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August 19 2006

Snakes on a Plane and the Wine Blogosphere

Todate, the blogosphere has developed into an important communication sub-sectionof the Internet. Case studies abound of the impact that this do-goodermedium—with only a slight modicum of commerce—has had on society at-large.

Storieshave been broken, politicians have been made honest and small craftsman toilingin the shadows of big business have had their work placed on a larger stage.

 Eventhe wine industry has been touched as a South African winery named Stormhoekused an iconoclastic Internet marketer and a small band of passionate“influencers” to introduce its wine into the U.K.and subsequently the U.S. markets.

Tomat Fermentation, one of the leading wine bloggers, and a gifted thinker able tooffer opinions in a way that is sensible and alienable, has a full excerpt of aspeech he gave at an Inertia Beverage Group customer summit where he placedblogging into context for an audience hungry to understand how to usetechnology to develop their business. He said, in part:

TheRise of Egalitarian Media

Butthen comes the blog. Combine the ease of creation of the blog with the power ofsearch engines and Internet information aggregators and all of a sudden,everyone has a printing press, everyone has a television station and everyonehas a radio station. Now, all of a sudden, everyone is on fairly equal footingwhen it comes to being part of the media.

Millionsof people are taking advantage of the new age of egalitarian media. And forthose who are really taking advantage of this new technology, they are findingthat people are reading, responding and being influenced.

It’sa whole new ballgame and marketers need to be aware of who is playing the gameand what the game means.

AsI write this, however, and by the middle of next week, the entire blogospherecould be in the burning ashes of mainstream media backlash.

Asimple, campy movie comes out this weekend called Snakes on a Plane. StarringSamuel L. Jackson, the flick is the first movie to use pre-release, wide scaleInternet audience participation to craft the product itself—kind of like 1000sof Internet denizens crafting a custom cuvee for a winery—as opposed to thewinemaker and a small handful of people selecting what the customers willenjoy.

From USA Today:

"Wehave absolutely no idea what kind of business it’s going to do," saysRussell Schwartz, head of marketing for Snakes distributor New Line Cinema."We’re really proud of what we managed to do with the movie. But I’veheard estimates from $15 million to $50 million. We’re eager to see what effectthe Internet community has on box office."

That’sbecause the Internet had such a profound effect on the film. No movie openeditself up to more online feedback — and listened.

Jackson has said that bloggershelped persuade New Line to retain the popular original title instead of thetitle dreamed up by studio honchos, Pacific Air Flight 121.

Thestudio also decided to give fans more sex and gore, which they also demanded,and even added a line suggested by one blogger that has become the catchphraseof summer: "I’ve had it with these mother(expletive) snakes on thismother(expletive) plane!"

Certainly,studios are no neophytes to the Internet. In 1999, Artisan used a cyberspacecampaign to help propel The Blair Witch Project to $140 million.

ButSnakes marks one of the first movies to use fan reaction to craft the productitself.

But,the rub in this situation is the blogosphere has already been feeling the tugsof commerce and monetization—to the displeasure of many who seek to maintainthe purity of passion for passions sake.

From the Boston Globe:

Regardlessof how the movie turns out, a line is being crossed here, and it raisesquestions that don’t have quick answers. Should audiences have a hand in how amovie is made, even an out-and-out crowd-pleaser? At what point in the processdoes a director become part of the marketing team? Is this a bad thing or doesit just rubber-stamp a practice increasingly part of the cost-conscious filmindustry? Can studios even hope to control the use of the blogosphere as amarketing tool?

And,mainstream media has been straddling the fence of the blogosphere beingappropriately fawning and derisive as the situation warrants.

I’vegotten calls [from filmmakers] asking how we can do this again," saysSnakesonablog.com’s Finkelstein. I’m sure you’ll see other movies with sillytitles. The very smart thing New Line did, though, was to do nothing. Noposters, no trailers. They recognized people were attracted to it on their own.And people, online especially, are very aware of what’s organic and what’sfalse, and if it’s false they shy away.

Snakeson a Plane will be a defining moment. If the movie opens strongly and is asuccess, sure validation for the blogosphere will prevail and the rising tidewill develop into a frothing fury.

Ifthe movie tanks, and doesn’t open with an audience, gets horrible reviews, andgenerally never rises above sucking to shade into the sublime then the media,more then likely, will pile on calling bloggers the cacophonous sycophants ofmainstream media—frustrated hacks that need to keep their jobs.

Whatis the message for wineries and wine lovers? The future of ‘Net centricmarketing hangs in the balance and my guess is the medium will be validated andthe blogosphere will start to blur into influential micro-nichecommerce/content oriented web sites.

By Wednesday, August 23rd thatcustom cuvee I mentioned earlier might sound a whole lot more interesting …

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August 19 2006

Fill ‘Er Up:  Wine into the Gas Tank

Mostpeople think Grappa, the high-alcohol Italian digestif made from theby-products of grapes, tastes like gasoline.

WithNorth American summer gasoline prices at record levels, their approximation maynot be too far from the truth and actually productive for society. Aninnovation in Italy is taking the pomace fromthe wine press and creating a biofuel.

Arecent article in Wired magazine, following up on a story arc from France in the 4^th quarterof last year, looks at the by-product use of the winepress to make a biofuel—wineethanol.

AnItalian distillery, Caviro, in Faenza is making silk out of thatproverbial sow’s ear.

Asthe former resident of a town that had an ethanol plant that made biofuel fromcorn by-products, I can hope that the smell is better with the grapes.

Cornethanol production was a thick, pungent smell redolent of pulpy cornsulpher.  On a humid Midwestern day thescent hung in the air like a low lying fog sending dogs and humans inside tothe respite of closed windows and air conditioning.

Anexcerpt from a September ‘06 Wired article discusses the “how” of the fuelmaking process:

Ofcourse, grape skins, like all plant matter contain carbohydrates that can bebroken down into sugar and fermented. Andenough ethyl alcohol can be distilled from the skins to make a decent source ofbio-fuel or gas additive.

FromOctober until June, backhoes pick apart the pile and feed the mulch onto aseries of conveyors, which carry it to a series of presses and kettles. The resulting solution is further fermentedto make both grappa, a potable (to some, anyway) alcohol, at one end of thedistillery and bio-fuel at the other. 

But,picking up from articles that have run with a dateline from France, it’s just not thewinepress by-product that can be converted to ethanol; it’s also ACTUAL WINEfrom over production. In a plan dubbed “crisisdistillation” the European Union has been trying to curb the over productionthat has led to plummeting wine prices by allowing member states to sell wineto distilleries.

Stateside,in late June, the big three American auto manufacturers have agreed to produce2 million biofuel vehiclesby 2010; adding to the 5 million vehicles already on the road.

"UglyAmericans" everywhere are now vexed with a quandary—forsake the gas guzzlingSUV or luxury sedan in order to use a sensible car that treats our environment withcare and a sense of repurpose, or continue down the path of conspicuousconsumption because nobody wants precious wine to be dumped into the double boilerof distillation ...

photo credit

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August 17 2006

Wine on the Road Pt. II

I’m in LA this week for business, which makes it difficultto write meaningful blog entries when you’re doing breakfast meetings at 6:45am and getting back to your room at 9:30 pm after dinner.

I find it much more interesting to flesh out ideas ofinterest at Good Grape, but sometimes the “intrepid traveler” shtick isnecessary.

Itook a trip over to Manhattan Beach for happy hour by the pier and walkedaround a little bit. Manhattan Beach isa world famous beach and notable for a lot of things and one of them is thefact that it is a frequent stop for AVP pro beach volleyball, sponsored byBarefoot wines.

Whileat Manhattan Beach I also did a hot lap into a wine shop called Bacchus.

BacchusWines is one of those stores that have a small selection and all of the wines aresupposed to be carefully selected handcrafted, boutique wines—kind of like BestCellars—down to the wine categorization by flavor profile.

Allof the wines at Bacchus may be excellent and boutique, but mostly it just seemslike a very small wine shop with very little inventory.  I would guess they had, maybe, 40 differentwines.

Justthe same, a fool and his money are soon parted and when it comes to wine, mywallet and I separate frequently.

Ipicked up the 2004 Twenty Rows Cabernet Sauvignon—which, I found out viaWinerelease.com, was released in June 2006.

Istumbled across this web site a while back and didn’t think much of it, butupon revisit, I think it’s pretty cool—cool in the kind of way that a movieopening is cool and you want to see it that weekend. Though, long term I wonder about the viability of making an eventaround wine releases when most high-end vintages are intended to cellar andnobody is exactly clamoring for the release of the Barefoot Pinot Grigio.

But,oddly, when I tried to go to the Bacchus web site and then subsequently theTwenty Rows web site, neither had any information. Bacchus didn’t come up period and the Twenty Rows didn’t have anyinformation—just a splash page—why have a web site if you can’t even muster upsome introductory copy?

Iguess this is the state of my Internet dependency—a wine store and a bottle ofwine, without any information on the Web, makes me wonder if the experienceeven existed.

Fortunately,to soothe this dearth of information on a supposedly good bottle of wine isplenty of information on maybe a not as fabulous bottle—Barefoot wine.

Tome, this is a classic example of a wine that had a lot going for it in terms ofbeing something a big brand that was still kind of interesting at a value pricepoint. Unfortunately, its acquisitionby Gallo in early 2005 kind of stripped away all the charm as it subsequentlywent on to grocery story end-cap infamy.

Evenmore curious, since it does so well at the supermarket, and most of its imageis around lifestyle with a partner on a beach, why would they sponsor AVPvolleyball which is very active and young—the demographics for sponsorshipinformation indicate that 71% of fans are between 18-34 years old, 84% attendedor are currently in college and that 70% make more then $50K a year. I’m thinking that if you’re a wine drinker,you might be trading up to something a little better then the $6.99 stuff.

 I’m heading back easttomorrow and will be back to tying independent thoughts together—and thankgoodness, too. The really interestingposts happen after a glass of wine and hotel rooms don’t come with corkscrews.

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August 16 2006

Wine on the Road

You’d like for all of your business dinners to have fabulous wine, but, alas, sometimes common sense and a budget prevails.

I’m on the road this week and two work dinners encompassed the following wines—and, it should be noted that last night’s wine list was extensive with very modest mark-up.  Tonight, dinner was at The Cheesecake Factory, which, as a tablemate noted, is "upscale for the lowest common denominator."  If you’re at a national chain and the wine list is permanently printed then you might be in for a long night.  My co-workers called me from the restaurant while I was on the way over asking me to be the tiebreaker—Louis Jadot Pinot, Chalone Pinot or Wild Horse Pinot.  I chose the Chalone, but, eh, probably not again.

Cheescake Factory
2005 Chalone Monterey County Pinot Noir
Not a fave at our table.  Drank it and ditched it.

2002 Chateau St. Michelle Syrah
Drinkable.  Chateau St. Michelle is a pretty reliable value brand.  Not a lot of complexity, but serviceable.

2004 Francis Coppola Claret Diamond Series
Gotta drink this with food, because it tastes like crap without it.  Finishes incredibly long, but you really wish it didn’t.  Medicinal aftertaste.

2003 Franciscan Cabernet Sauvignon
The best of lot. Nice body, good fruit, balanced acidity, and the tannins, most importantly, are moderate.

Rock ‘N Fish
2001 Jordan Cabernet Sauvignon
A nice wine, silky smooth, with berries and cherries

2002 Rombauer Zinfandel
For me, a tried and true favorite.  A great wine and the winner at the table.

I learned a couple of things last night—#1) Irma Rombauer, the author of the Joy of Cooking, a book published by the publishing company where my wife did a publishing internship is a part of the extended Rombauer family. And, #2 Heitz Cellars, which we didn’t actually drink, uses "Limousine Oak."  This was a new one on me ... for my purposes if you can’t Google it and figure it out in 3 minutes then it’s probably not worthy to use in your wine copy.  After some struggle, I found that "limousine oak" is a french oak that lends some sweet, velvety nuance.

I’ll be glad to get home, though, because I did a bottle swap with a guy at work—I gave him a Caparone Sangiovese (which I love) at $14 bucks a bottle and I got back a $35 bottle.  I’ll make that trade anytime.  Though, secretly, I think it was a leveling of the playing field because I occasionally foist a bottle on somebody as a thank you or to curry favor.  Nobody likes to have too many debts outstanding, though.

Salut!

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August 15 2006

The Wine Book Reading Queue

Last week I did a New World cartoon about the pendingrelease of Natalie Maclean’s book—Red, White, and Drunk All Over.

Itwas with some surprise that Natalie sent me an email indicating she saw andenjoyed the cartoon—ah, the small joys of blogging.

Istarted thinking about my wine reading habits because, frankly, I read apreponderance of magazines and books and most of them are about wine.

Natalie’sbook is, I think, something of a first-person narrative—a slight detour frommost new wine books that are published that plow the familiar territory ofcursory education—her book comes out in September.

Latelast year I read the book A Very Good Year by Mike Weiss that, truthfully,wasn’t a very good book. It didn’t haveanything to do with the author, either. He did the best he could with the material he had, but there wasn’tenough drama to wring out of the Nervous P.R. Nellie’s at Ferrari-Carano andtheir Fume Blanc, the winery cash cow.

Aroundthe same time I also listened to True to Our Roots: Fermenting a Business Revolution by Paul Dolan, who used to runFetzer Vineyards. Dolan’s effort waswell intentioned and interesting to a point—overall a decent read, but itultimately fails as a leadership or business tome with most of its hackneyedadvice. And, don’t even think aboutlistening to it as a book-on-tape—the narrator’s voice sounds like Beelzebubsucking helium—every “s” broken off crisply as if diction in his house growingup was as important as the piano lesson—it was barely tolerable and less so whenbattling rush hour traffic.

So,based on near-term historical experience, I have been skeptical of most booksabout wine that aren’t strictly about education.

Wineis just such a different beast that to convey it on a larger, more contextuallevel you almost have to transpose it with another industry or social order inorder to drive home any insight.

So,it has been with reluctance that I circle back to a half dozen wine relatedbooks in an effort to get some background on Napa and Sonoma outside ofdrinking the heck of the regions wines.

Inmy current queue are the following titles (Thank goodness for Amazon.com usedbooks):

Napa: The Story of an American Eden by JamesConaway
IfJames Michener wrote an opus on the wine industry, it might be like this bookpublished in the very early 1990’s

TheFar Side of Eden by James Conaway
Amorality story on the new rich in Napa valley

TheGrail by Brian Doyle
Astory about an Oregon winery’s quest to make the best Pinot in the WillametteValley

MyFirst Crush by Linda Kaplan
AnotherOregon wine story of a couple pursuing their dream in building a winery

AWine Journey Along the Russian River by Steve Heimoff
Anexploration of this AVA to place it inhallowed esteem with other notable and great regions in the world

ATale of Two Valleys by Alan Deutschman
IfUS Weekly had a Napa/Sonoma edition, it—allegedly—would be like this bookssnarky view of the denizens of the Valley

 If anybody has readany of these books and wants to help me prioritize which gets read first,please let me know.  Otherwise, keep aneye out for a used copy somewhere in an airport by you (because I travel quitea bit, I’ll probably pay it forward and leave these books somewhere alawww.bookcrossing.com).

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