Good Grape: A Wine Blog Manifesto

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November 27 2006

News, Notes & Dusty Bottle Items Pt. II

… Jay McInerney should write a blog. His 800 to 1000 words a month in House & Garden, and chronicled in book form with the A Hedonist in the Cellar is as satisfying of an airplane read as you’re likely to find. At turns witty, insightful and smart, you’ll wish you could go drinking with him, if only to share a bottle and hear him wax philosophical about the coke he’s snorted, the bottles he’s drunk and the models that flitted away in a New York society life that plays like Shakespearean tragedy. Unfortunately, I think he’s just capitalistic and just narcisstic enough to not even give a blog a moments notice. Sure, he blogs already on the House & Garden web site, but that’s more a chronicle of what he eats in Gotham, and not what he drinks. House & Garden can be found here.

… I’ve not known what to make of QPR Wines—the newsletter that ranks, by month, a wine by varietal and the best QPR—the Quality-to-Price Ratio. To a certain degree it feeds into the notion that a wines value is determined solely by third-party rating and subsequent price. Though, I do have to admit that ratings play into a ‘Wisdom of Crowds’ mentality that can’t be denied in a Web 2.0 world. The one thing they could do, though, is tell you where to buy the darn stuff. If I’m going to be a value sensitive point’s whore, I should at least know how and where to buy the stuff.

… To solve the dilemma of where to buy wine within contextual placement of a wine reference is Triggit. They have one of the very few solutions that has the potential to be a legitimate business within the Wine 2.0 business paradigm. The Triggit ad window appears when a reader at QPR (hypothetically), or a blog, mouse over a link to a wine. The window displays the merchants who carry that wine and the price they sell it for. By being a non-intrusive way with value-add to help a reader find a wine, this is actually a really valuable service that works the way blog readers want to buy …

The Wineinsiders Podcast is the best wine-related podcasts that you are not listening to. With coverage of rare and allocated wines like Nickel & Nickel, Orin Swift, Silver Oak and Pahlmeyer, this is a podcast that takes you into an audio conversation that is like overhearing a conversation at the tasting room--professional and polished, this is good stuff …

… if you dig the renaissance in bohemian culture like I do, check out the cool D.I.Y you can do with wine bottles at the D.I.Y web site. A table? Candelabra? An incense burner? It’s all here.

… I really wish there was an out-of-print book publisher that traffic’ed in wine related books. I could buy a book onesy-twosy and it would print … none of this out of print stuff on Amazon and the associated premium price … three books that I’ve been looking for that are currently out of print include Waugh on Wine by Auberon Waugh, Understanding Burgundy by Matt Kramer and Red Wine with Fish by Joshua Wesson.

… I think any self-respecting wine lover that weighs in on the relative merit or goofiness of Biodynamic wines should read Rudolf Steiner’s writings … and then decided whether he’s a quack or not. Amazon.com carries a number of annotated books on his theories. Search for Rudolf Steiner …

… Stormhoek isn’t just the best winery related blog, it might be the one of the best wine blogs period. It’s mix of frequency, relevancy, and intimacy that makes for blog goodness.

… As much as I want to congratulate Wine Spectator for their October largesse in offering free access to their site for two weeks, they also, ironically, used that period of time to close a security gap in their site so big you could drive a truck through it. It used to be that the site was subscription only, but if you did a Google search for a headline, you could read the entire article, inside the password protected area for free. Coincidence that their free offer coincided with the closing of this security breach? Um, probably not. But, good business on their part to grab some new subscribers while they were fixing an obvious gaffe. For what it’s worth, I think their online content is worthy of consideration for subscription. It’s more immediate, more casual and more relevant than the boring trifle that is frequently their print magazine.

… did you know that the Japanese love the smell of banana’s? How else to explain the following:

The Hakone Kowakien Yunessun is bringing out a real sommelier to pour a dozen bottles of the Beaujolais Nouveau, produced by France’s Cordier, into its open-air wine spa every day.
We installed the wine spa last year, and did the Beaujolais Nouveau celebration. It was a great success, said Seiji Sanada, an official at Yunnesun. The aroma of Beaujolais is very pleasing, very nice. From the open-air spa, you can see the mountains, leaves turning color and hear the sound of a nearby ravine. It’s very pleasant, he said.

You can read the full article here.

My Dream … opening a winery … yes. My nightmare? Sharing this in a You Tube -style corporate sponsored Lincoln web site. The Content? Not bad. Form and function? Gagbarf.

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November 26 2006

News, Notes & Dusty Bottle Items

… Is it a little disingenuous for Trinity Oaks, a label of Trinchero, to position itself in its advertising as wines, “That were especially made to go with the foods you love.”

Aren’t all wines a natural complement to food, and at $4.95 to $7.95 can it be said that they might be preying on the wine naïve in the grocery aisle? This point is particularly salient when you consider that there is absolutely no supporting or substantiating detail on how or why the wines were made to go, “With the foods you love.”

Oh yeah, they never got the memo, either--the one that said that the low-carb craze was over in late 2004. They are still touting the carb counts in wines, a bad idea at the time and even worse two years later.

Time for a new advertising agency.

… Or, take a look at Beringer’s advertising … their current campaign with the tagline, “How to get Napa Valley” is an excellent mix of selling lifestyle and incorporating food and wine together.

… After reading numerous recent articles about the resurgence of Riesling and recently reading an article in Wine & Spirits Magazine about Lambrusco, is their an unspoken trend in the wine industry towards semi-dry wines?

We already know that virtually every winery not in California, Oregon or Washington has a semi-sweet wine that is undoubtedly a good seller …

It’s the elephant in the room, but I think that some residual sweetness in wines has an audience for folks that have a refined palate … but, frequently, the White Zin crowd gets lumped in with wines that have a touch of residual sugar.

… For anybody that wants to create their own subversive comics for their blog, check out: www.com-mix.org

… I like Jess Stonestreet Jackson, Kendall-Jackson wine, the 366th richest man in America according to Forbes tally in 2005, because he’s a self-made man and isn’t sitting on his thumbs (or his money). With a net worth of 2.2 billion according to the 2006 Forbes tally, he’s spent a reported $200 million in the last three years on thoroughbred horses and horse racing operations.

… You have to admire them for trying, but I’m not sure you can brand a high end appliance by using affinity marketing tactics as Viking is trying to do. A Mini Cooper – Yes! A Volkswagon Beetle –Yes! A Viking range … ah, I’m not seeking out other owners to share my passion for the range … as they are trying to do with their “The Viking Life.”

… Speaking of big brands, the Sub-Zero wine blog would be more effective if it played like a straight blog and was sponsored by Sub-Zero. Instead, it’s a Sub-Zero web site with wine celebrity content. The effectiveness is greatly reduced because of the overt corporate influence.

… The Wine Institute launched its first major export program last fall (’05) and some of that effort is designed to attract Japanese tourists. California wine represents 90% of U.S. wine imports in Japan. Stag’s Leap Winery enjoys a good reputation in Japan and supposedly welcomes 2,500 Japanese tourists a year.

In Vegas they call the wealthy, high-roller gamblers, who are often International, “Whales.” Anybody think that they might have a kinder and gentler euphemistic name in California Wine Country?

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May 30 2006

The Fun Side of Wine

I ran across a small blurb in the June issue of Gourmet magazine on Design Within Reach--a company in the Pottery Barn/Restoration Hardware/West Elm niche that sells modern furniture and home goods via a catalogue.They have a genius contest that entails readers creating a chair out of the cork, wire and/or foil using no more than two champagne bottles. A couple of the more clever ones are above, and the full results are here with pictures.

I recently referenced a new book that was coming off press thathighlighted the interesting, odd and esoteric in wine labels.

Mycuriosity piqued, I ordered the book. It is not supposed to be off press until June 1, but Ireceived my copy last week and another reader indicated that he saw it at aBorder’s several weeks ago. So, it’s available now and on Amazon, where I purchased it.

Nonetheless,it’s a small, charming book with full color pictures. It’s probably best leftas a stocking stuffer or add-on birthday gift for the wine lover in yourfamily, though. A couple of the interesting ones are:

Old Git (pictured at left) was renamed "Old Fart" for the American market. A decided improvement, no doubt.

Another curious wine label is called Frog’s Piss. A skewering by the English against the French and their predilection for Frog leg’s, this is a cheap table red.

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