
I defy Justwinepoints.com to say that they proactively rate wines that ARE NOT sent to them. And, I defy Justwinepoints.com to say that they aren’t getting paid to rate wine for Sam’s, specifically. Should I find out that I’m wrong, I will gleefully fall on my sword, but I worry that I won’t have to.
So, my overall point is, just as we’re wondering whether fair competition medals are meritorious and the finer points of a wine rating system to use in the blogosphere, know and understand that people are absolutely snowing consumers with a tap-dance of bullshit that, ultimately, will paint a lot of people, perhaps you and I, with a broad brush of bad behavior—when these things blow up they don’t cut surgically, they cut gaping wounds and it will make our review of medals and talk of rating systems seem like girl scouts selling cookies compared to an ethical blowout of the entire 100 pt. system and its interpretations.
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July 4 2007
It’s interesting to me, very interesting, that two of the biggest conversations in the wine blogosphere over the last two to three weeks have been about a unified wine ratings system for wine bloggers AND multiple posts and comments about the alleged canard that is wine competitions.
Seemingly conflicting points of view, these are. On the one hand we’re saying let’s bring some legitimacy to wine blogger reviews by using a system that brings a semblance of professional orientation. On the other hand, some are saying that already established and legitimate vehicles for rating wines (like medal competitions) are not suitable qualifiers for a wines quality.
“Houston, we have a problem.”
Something is very out of whack here. It’s like the boozy pretzel logic argument you used to get into in college, whilst playing a drinking game. How can we at once deride the establishment, but make an organizational call to order in our own house, without somebody calling this into question. To paraphrase Forrest Gump, “subjectivity is as subjectivity does.”
While I’m never shy on opinions, I usually tend to err on the side of progress under the veil of “live and let live.” In that vein of benevolence, I think wine competitions are legitimate forms of wine review AND I think that the time is right for a wine blogging wine review system.
The wine reviewing system, if a unified format can be agreed upon, represents the opportunity for significant progress. Mind you, I very rarely do reviews, but I haven’t ruled it out in the future, so while really don’t have a dog in this fight, I do feel some small sense of stewardship to be a voice that promotes progress in the wine blogosphere. And, really, what I’d like to make sure we promote is progress for the entire wine blogosphere. With vision and influence, can you imagine something occurring like Lenn’s Wine Blogging Wednesday, whereby there is a “Wine Review Thursday?” What if, every other Thursday, the wine blogosphere came together to taste the same three wines, provide reviews and tasting notes and then the organizer sent the aggregated end result to media outlets in a quasi-syndicated column.
That would be the wisdom of crowds come to life.
Tim from Winecast, along with Lenn from Lenndevours, have done a nice job of galvanizing support for a 5 star system, of which I have no dissenting voice. My only point is I would like to see widespread usage of the same organizational nomenclature, standards, descriptors, etc—creating something of a house-style review, even amongst differing palates. In my opinion, the more quantitative or measurable this review style can be, then it will be all the better for creating legitimacy.
While recently scouring my hard drive for something else, I ran across a paper that I received from George Vierra from Napa Valley College. He was featured in this Wine Business Monthly article in ’05 and I sent him a note for the full text of his research summary on building a better Wine Scorecard. The following excerpt acts as a summary:
During the spring of 2005 at Napa Valley College, students enrolled in “Sensory Evaluation of Wine” took on the task of answering these questions. The class contacted several university enology departments, wine merchants and experts and evaluated the methods of many reviewers for periodicals, newsletters and online services. As a final project, the class developed an improved scorecard, the Napa Valley College Wine Scorecard.
The Napa Valley scorecard, to me, seems interesting because it takes the best of the legacy (UC Davis 20 pt. scale) and improves it with more comprehensive sensory evaluation options. This comprehensive approach would also serve as a studied approach and buffer from less diligent reviewers willy-nilly passing out 5 stars to wines of dubious character. The point is they’d have to work out doing a review and as in most instances in life effort separates the wheat from the chaff.
If you’re interested in receiving your own copy of this excellent overview on wine rating systems email George Vierra at: gjvnapa@inreach.com For some additional, excellent background on the origins of ratings systems, and the breadth of available options, check out the following link from Delong wine:
In the meantime, I’ll keep an eye on this movement and hopefully Tim, Lenn and others can come to some sort of consensus this summer.
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July 1 2007
I’ve come to find Alder from Vinography and his writing very educated, grounded in classical wine appreciation, and demonstrating jurisprudence against lighter blogging wine fare, while completely eschewing the sophomoric.
Imagine Alder writing a post like I have about casting the Surreal Life with celebrities that have a wine label … built the mental image? Me neither. It’s too déclassé for the quality of wine knowledge that Alder imparts. He’s at the pinnacle of wine blogging, alongside Dr. Vino, which makes his post over the weekend decrying fair wine competitions uncharacteristically sharp and bordering on incendiary.
I initially didn’t think much about the Two Buck Chuck California State Fair imbroglio when I read the post at Quaffability in which John basically said fair medals aren’t a very good indicator of wine quality.
But, my radar went off when Alder echoed the sentiment and went on to say,
“how utterly ridiculous and meaningless these awards are, and how you should never use them as part of your decision for purchasing a wine.”
Make no mistake, it’s a decently reasoned argument, if not somewhat glancing in actual fact, but, in my opinion, he loses me when he says, as his riposte to end the post that wineries should:
… stop bragging about your medals and start telling people interesting things about you and your wine, and how and why you make it. Consumers, do yourself a favor and ignore any piece of wine marketing that talks about fair medals. Though you might start noticing the very limited overlap between wines that get scores or good reviews by any wine critic (take your pick) and those that get medals. Coincidence? Well, let’s just say that you don’t see really good restaurants setting up booths at county fairs for a reason. They don’t have to.
I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt, but this post seems elitist, misguided, benignly lacking in an understanding of how the rest of the country drinks outside of the land of milk and honey in San Francisco and lacking any level of understanding of how difficult it is to create mindshare with consumers in the wine industry.
Methinks that competitions are perfectly acceptable for small wineries (and large) that don’t ever get reviewed by the wine media elite as some level of arbitration of quality.
For a different take on wineries using their “story” see this Decanter quote from Linda Murphy’s column in the June issue. She’s tired of the “story,” it seems, in a column highlighting Charles Krug:
Quality: the simplest way to publicise a wine
Winery takeovers and makeovers come in such a steady stream these days that I go numb from all the announcements. Winemakers change jobs as often as parents change diapers. Consultants come and go, to polish both wines and marketing campaigns. Everyone has a new brand, alternative closure, hi-tech sorting table, solar energy system, fundraising dinner, organic, biodynamic or sustainable farming scheme, and a child who has just graduated from university and returned to tout the above accomplishments as a PR manager.
But no PR ploy works as well as putting quality wine in the bottle,
For a nicely done first person narrative about being a judge in a large-scale state fair wine competition, see this three part article from Jerry Shriver from the USA Today from last summer:
For my money, I always follow ‘caveat emptor’ for virtually all wine because a medal or a ribbon doesn’t know my palate. And, in addition, I certainly think this sort of attitude whereby we look down our nose at state fair competitions is incredibly misguided and definitely is a set-back in wine blogosphere thought-leadership. As I mentioned, the post is well-reasoned, if not a touch discursive, but I’m going to urge readers to look at the total picture of tastings that are blind and perfectly honorable ventures run by hard-working, well-intentioned people.
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June 30 2007
Thanks to El Jefe from Twisted Oak for pointing out what I hoped would go unnoticed—the dubious notion that Winebusiness.com, presumably in a timely fashion, made mention that June is Indiana Wine and Grape Month. Um, except the notice in Winebusiness.com appears on June 29th—a day or two lead time for, well, July.
Any chance that the good Indiana folks decided to send the press release to Winebusiness.com on, oh, say June 28th? Probably.
I did a quick spin on the Indiana Wine Grape Council web site to do a cross-check on press release dates and it looks like they posted the release on the site on June 14th. Bad form. Don’t these things normally go out AHEAD of the month in which you are desiring promotion? Heck, I’ve known that September is California Wine Month for eons.
Indiana is good at a lot of things—basketball, corn, and racing amongst other things, but I can’t always say we’re good self-promoters, humble folks that we are.
At least June is good for summer quaffing wines, and Indiana wineries have fruit wines, perfect for the deck, in spades. And, mark your calendar for next year, you can’t be guaranteed that a press release will hit.
Posted in, Around the Wine Blogosphere. Permalink | Comments (1) | Print |
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