April 26 2006
There’s a show on television called American Inventor. I’ve only seen bits and pieces, but it follows the American Idol model of tv whereby people with an invention (instead of dubious singing talent) pitch their product to a panel of judges.
I immediately thought of this when I saw a "gee whiz" wine aeration device on the Internet. Most of us pop the cork, pour and hope for the best over the course of the next hour. But, the fact remains that, most, if not all red wine softens and opens up a bit with some air.
The majority of the $15 and under vino (which represents about 85% of my consumption) is better the 2nd day after it has mellowed with some air on it.
So, I find the Accelabreath to be really cool. Basically, the gist is that you pour your wine into a carafe and through some type of magnetic connection with the base it creates a kind of centrifuge action on your bottle of vino. The selling proposition is full aeration in minutes, not hours ...
The AccelaBreathe™ instant wine aeration system has been developed to insure more effective enjoyment of wine. The AccelaBreathe™ system accelerates the natural wine breathing process allowing wine to breathe fully and consistently from bottle to bottle at home or in restaurants. The AccelaBreathe™ system works by quickly and evenly exposing the wine to air without bubbling, catalysts, or other chemical additives. With AccelaBreathe™ your $20 bottle of wine will taste like a $50 bottle.
Most people say that if you pay anymore then $25 a bottle you’re paying for scarcity or marketing, but I won’t go there.
Check out the video demonstration on the site here. The Accelabreath goes for a flat $100.
I can’t really call him an inventor, but the owner of the site is a guy from North Carolina that has a PH.D.
I’m not sure what his PH.D. is in, but I’m guessing it’s something that it is laboratory based.
A quick scan of the Internet tells me that this device is a magnetic stirrer for lab use, but it’s such a showy/nerd kind of idea to do with guests that it merits the $20 premium versus buying one off a scientific device site for $79.99
I also found a much headier patent site that has a very elaborate and completely befuddling patent explanation for wine aeration. If you are so inclined, you can find it here.
If you understand it please send me a note and decode it for me.
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April 26 2006
A couple of weeks ago I posted on Stormhoek Winery--a S. African winery that had extensively used the blogging community as it rolled out its product introductions in various geographies--the U.K. and elsewhere.
Stormhoek is set for their U.S. debut and Hugh at the popular blog Gaping Void has been the lead on their introductory marketing. A recent article from the BBC had this to say and in, general, Hugh is following the "wine blogging as marketing disruption" model.
In the firstphase, he sent out free bottles of wine to about 100 bloggers in the UK, IrishRepublic and France. Only those who had regularly kept up a blog for at leastthree months could apply, but the size of their readership didn’t matter -"just so long as they were genuine bloggers".
As a result, a lotof those bloggers ended up writing about Stormhoek wine. In the wake of hiscampaign, sales doubled, rising from 50,000 cases in 2004 to 100,000 last year.
Micro-brandboost
In the next phaseof the campaign, Stormhoek has started sponsoring "geek dinners",offering to provide free wine for bloggers’ dinner parties.
As part of itsforthcoming launch in the US, the firm wants to have "100 geek dinners in100 days", running from 1 May to 9 August.
"WhatI’m interested in is what I call the global micro-brand," says Mr Macleod.
"Now with theinternet, creating global micro-brands is cheaper and easier than ever before.You can start off and have a product and market it on a global level much moreeasily than even 10 years ago."
I find this incredibly fascinating. I’m supposed to be on the dinner list for the States, and in fact, I need to follow-up on my initial confirmation.
Hugh, at Gaping Void, for his part, is a smart, interesting guy, at least based on his blog. And, even though I try and draw some loose and fast correlations in between the world of wine and the Cluetrain Manifesto, Hugh is really doing it. In the blogosphere, which is still a small community, overall, this is akin to a high school sophomore (me) and a college professor--Hugh.
An excerpt from a Gaping Void post on Stormhoek:
I told Nick Dymoke-Marr the Managing Director of Stormhoek: "You’renot competing with Jacob’s Creek or Blossom Hill. You’re competing withGoogle and Microsoft and Apple and Skype.
Yes, the product category is always irrevelvant. It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it etc etc.
So I’m now on the hunt for a label & bottle design thatbetter reflects the whole post-Cluetrain/Hughtrain schtick thatStormhoek is slowly becoming internally, that telegraphs this instantlyto the external market.
Why shouldn’t a small wine company see Apple or Google as its competition? Think how more interesting the world would be if more small, non-techie companies thought the same.
Hugh admits on his blog that his cartooning/art isn’t paying the bills, so he’s taken a small slice of equity in Stormhoek in exchange for the marketing support he’s providing and according to him:
Hey, if you want to put the work on paper, t-shirts,business cards, stickers, homemade greeting cards, Powerpoint slides,or whatever, as far as I’m concerned, as long as you’re not trying tomake money off it directly, and giving me due accreditation, I’mtotally cool with the idea.
So, if people aren’t paying me for my work, then how do I make a living?
A good question.
Well, years of messing around in various enterprises have led me to the following conclusion: People don’t buy art. Not really. But they do buy wine.
Which is why I have a commercial interest in the Stormhoek winery. Basically, the more cases that sell, the bigger a car I get to drive. It’s that simple.
Check out http://www.gapingvoid.com and search for "Stormhoek" to see all of the re-occuring posts. What’s happening here is very interesting and compelling. If the wine delivers, this could be the seeds of the next great wine case study ala Yellowtail.
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April 25 2006
From pages 8 - 9 of the Preface of the American Vine-Dresser’s Guide. The first book published in North America on the cultivation of grapes and winemaking--published in 1826 and serialized at Goodgrape.com
… I then made the culture of the grape, ofits natural history, and of all that was connected with it, my most seriousstudy, to be the better able to succeed here. It is that resolution which mademe a vine dresser, although some may think I am not fit for it, being maimed inmy left arm. It was it, which made me lose several chances of getting rich, inmy journeying through America, because it had so completely absorbed all myother thoughts; and it was also that resolution, which made me accept a proposalof an association for the culture of the grape in Kentucky, under the sameprinciples of the one established at Philadelphia, though not knowing,however, which of those societies had been the first; but the KentuckyVineyard Society, may be with great propriety considered as the beginner, thetrue introducer of the cultivation of grape vines into the United States;although it proved to be a ruinous affair, both to the shareholders and theirvine dresser--nevertheless, millions will accrue to the country at large, fromthe school made there. Some of my readers, who may, like me, have been losersin that undertaking, will see here with satisfaction, the reasons why it hasfailed, and how by a different management, it may now be a more profitableestablishment even than the United tates’ Bank. When I first came to Lexington,I was requested and encouraged, to make a trial on the culture of the grape;but I was left with little courage by what I had seen done: They offered tohelp, and the following scheme of an association was agreed to: To subscribe200 shares, at $50 each--40 of the shares were to be mine as my salary toconduct the business, until it would become productive; after that, I was tohave $1000 per year out of the produce, and nothing, if there should benone,---so that the subscribers put their money, and I my time, at stake. The produce of the 160 shares, was to beappropriated as follows:
| Fund Allocation for Purchase of Shares | |
| For 633 acres of land, | $633 |
| For 5 families of (laborers), | $5000 |
| For tools, victuals, and other support, until the place would be productive | $1000 |
| Expenses of getting vine scions | $800 |
| Incidental expenses, | $567 |
| TOTAL | $8000 |
Theplan was well laid, if we had perfected it; but in 1799 too anxious to begin,we went into business before all the 1160 shares were subscribed for, and whilethere was but very little money collected--five acres were planted with 35different species of the best grapes, a great part was obtained by purchasefrom Mr. Legau, at Spring Mill, near Philadelphia, and others gathered in thegardens of New York, a small part bought at Baltimore from a Germannursery-man, and another small part brought directly from my own vineyards inSwitzerland, when my brothers came over to join me; three years we were in fullexpectation, and worked with great courage--a great many species of vinesshowed fruit the third year; one vine of the sweet water was full of eminentlygood grapes, fully ripened by the first of September. A few bunches that Icarried to Lexington, were admired beyond any thing. But alas, it was the firstand last year that that vine ever bore fruit, a sickness (of which I shall makethe subject of a chapter) took hold of all our vines except the few stocks of Capeand Madeira grapes, from each of which we made the fourth year some wine, whichwas drank by the Shareholders in Lexington in March next. The failure of thefirst plantation caused a relaxation among …
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Business models don’t change. For a recent example of investors in a virtual vineyard/winery operation, check out this story.
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April 24 2006
Wine makes its way into the funny pages with some regularity. Our local wine shops proof positive of that as the yellowed clippings from the paper adorn the checkout area.
Though, most Americans, I think, identify more with Charlie Brown then Rex Morgan, MD.
Leave it to the Japanese to eat our lunch in this regard. A little over 10 years ago, a manga (a comic strip for adults) called "Sommelier," published in a Japanese daily, made reference to an obscure (at the time) California Pinot Noir from Calera winery.
The strip stars Satake who is a wine taster with an encyclopedic knowledge of the premier crus and in between wine tastings he solves complicated crimes. And, in the heroic tradition, he apparently gets the girl, too. Channeling some obvious zen energy for the protagonist, a writer for the strip had this to say on the back cover of the graphic novelization:
"At France’s sommelier’s contest, Joe Satake, while winning the championship, declines the honor. A genius walks the road of proud loneliness. He says, ‘There isn’t bad wine. When encountering wine, there is only a suitable time.’ Wine’s many jewels are made as partners—occasionally a sweet and sometimes bitter story is woven. Wines don’t lie—sommeliers see the truth inside wines. When Joe Satake holds it, it’s a new encounter!!"
A press release was issued on this on the 21st. But, here’s an article from an Anime magazine dated 1999--same story angle.
The full release can be found here.
The connection to Calera winery is tied to the manga
In this one single day’s strip of Sommelier, drawn and written by KaitaniShinobu and edited by Kenichi Hori, our fearless Joe Satake recounts that hewas at a tasting where he was given two wines to taste "blind." One was thesuperstar wine, Romanee-Conti itself, from the Domaine de la Romanee-Conti,the pride of Burgundy; the other was a California wine, Calera Pinot Noir fromthe "Jensen" Vineyard, named for the owner’s father. The rival sommelier, anevil and jealous man, tried to trick Satake by describing the wines and thenconcluding that the better wine was the DRC. However, at the last minute,Satake realized that there was only one wine similar to the DRC and that wasthe Calera, which Satake deemed the winner. He not only saved "face" anddefeated his evil nemesis, but also got a dreamy eyed-girl racing to his side.Hey, this is a comic strip!
It might be a comic, but certainly no laughing matter:
Today, our sales in Japan are stronger than ever, in spiteof the slow economy in Japan over the past decade. Looking back, nothing couldhave prepared us for this. The idea of a comic strip "launching" our brand insuch an important, newly emerging wine market as Japan might be seen as merecomic relief, were it not for the fact that still today, ten years later, oursales to our two importers there are still growing—rapidly!"
Calera’s web site can be found here.
In an yet-to-written post 6 months from now, an American winery, taking a cue from Sommelier does product placement with the kid from Zits, Cathy, and Jon Arbuckle from Garfield. Said winery’s sales increase by .003% at Costco on the same day that there is a a retiree sampling brioche near the wine section in Naples.
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April 24 2006
Jens from Cincinnati Wine Warehouse has a blog post on Wine Sediments today on why he blogs ...and, in short, its valid. Like other wine bloggers, it’s something he wants to do; recreation, really, to write about something that so many of us enjoy and in his paraphrased words: "if he enjoys a wine, why not share that information with like-minded people?"
Amen.
I enjoy that aspect as well, but, for reasons that I cannot explain, I also really have a fascination with the intersection of wine as business and its growth in our popular culture. For that reason, I spend a lot of time thinking about the growth trajectory of wine and its impact from beverage for the few to beverage for the masses.
I’ve posited several pet theories for its growth, how it will grow, how it won’t grow, etc., etc.
But, what’s really interesting is I think that its growth is going to reach its nadir as it moves from a beverage packaged for the masses to its packaging as a beverage for the socially well-adjusted. Almost the anti-Wal-Mart capitalism notion.
In a recent San Francisco Chronicle article, editor Cyril Penn (also an editor at Wine Business Monthly magazine) highlights the fact that wines priced under $6 a bottle are still the most popular sellers--by a long shot.
More expensive wines get most of the attention, but an analysis of sales in food and drug stores tracked by ACNielsen shows varietal wines priced under $6 are still most popular.
At the same time, sales of wines $6 and above are seeing the strongest growth rates.
Between July 2003 and February 2006, overall wine sales rose 22.6 percent.
The largest growth was in wines priced $15 and above, which gained 123 percent. However, those wines only account for about 2 percent of the market.
By far the largest volume of wine sold in food stores is priced below $6 per 750 ml, a category that includes jug and 5-liter boxed wines. However, the category’s market share is declining.
Between July 2003 and July 2004, this category was responsible for 71 percent of the sales volume. Between February 2005 and February 2006, that market share fell 6 percent.
So, if you’re ever at the grocery story looking at the bottom shelf of jugs of Almaden or bottles of Lancer’s and wondering who drinks that look around for a while longer, because, you my friend are a wine loving minority lumped into the 2% category.
The last paragraph is really key--jug wine represented 71% of the ENTIRE category in July ‘03 - July ‘04, but fell to 65% in ‘04 - ‘05. This is happening at the same time that sales of $6 and above are seeing the strongest growth.
The real Tipping Point in wine, from a cultural perspective, will occur when premium priced wines outsell jug wine. And, at this pace of growth, it might be in the next two years--probably not 2006 -2007, but shortly thereafter.
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