August 1 2006
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August 1 2006
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August 1 2006
Several wine bloggers have observed the sale of two brandsfrom Bonny Doon iconoclast Randall Graham to a management owned company calledUnderdog Wine Merchants. Their twonewly acquired brands—Cardinal Zin and The Big House—join other labels likePinot Evil, Killer Juice and Herding Cats.
In a current Wine and Spirits magazine interview, Graham had a bit of foreshadowing going on when he said:
RG: IfI may jump in with a thought: I think that the biggest part of theproblem is a certain character of the American people. We want everyoneto love us and by extension, to love our wines. I think that it isdeeper than just commercial expediency, though that is certainly thelargest part of it. New World winemakers make confectionery winesbecause their customers seem to prefer them. We in the New Worldlargely make wines to please others rather than ourselves because wegenerally don’t have the self-confidence that comes from being rootedin a place, to know that we have vineyards that speak to us.
Not hard to read between the lines and consider that Randall Graham is shedding the albatross of expectations (and making some money along the way) to get back to pleasing himself. I wish this guy would write a book--he’d could be this generation’s Ben & Jerry if he wanted to.
By the same token, it’s not real hard to see that Underdog is building up abusiness full of labels that would/should/allegedly appeal to a members of Gen.Y. Afterall, a breeze through myindependent Arts & Entertainment Weekly in the burgeoning metropolis ofIndianapolis gives me similar edgy treatment for clubs and the like and so doesclub/bar/nightlife marketing in cities across the country.
Yet, still, … a part of me wants to say that these labelaggregators have the wrong strategy.
Over at Pinot Blogger, a blog on the process of starting-upCapozzi winery, Josh is taking votes on label design. And, of the four options, there’s nothing trendy of the sort. Just clean, crisp, classic design.
If you’ll set aside price point for a second, because Idon’t know how much the Capozzi will cost, I have to believe that if a rational23 year old were given a choice between two bottles—price being equal—and understandingthat wine is an aspirational product, that he would pick the Capozzi over the Pinot Evil.
Maybe I’m crazy, but I dig the “old school” look like A.Rafinelli and and Caparone—something that says “anti-trend, small, can’t findit everywhere” is cooler then an attempt at cleverness like Pinot Evil. I’m not 23, but I’m still in the 18 – 34 demo…
Call me crazy--andthen go vote at Pinotblogger.com
Hmmm ... Capozzi and Josh are in Sonoma, too. I think I need to bribe him into getting me a couple of bottles from Rafanelli, too.
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August 1 2006
Asa follow-on to my post on wine bottle recycling, I ran across an item for corkrecycling, too. This company—Yemm &Hart in Missouri--is trying to collect 1,000 lbs of wine cork to recycle (anamount that they deem sufficient to undertake the endeavor). NOBODY ELSE IN THE U.S. IS RECYCLING WINECORKS.
Ifind that hard to believe.
Iknow I save virtually all of my corks, but is everybody else really justpitching them?
Basedon an analysis of weight—it would take 133,000 regular wine corks or about 50,000champagne corks to get started, according to the company.
Thecork will be re-processed and then turned into a block that will then be cutinto sheets—it sounds like the type of cork that is found on the back ofcoasters, etc as a protective barrier.
Yemm& Hart mentioned that if they get enough cork they may start to make “winecork” flooring.
Mybrother has been looking at cork as a basement flooring because it’s green,it’s durable, and attractive.
Maybe the wineindustry can get behind a total recycling program with bottles and cork tocomplement the organic and biodynamics in the vineyard that is takingexceedingly good grip in the industry ...
I ran across De Long Wine web site. This is an interesting follow-on to a post Ihad last week about the difference between telling and showing.
Or, in other words, using visuals to tell a story.
Thisis De Long’s stock in trade. They haveseveral high quality, graphically pleasing posters and
info-graphics that actas a varietal map,--their grape varietal map lays out 180 + grapes categorizedby body and acidity. It’s prettyinteresting stuff. And, they also havea couple of free downloads for tasting notes and a comparison of wine ratingsystems that can be found on their blog here.
Thereare a ton of applications for this visual approach in the world of wine—though,my comments are more specifically targeted at wine producers and wine marketeers.
Igot tipped off in the current issue of Wine Business Monthly to anothermicro-crush company aside from Crushpad—geared towards consumers. I’ve written in the past about my love forthe concept at Crushpad—a pro-am winemaking outfit based in San Francisco. The article goes into some detail on bothNapa Valley Custom MicroCrush and Crushpad. But, they mention another company called Napa Valley Reserve thatdoesn’t get featured—probably because their business model is akin to a yachtclub with initiation fees of $150,000—I think this provides for a barrel ofwine that can be private-labeled for personal consumption and a slice of thegood life. It’ll be a good long whiletil I have $150K burning a hole in my pocket to spend on a barrel of wine.
But,if $150,000 isn’t your speed, then I wonder when the reality video gameequivalent will come out--that mightbe more my speed.
Iwas over at a friends house the other day when he was playing Xbox 360 over theInternet against another guy somewhere in Buffalo, NY.
Mindyou, I’m in my early 30’s and besides growing up on Atari and playing theoccasional Nintendo in high school, the whole Playstation and Xbox thing has bypassed me.
Ihave an Xbox at home which I bought on eBay for a song, and it has seen a totalof about 3 hours worth of use. Irecently bought a game called Head Coach which isn’t game action necessarily,but it lets the videogamer act as, well, the Head Coach, of an NFL franchiseand make decisions for the team—those decisions leading to the health andwealth of the franchise. I got it amonth ago and haven’t played it yet, but I guess writing about it is a goodmove in the right direction.
There’sanother game called Sims 2: Open forBusiness that lets players run a business with similar opportunity for successor failure.
But, the game I’mreally waiting for is one based on starting a winery. That would be a blockbuster. Consider for a moment all of the Generation Y/Millenials drinking wineand you realize that it might not be that far off.
Somewhere in between the microcrush model and the videogame action in terms of participation has to be a wine cruise. Like most cruises--your close enough to the action to taste it, but far enough away to not get messy.
With harvest around the corner, I’ve seen two recent wine related cruises that might be interesting for the armchair vintner--a Carnival wine cruise or a smaller, more personal cruise close to the Napa/Sonoma wine country that actually traverses rivers and the SF Bay.
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