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April 3 2006
Recently, a wine blog started that has regular contributors from the influential wine bloggers in the community and it also accepts some freelance contributions.
When you get a moment, check out Wine Sediments and my guest article posted yesterday:
Is there Wine at the Bada Bing?
I’m flattered to be able to put a couple of thoughts together and have it on their site.
Mark, the wine writer for the Dayton Daily News and the writing voice behind Uncorked acts as Editor and all of the content is fresh from the writers main blog.
You’ll find a diversity of opinion and thought that runs the gamut on wine and the wine industry and for that reason, it’s a good, regular read.
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April 3 2006
Speaking with a forked tongue really bothers me. We’d all be a little bit better off,especially in the corporate world, if we said what we meant and meant what wesaid and provided fair context to our opinions.
But, duplicity lives on—especially in magazines with contributors and freelancers and diverging opinions.
Forbes Magazine ran an op-ed piece last month that is, tosay the least, frightening. In the onepage column, Veronique de Rugy, economist, theorizes that funding smallbusiness is bad—at least small business for the sake of small business. She instead posits that growth companieslike Google should really be the funding targets.
The danger in this article is her denouncement of the SmallBusiness Administration—a program that guarantees up to 85% of the bankslending value in the event of a default.
Because everybody loves small businesses, everyone wants to dosomething for them, whether it’s targeted tax credits, specialregulatory treatment or preferential access to government contracts.Thus it is that we have an agency specifically designed to addresstheir needs, the Small Business Administration. The President’s latestbudget proposes to shower a budget of $605 million on the sba, whichincludes money for counseling and training targeted at a myriad ofsubgroups, such as women, Native Americans, veterans and Spanishspeakers. In addition the sba has arranged for $28 billion in bankloans to small companies, guaranteeing repayment of up to 85% if theborrower defaults. These are not loans that the banks would have madeon their own. Congress appropriates no money for this program. Instead,small businesses are charged fees, but if the economy tanks and thedefault rate shoots up, taxpayers are on the hook for the balance.
The real danger here is, besides the academia/think tanknature of this that doesn’t take the real world into account, and the fact thatall businesses have to start somewhere and the VC-backed Google’s of the worldserve to act as example of the exception, not the norm, but, again, the realdanger here is the fact that 95% of all wine produced in the world is producedby a small business owner. Ms. de Rugy attempts a grab at sympathy from the reader indicating that ‘taxpayers are on the hook for the balance.’ Unfortunately, for that to resonate with taxpayers, they have to have a correlation in between the taxes they pay and where it goes in spending. That, however, is a function of our society that stopped existing with FDR, really. And certainly every politician likes a good pork project.
If wineries all over: California, New York state, Ohio,Virginia, and elsewhere were denied lines of secured credit or protected loans,how many people would chuck their corporate job for a chance at beingpassionate about something? This nottoo mention the fact that even starting a winery is one of the most capitalintensive risk endeavors that an entrepreneur could undertake.
This inherent disrespect for the risk involved in starting abusiness is enough to create some incredulity.
But, the real smack your head moment comes when Forbesstarts pimping it’s wine club that features—from, yes, you guessed small,boutique vintners that, without a little help either A) would have never gottenstarted or B) would have never grown to build a reputation.
Or, this article that extols the virtues of the smallproducer from said magazine.
On the other hand, Tom Eddy of Tom Eddy Winery looks “exclusively tohillside vineyards to produce a rich, intense, structured CabernetSauvignon showing both the complexity derived from differing vineyardsand the consistency of hillside locations.” Blending vineyards withsimilar characteristics (such as hillside locations) will produce winesexhibiting specific characteristics while taking advantage of themultiple contributions each property offers.
One thing can be certain, in a The World is Flat kind ofway, boutique winery fans can count on me being critical and providing criticalanalysis of French educated economists living in America downplaying the absolute significance of entrepreneurs with a passion having some help side from a loan program.
Oh, and by the way, I don’t really know if Tom at Tom Eddy Winery has an SBA loan, but I did some curosry research on the winery and they do well under $1M a year in sales with 3 employees. And, that’s the S in SMB business if I’ve ever seen it.
Like Casey Kasem in the infamous "snuggles" outtake—it’s just ponderous.
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April 3 2006
Is static pricing dead at wine shops in this country and arewe better off with going with the haggling that is prevalent in car buying, orbetter yet, will we see the days of a Priceline at our local vino purveyorwhereby we name the price at which we are willing to buy?
I live in the Midwest. While I am more than a bit jealous that Dr. Vino has such an abundanceof 1st class wine shops at his disposal, the reality is that I ammore often than not shopping at a couple of liquor stores with expanded winedepartments alongside trips to CostPlus World Market, Trader Joe’s, Costco andSam’s to buy my wine. That is to say, Ibuy my wine from a lot of different places—in marketing speak, I supposed I ama multi-channel customer.
I used to buy a lot of my wine from one of the less thenfive places in town that you could actually call a quality wine shop. It even has ‘Fine Wines’ in its name. I used to buy better than 75% of my winefrom this local joint—a place that exists less than a mile from my home.
I felt good about supporting a local business and I feltlike though I might not get a great bargain, I wasn’t getting fleeced.
I stopped shopping at this wine shop at the first of theyear deciding to spread my money around and as a bit of protest for somedisingenuous activity (more on that in a second).
After working late this past Friday, and really hankeringfor a quality micro-brew, I was pressed into re-visiting the formerly forsakenwine shop in the name of convenience.
Well, a trip for a six-pack of Scottish Ale really turnsinto a trip for a six-pack AND whatever might grab my fancy from the winesection.
I was in the Pinot Noir section and looking at a niceChalone Pinot Noir. $13.99—I like anice Pinot and Tom at Fermentations has me drinking more Pinot just so I cansee if they’ve cut any Syrah in there to make it more robust.
Well, when I went to check out, I must have mistakenlygrabbed the “Estate” 2004 Pinot instead of the Monterey Pinot because it rangup at $31.99. The clerk looking at mewith some level of dumbfoundedness explained that usually Estate bottlingscost, “At least $25.” Hmm. My mistake. In the approximate 40 bottles of Chalone Pinot Noir and the one pricetag of $13.99, It must somehow be my mistake. I took the Monterey instead and slunked out of there feeling like theguy that wants an Acura, but can only afford the Honda Civic.
This isn’t the first time that I’ve taken issue with thisshop, and the reason that I’ve elected to take my business elsewhere.
In November of ’05, right around Thanksgiving, I purchased aSanford Pinot Noir and a Rombauer Zinfandel. The Rombauer, I’m particularly fond of. It’s about $22 a bottle and very, very nice with a lot of complexity.
At least I thought it was $22. It was $22 when I bought it there before and it was $18 inCalifornia when I enjoyed it with friends the previous weekend, but oddly, thebottle from the unpriced and open case sitting on the floor, upon check out,came to something like $31.99. For thesame vintage I drank the week before in CA for $18 and the same vintage Ibought earlier in the year for $22.
Now, at the check out, mind you, I was a bit surprised. A $10 price discrepancy seems a bit muchwithin the same year. I bought thewine, went home and searched www.winezap.comfor it. Lo and behold, virtuallyeverywhere, this wine was selling for $18 - $22 a bottle.
I went to the web site for the wine shop and submitted aninquiry (a very polite inquiry) to the customer service section asking forclarification on the price discrepancy between my previous purchases and mycurrent purchase juxtaposed against the pricing that can be had nationally.
What I received back was a response from the owner thatlanded somewhere in between rant against distributors (complete with every winedistributor from my state copied on the email) and a preservationist tacticindicating that he would, “Never apologize for making a profit.” Dale Carnegie this was not.
This is all well and good and a blip on the radar in theways and means of consumer satisfaction, but it got me thinking that #1 mytrust has been broken and I don’t feel like I can trust this wine shop—at leastnot from a pricing perspective. Whenyou tell a consumer that you won’t apologize for making money when the consumeris taking issue with what appears to be a sharp discrepancy against pricing,you’re effectively telling this person that profits are more important thenyour business.
Does this mean that the business of wine shops aredead? No, in fact, I would argue thatwine shops are needed more now then ever. But, what may be broken, in a business in which the customer has toimplicitly trust you is the pricing model. In an era of Winesearcher.com and Winezap.com, it’s not enough to have agood selection and a good location, you have to have either A) An incrediblepoint of differentiation or B) Excellent pricing.
Sadly, I don’t think this wine shop gets it, because thereis not an incredible point of differentiation and the pricing, near as I cantell seeks to help me with my latin: Caveat Emptor. Because while thespecials are all price competitive, it is my belief that the specials are thebait and the rest of the inventory is the “switch.” Afterall, even the most strident wine consumer can’t rememberretail pricing for thousands of brands.
For a laugh out loud, fun read about dishonesty in wineretail, check out this long piece from November in the Dallas Observer.
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March 31 2006
In my post on 3/21—Post Updates & Dusty Bottle Items I referenced a winery in South Africa called Stormhoek that was very inventively using their Blog as a marketing tool—with great success. Hugh Macleod at GapingVoid has blogged on them a couple of times including the genesis that can be found here and the very D.I.Y meets very cool product brochure is shown here at another Blogger’s site in the U.K.
Stormhoek winery is being imported into the states and they are repeating their free wine to the Blogosphere opportunity. To read about the 100 Geek Dinners that will feature Stormhoek wine go here.
An excerpt from GapingVoid on the wine dinner/giveaway.
1. We’d like to do 100 dinners in 100 days, but we’re not married tothe "100 days" part. We just thought it had a nice ring to it. If ittakes longer, no big deal. And yes, more than one dinner happening on asingle day is allowed.
2. U.S. liquor laws vary from State to State. It can get quitecomplicated, but we still have to keep it all kosher within the law.
3. As with the 2005 European blog promo, the idea is not to turn bloggers into wine pimps. It’s more a case of what I call "marketing disruption".
4. It’s nice when big events get Stormhoek coverage, however both me and Jason prefer taking the "Small Is Beautiful" angle.
A large, multinational alcohol brand covering an internet idustryparty is nothing new. But a small, South African winery covering asmall, intimate, random event in say, Phoenix, Arizona is much moreinteresting. Because it’s on a more human scale.
AND YOU WANT TO REACH PEOPLE ON A HUMAN SCALE. That’s what MadisonAvenue keeps forgetting. That’s what Madison Avenue can’t get theirhead around, because their business model has no credible answer for it.
5. This idea is still evolving; it’s still in its infancy. Ifthere’s something important we haven’t thought of yet, please feel freeto sare your thoughts. We’d love to have the feedback.
Another wine blog, www.winecast.net had this to say:
Over the past year, I have been following the Stormhoek meme over thatgapingvoid (where the drawing to the left comes from). The winery isnow entering the U.S. market and has an ambitious plan to supply theirwines for 100 (wine) geek dinners across the country. I havevolunteered to host one here in the Twin Cities on May 4, 2006 at 7:00p.m. From my Frappr listener map, I see there are several locallisteners who might be up for a nice evening of wine, food andconversation.
I signed up for Indianapolis, and as far as I know I will be hosting a small soiree to enjoy the wine in early June.
The really cool thing about blogging is the connections that people make, via technology, that they wouldn’t have otherwise have made. This is a pretty cool example of that.
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March 29 2006
My grandfather served in WWII. He left behind his wife and served as a mapmaker in thePhillipines, just as thousands of other GI’s did in the early 1940s. While he passed a number of years ago in thelate winter of 1993 it was just recently that we went through old artifacts andremembrances of his life that had been set aside with the long-ago intent ofpassing them down to his grandchildren. Mostly everything was benign, but some things like the racy GI postcards made my grandfather seem more human and adult then the woodworking,fishing, wise, gentle, “occasionally have a beer” Grandfather of my memory.
In my minds eye, aside from the frequent gatherings he wouldhave with his war buddies, I never knew much about the time he spent in theservice. But, I do know that he enjoyeda glass of wine—not fine wine, really, but homemade fruit wine like aBlueberry, or a Concord grape wine that was more of cordial on a Saturday afternoonwith friends
A couple of years ago I came across a book called Wine andWar: The French, The Nazi’s and theBattle for France’s Greatest Treasure.
I didn’t read the book then, but I plan on doing sonow. Sometimes history is moreinteresting when you have personal context to the events.
And, in the vein of “If you don’t know your past, you won’tknow your future,” my grandfather drank Hamm’s beer. Never more then one or two to slack his thirst after fishing.
I was reminded that Pabst Blue Ribbon beer made an unlikelyforay into popular culture in the past couple of years.
In our instantly ironic and immediately analyzed culture,everything seems to be recycled and everything pop culture related seems tohave a shelf life of about 15 minutes.
Oddly, this phenomenon hasn’t happened in the wineworld. Wine trends and even fads seemto be semi-enduring, lasting through at least a vintage cycle or two.
But, can this pop culture affliction happen in the world ofwine?
If the statistics are correct and members of Generation Yare coming online as core wine drinkers almost immediately after turning 21,can it be too far away?
I am waiting for somebody to license the rights to ColdDuck, Blue Nun, Lancer’s, and some of the other great wine brands of the 1960sand 70s, put a sluggable, quality wine in the bottle and do a Red Bull guerillamarketing campaign with them to bring some truly subversive change to theindustry.
Can you imagine? Instead of getting the very latest animal permutation on the bottlearchivists will be mining the wayback machine to see what labels were on theshelf during the Age of Aquarius.
If this happens, instead of “NO F*CKING MERLOT” as madefamous in the move Sideways, we’ll see a groundswell of Internet-based support,web sites, etc exclaiming, “No Boone’s Farm Strawberry Hill.”
And, finally, speaking of Merlot. Swanson vineyards owns the domain, www.merlotfightsback.com. With an obviously vested interest in ensuringthat Merlot wine stops its free fall in public perception, they are conductingseminars in major wine cities across the country.
My suggestion to them, however, is that there is not asingle person on earth that doesn’t like to have fun. Their approach to countering the “Merlot as wine for theunsophisticated” appears to be decidedly wooden. Loosen up, guys and have some fun with it, you’ll get a ton moremileage out of it.
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