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August 23 2006

Drinking on Asphalt

WhenI was in Paso Robles last month our last stop of the day was at a winery calledFour Vines.

They’rea small winery with distribution in 19 states.

Onthe whole the wines were serviceable, mostly fruit-forward very new world-ishwines—even the Rhone varietals--that complemented their hallmark—a half dozendifferent Zinfandel’s.

Overall,it was a pleasant enough visit to their tasting room. The staff was nice—a school marmish Manager and two youngtwentysomethings—one a lifeguard that led to a lengthy conversation with mybuddy, also a SoCal lifeguard. She was kind of cute, and hardly menacing.

I made a note to myself to comment on my blog about some of their positioningwith the wines to customers. Simply,they give each of their wines a single identifying name like their “The Maverick”Zinfandel, “The Biker” Zinfandel, the “Heretic” Petite Sirah, “Anarchy” CentralCoast blend, and on and on …

Theyalso do schwag with names like “ZinBitch” “Naked,” etc.

Whilethe wine was okay, what left me really scratching my head as I left the tastingroom was the fact that all of the marketing seemed a bit forced—a touchunnatural. A prominent picture of thefounder in the tasting room (also found here) made me think that he seemed likea perfectly nice, normal chap.

Perhaps,the marketing was exactly that—marketing. But, it didn’t seem authentic, it didn’t seem to resonate and it seemedlike it had a greater opportunity to mis-fire for them over the long haul thenit did of hitting the mark.

Inthe “even a blind squirrel finds a nut,” file, imagine my surprise when I cruiseover to Wine Waves, a tasting notes blog from a Nashville, TN wine lover, andhe has the Four Vines “Biker” Zinfandel that he picked up on his way to theSturgis Motorcycle Rally.

For the uninitiated, the Sturgis Bike Rally in Sturgis, SD is the premiere bike rally in the country with thousands and thousands of motorcycle enthusiasts descending for what I can only guess is some general hedonistic mayhem, in a South Dakota kind of way. Liquid friends of the bikers are more likely to be called "Bud," "Jack," and "Johnny" than Harlan, but I’m not quibbling details.

Thelesson here? Never judge a marketingeffort if you, perhaps, fall out of the target. Er, that would be me. Words like “Heretic,” and “Anarchy” don’t have much to do with mylife these days, so I shouldn’t condemn that which I don’t know. Ahem, I doubt thatthose words necessarily have much to do with a gentlemanly blogger from Nashville either, butat least he got the biker part taken care of.

Though,I really don’t want to learn about a “ZinBitch.”

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August 22 2006

New World

Trailer for the movie "A Good Year" starring Russell Crowe, here.

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August 22 2006

Mind Hacks and Transparency in Wine Blogging

Forthe last scheduled Wine Blogging Wednesday (WBW), Alder at Vinography selecteda white wine from the Loire Valley as the vinous drink of choice.

Inmy recap (found here), the first time I’ve been involved in a WBW by the way, Iowned up to the fact that I know really very little about French wine.

Iknow enough to be topically conversant, but I’m not rushing headlong to discussChateaux’s from the Right versus Left Bank.

Atthe time, it seemed like a reasonable admission based on, well, it’s the truth …

But,over the course of the last couple of weeks, I’ve been involved in four or fiveconversations with folks that keep up with my blog and the one thing that stuckwith them was the fact that I have a wine blog, but don’t know much aboutFrench wine.

EverythingI write on a weekly basis and the thing that sticks is:

“Yeah,I saw that you don’t know much about French wine. Uhmmm.

Thisis really curious to me because the presumption, I believe, is that if you areeither in one of two camps—you are either expert or you are a completenewbie—people don’t think about wine in anything other then one of those twoscenarios—you are either one of “us” of you’re one of “them.” The “them” being the guy that knows a lot aboutwine. But, this is without regard forthe graduated steps of a learning curve.

Franklyspeaking, there’s an infinite amount to know about wine and wine in the worldand, unfortunately for me, a finite amount of time you can spend on ahobby. So, you end up learning thingsincrementally.

Yougotta start somewhere and I’m not that old. I’ll get to French wines and before then I’ll probably figure outItalian wines.

And,more importantly, what really excites me about doing a blog isn’t tasting notesfor a supermarket wine, a spaghetti red or even a Vin de Table, it’s reallyabout having a creative outlet for ideas and my #1 passion. Those two things happen to collide with theU.S. wine market more so then the International market, for me at least.

Inthe environment of blogging, and in the environment of socializing with peoplewith wine as a topic, I’ve come to the following two conclusions:

1) Alot of people play liars poker about their knowledge of wine

2) Tohave a wine-related blog and actually admit to not knowing much about Frenchwine, to me, is a badge of honor in an authentic and transparent way.

Basedon the above, it was with some amusement that I ran across an interestingarticle in Decanter magazine (ahem … a U.K. based wine magazine with a decidedlyinternational vibe) that studied wine shopping purchases based on what musicwas playing in the background. You canread the full post here and excerpted below:

This study was done by Adrian North and colleagues fromthe University of Leicester [1]. They played traditional French (accordionmusic) or traditional German (a Bierkeller brass band - oompah music) music atcustomers and watched the sales of wine from their experimental wine shelves,which contained French and German wine matched for price and flavour. On Frenchmusic days 77% of the wine sold was French, on German music days 73% was German- in other words, if you took some wine off their shelves you were 3 or 4 timesmore likely to choose a wine that matched the music than wine that didn’t matchthe music.

Allthis consternation and the simple fact is: I buy my wine at places that play U.S. music. Duh. How simple is that?

And,for the record, I’m an internationally renowned expert on French wine, but justvery, very modest.

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August 21 2006

Snakes on a Plane and the Wine Blogosphere Pt. II

I’mtaking a mulligan on the Snakes on a Plane hypothesis.

Icontinue to believe based on nothing more than a hunch and a sense for the ebband tide of the blogosphere that the mainstream media still views blogging assomething less then legitimate. Surethey’ve dipped their toe in, even embraced it in some regard, but just the samethey are prepared to jump back out of this end of the pool and go back tobusiness as usual.

Becauseof this I sensed that if Snakes on a Plane, the first movie to really take inpublic, mass feedback and alter an actual storyline and script, weresuccessful the media would pile on exclaiming the blogosphere as the nextnirvana for marketers.

And,those proclamations would erase the current, “We get it, but what do you do withit” mode of operation in popular culture.

Onthe other hand, I also thought that if the movie failed to produce big revenueon its opening weekend that the media would be writing the obituary onblogging; another gravestone on the Information Superhighway.

Whatwe really have is a tie.

This ABC News article says:

The Internet buzz over "Snakes on a Plane" turned out to be nothingto hiss about. The high-flying thriller preceded by months ofunprecedented Web buildup technically debuted as the No. 1 movie, butwith a modest $15.25 million opening weekend, according to studioestimates Sunday.

Distributor New Line Cinema included $1.4 million that "Snakes on aPlane" raked in during 10 p.m. screenings Thursday to get a head starton the weekend. Without those revenues, the movie’s weekend total wouldbe $13.85 million, putting it just behind "Talladega Nights: The Balladof Ricky Bobby," which took in $14.1 million in its third weekend.

Whilethe flick was the #1 movie of the weekend, it failed to live up to expectationsbased on the froth the Internet community whipped up.

#1,but with an asterisk.

Iwanted to analogize this related to wine, but alas, it looks like the definingmoment for blogging—bad or good will come another day.

Despitethe mulligan, I’m still going on record and saying that top bloggers in wineand across all niche oriented interests will turn Pro-Am and begin toincorporate commerce elements into their web sites—not just ads and banners,but also contextual links and more importantly front-end commerce sites. But, these commerce sites won’t burden theowner with nagging little things like inventory or shipping because somebodyelse will be doing the transaction logistics and the blogger will get a cut ofthe deal—just like a broker does in any transaction when he brings twolikeminded people together.

Byusing the “Long Tail” theory from author Chris Anderson, a blogger like Alderat Vinography that supposedly has traffic in the million + range a month, willbe able to create a micro-store using API’s from, say, Amazon, as well as a winemerchant, and sell just wines that he recommends. Likewise, he can featureaccessories that suit his particular worldview on wine, right down to theRiedel tumblers and Laguiole corkscrew. Or not. Maybe Alder prefers the Spiegelau stemware and the simplicity of theRabbit.

Thepoint is somebody pulling that kind of traffic could enhance their cult ofpersonality and create a mini-Oprah empire for themselves online.

TomPeters, author of A Brand Called You also wrote the forward to NakedConversations by Robert Scoble—2006’s best book on blogging. You can almost hear the clickety-clack on thekeyboard as he writes a book to tell bloggers how to create their own brandonline.

And,frankly, this isn’t that much of a limb shaking proposition, the capabilitiesare already in place. Robert Scoble, hascreated a reputation and a brand for himself, even if, in the bloggingtradition, it’s the un-brand, full of authenticity.

Insteadof creating affiliate programs, retailers will be creating brokering programsand more diligently policing the sites that they grant brokering rights to.

They’regoing to want to protect their brand and that’s the one thing that the Internetdid help create for Snakes on a Plane.

Whichblog(s) will sign up to sell the DVD?

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August 21 2006

News, Notes & Dusty Bottle Items

Randomthought #1: The most revered wine shopin Indianapolis is also one that I’ve railed against in the past for pricingtactics that are not completely above reproach.

Whenforced in to their shop this past weekend to buy some micro beers, I noticedthat the front window, in addition to having extremely dusty Riedel crystal,also had a sun-faded copy of the Wine Spectator from … 1999.

Suchis the state of wine affairs in Indianapolis, IN. Anyone that wants to come into this market with a good, authenticconcept and excellent selection will gain immediate buzz, market share andrevenue. There’s a gaping hole inbetween the Sam’s/Costco/World Market (henceforth known as the “Sam’s CostMarket” national retail play and the independent store in Indianapolis proper.

I’ma week late to the New York Times Wine Ratings conversation so I’ll defer myopinions as it has already been well-trodden in the blogosphere.

But,what I find really funny about the article is Michael Deloach’s quotes. Deloach is the Vice President of Hook & Ladder winery in Sonoma. And, in theinterest of full disclosure, Hook & Ladder is a winery that has recentlybegun a small-scale wine blog sampling program that I am a part of. I love his attitude, though! He references Wilfred Wong from Beveragesand More, a large chain in California who also does his own 100 point scoringof wines and says:

Wilfredis a bona fide wine guy, but, really, think about it, who needs Parker when youcan make up your own numbers? If Parkeror Spectator don’t give you a high enough score, you can make up your own.”

Classic!

Imean, really, if you have a shelf talker in your wine tasting room and yourUncle Bob calls himself a wine consultant and declares it a 96 point wine, whois really going to call him on it?

Deloachgoes on to suggest that a three or a four point system is a model whose timehas come because

Applyinga 100-point scale to wine is dishonest. It makes the consumer think it’s scientific.

Itend to disagree with him there—consumers don’t think it’s scientific,consumers have just come to trust other people more then themselves when itcomes to the taste of wine.

But,his recommendation does have merit. Foranybody that has purchased a book off of Amazon.com, how many times have youbegged off of buying a book that was rated five stars in aggregate by a bunchof reviewers? And, by the same token,how many times have you passed on a two star rated book only to buy somethingelse.

Bookson Amazon.com and wine aren’t too far from each other really—you’re buying bothof them sight unseen and both are highly subjective in their merit.

Maybea combination of the qualitative benefits of the Davis 20 point system coupledwith an Amazon.com five star system is the way to go.

Dr.Vino has a quick hit on the new movie starring Russell Crowe from directorRidley Scott.

RidleyScott has typically done action flicks and Russell Crowe usually does strongmale, subtlety nuanced and flawed characters, which makes this all the morecurious.

AGood Year, based on the novel by Peter Mayle, is anything but an action movieand Russell Crowe won’t be put on any boxing gloves or gladiator gear for thisflick.

Accordingto a Publishers Weekly review at Amazon.com:

Mayle’sbreezy, uncomplicated fifth novel (Chasing Cezanne, etc.) and ninth bookfollows 30-something Max Skinner from a sabotaged financial career in London tohis adoption of the Provençal lifestyle on an inherited vineyard in France. Maxspent holidays at his Uncle Henry’s vineyard as a child, so when he inheritsthe place, the prospect of returning is tempting; a generous "bridgingloan" from ex-brother-in-law Charlie seals the deal. The estate, LeGriffon, is in a dire state of disrepair and the wine cellar is filled withbottles of a dreadful-tasting swill, but it’s nothing that vineyard caretakerClaude Roussel and prim housekeeper Madame Passepartout can’t resolve. Maxsettles into his new life easily thanks to the attentions of local notaryNathalie Auzet and busty cafe owner Fanny. The arrival of young Californian"wine brat" Christie Roberts, Uncle Henry’s long-lost daughter,complicates matters for Max, but her surprise offer and Charlie’s arrivallessen the impact of a vicious vineyard scandal involving a delicious,high-priced, discreetly produced wine called Le Coin Perdu. Mayle’s simplestory provides lighthearted if unadventurous reading and a fond endorsement ofthe pleasures of viniculture.

Dr.Vino also has a link to a movie trailer you can check out here.

Doubtfulif this movie sneaks up on the country like Sideways did—probably a little morepromotion for this celluloid wine romp.

And,last, but not least, Appellation America, a wine commerce site, has added anifty little Web 2.0 feature with combo mapping/satellite imagery from Googlemaps.

Thisis a nice little feature—not earth shattering, but as Appellation Americacontinues to wrap content firmly around commerce, it adds a little bit to theirpositioning to engender, in the online space, identification with the not onlythe story aspect of the winery, but also its physical location.

Todate, they haven’t added much in the way of community to the site, likelybecause they are bolstering their writing line-up of content contributors from thevarious AVAs and regions and you can only do a couple of things at once and dothem well.

AAseems to be doing a lot of things well—I’d keep an eye on them … and now, if Icould get them to ship to Indiana.

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