February 23 2007
… A couple of quick hits … my wife’s interview with Dr. Ruth, my podcast with Tim at Winecast, working through the demise of Wine X, what they’re drinking at the Oscars … and ‘A Good Year.’
The winners for the American Wine Blog Awards were announced yesterday. First, a hearty thanks go to Tom Wark at Fermentation for his stellar work in organization and execution of the awards project. He deserves kudos and as I’ve noted before, his blog was inspiring to me in terms of how to do a wine blog that didn’t focus on reviews. Thanks go, as well, to all those that voted and those that voted for Good Grape as winner in the Best Wine Blog Graphics category! Thanks are in order and go to to Peter Flaschner at The Blog Studio for his design. He really has a gift for interpreting my aesthetic desires and making things even better than I envisioned.
Congrats to winners in the other categories—Pinot Blogger, Dr. Vino, Vinography, Winelibrary.tv and Vinfolio. It’s good company.
Given the awards and the new lookyloos, and after the Wine X situation this week, I kind of feel compelled to let rip an epic post full of insight about wine, demographics and the shifting tides of information consumption in the U.S. Alas, I may, but it won’t be this post.
A new blog on the scene, www.grapethinking.com, did give me pause, though, with comments on my site about how people take in content—noting, basically, “Who reads magazines anymore?” Tim at Winecast.net echoed similar sentiments as well.
Maybe I’m in a bubble because I disagree that ink on paper is going the way of the 8-track. I LOVE MAGAZINES and read, don’t laugh, at least 30 a month. Seriously. I don’t even count the Playboy because despite the old jokes about reading Playboy for the articles, I don’t really read Playboy, but I do look at it. And, if you think I’m bluffing on the magazine count send me an email and I send you my reading list. Our mail lady should receive a medal of honor. Plus, my wife works in publishing and I was a journalism major, so we’re book people, too. They’ll have to wrestle the newspaper out of my wretched ink stained fingers.
So, obviously, I’m on the other side of the equation.
In other news, Tim at Winecast.net has posted the February edition of our monthly Unfiltered podcast. Focusing on bringing together a diverse group of people from the wine industry and the wine blogosphere, the podcast is a fun little conversation about current events and things that may be of interest to those in and around the industry and folks that follow dimensions about the grape deeper than the glass. This month’s episode features Jason Korman from Stormhoek winery, Alan from Cellar Rat, and Dr. Vino, the newly crowned Best Wine Blog winner.
If a wine podcast isn’t enough for you, be sure you check out the podcast my wife did for her company, Wiley Publishing, and the “For Dummies” line of books. She did two interviews with Dr. Ruth Westheimer—one on how to spice up your sex life and the other about what men and woman each wish the other knew about sex. It’s a very, very fun listen.
And, finally, in the event that you were wondering, for the fourth year in a row, the Oscar dinner (Governors Ball) for attendees to the premiere movie awards program will eat Wolfgang Puck’s fare while drinking wines from Sterling Vineyards. In what has to be one of the primo placements for the wine business, Sterling creates a few barrels each of a Gold Standard Reserve Chardonnay and a Red Carpet Reserve Cabernet and they give large format bottles to officially sanctioned Oscar parties for charitable purposes and pour the rest at the official dinner.
I won’t make any predictions on the winners for the Oscars, but I will predict that it’ll be on my television, my wife’s version of the Super Bowl, and I’ll probably be reading a magazine and drinking a glass of something … I can also guarantee you that A Good Year, this year’s great wine hope for a movie, wasn’t nominated and won’t win anything. But, you can own it on DVD on Tuesday 2/27. The web site for the DVD release is pretty polished and they have an interactive feature that allows a user to build a vineyard that is worth five minutes of poking around. Check out the site and the build a vineyard feature here.
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Posted in, Good Grape Daily: Pomace & Lees. Permalink | Comments (2) | Print | Email This
February 22 2007
As a final, final postscript to the WineX story from yesterday, a story that received more wine blogosphere notice than any other story I can recall over the last year aside from the resveratrol angle, I was forwarded this story about being in the waning years of the 18-34 demographic.
We’ll soon return to normal wine related items, things of interest to most, but this article especially resonated because I too am in the last year of the 18-34 demo, the demo that WineX alleged to appeal to, and it hits the mark on a couple of notes. And, as well, I feel connected to WineX in a dysfunctional relationship kind of way, having followed the magazine for the last seven or eight years, fraught with frustration.
Well, it’s now 2007 and the generation who rages together ages together. We are now older, in managerial positions—but still creating companies aimed at driving forward the growth and adoption of technology and knowledge. Of course, we also embrace terms like “viral marketing” and “social networking,” all of which are slightly ambiguous terms used to explain the daily occurrences of life in an online environment where things are out of our control, and yet we still want to take credit for them. We try to harness the power of the consumer and use it for the “greater good” which basically means we pawned off the creative responsibility for 50% of what we do and called it “user-generated content.” We even convinced Time magazine to give “You” the award for Person of the Year in 2006, primarily because we couldn’t figure out if there was anyone who stood out and did something more important than the rest of us. No; our enthusiasm for the future is actually quite strong, because we keep finding ways to make our jobs fun and create new opportunities for us to sell ourselves to the world at large.
In particular, the one thing that really sticks out about WineX, especially in the autopsy phase, is that it provoked strong feelings—mostly vitriolic feelings—completely in contrast to warm fuzzies of social communities on the Internet. Rare is the time when people proverbially call out the son of a bitch at his funeral. Unfortunately, Darryl Roberts is getting that kind of flack online. Simply, he never was able to sell himself or his magazine to the industry, not too mention the world at large.
The second notion is a truism related by the esteemed Lloyd Dobler from the movie “Say Anything,” excerpted from the post:
Of course, now my mind drifts off into space and I recollect the famous words of one Lloyd Dobler, from the movie “Say Anything”: “A career? I’ve thought about this quite a bit, sir, and I would have to say, considering what’s waiting out there for me, I don’t want to sell anything, buy anything or process anything as a career. I don’t want to sell anything bought or processed or buy anything sold or processed or repair anything sold, bought or processed as a career...” and so on and so on.
Like I said, tomorrow we’ll return to normal programming, but for one last moment let’s reinforce the point that Generation X doesn’t want to ‘sell anything bought or processed or buy anything sold or processed.” Ultimately, the plaintive wail of a lack of industry support from Darryl Roberts is an industry renouncement of not only his magazine, but also his demographic processing.
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Posted in, Wine: A Business Doing Pleasure. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print | Email This
February 20 2007
Maybe it’s a slow news day, or maybe it’s because a guy, bloodied and beaten, lunged below the belt, a last ditch effort of the street fighter courting defeat, but unwilling to go down without a parting shot.
Wine X magazine announced they were closing down—announced on Decanter.com no less, a U.K. double gun middle finger salute aimed at the U.S. wine industry that allegedly didn’t do enough to support the young target market that Mr. Darryl Roberts cultivated for the last 8-10 years at Wine X magazine. Assuredly, Dale Carnegie would not approve.
And, some folks linked to below are weighing in:
In my pop culture view, there is a 15 year gap in between perception and reality. By that I mean that sometimes fifty year olds think they can identify with 35 years and 35 year olds think they can identify with 20 years olds. There’s a part of us that thinks we can skip down half a generation and still be current.
Rarely does speaking in the same voice occur naturally in between two generations if leadership and mutual respect isn’t also a part of the equation. Ultimately, Roberts was trying to step down a generation without providing leadership to the industry or speaking in the same voice. His scarlet letter is a crash and burn marked with an X.
As a sometime subscriber, albeit frustrated, I wrote a lengthy post on their miscues in June of ’06. Read the full post. In that post I was incredulous at the re-hash they put out as a new magazine amongst numerous other grossly negligent mistakes they were making in trying to appeal to an audience that I occupy. Ultimately the issue that prompted my ire was the last issue published.
I’m not surprised they’re folding up their tent. Very rarely have I seen somebody so completely disconnected and out of touch from their intended audience. And, let’s get one thing straight—they didn’t target millenials. They targeted Generation X and they targeted a hipster Gen X that had long ago ceded the bar scene to more mature lifestyle choices. But, the content and style of the magazine never kept up with Generation X, nor came even close to Generation Y.
I’m not about to dance on anybody’s grave, but I will say that Wine X magazine is and was a good idea that suffered from terrible planning and terrible execution. I have frequently ranted about a lack of a magazine for my generation, not too mention folks 10 years my junior. That opportunity still exists for somebody that wants to approach it intelligently. If you don’t believe me, check out a bookstore—any Border’s or Barnes & Noble will do and look at the music magazine section. In this day and age of plummeting cd sales, Web 2.0, ipods, and digital downloads, etc music information publishing is increasing. Yes, increasing. There are scores of music magazines that did not exist a couple of years ago. Rolling Stone has a lot of company. Oddly enough these music magazines target the same supposed audience that Wine X did, and younger consumers. If you want to check out a magazine that addresses a youthful culturally literate and wine consuming audience check out this link for Imbibe magazine. If you want to check out a music magazine that addresses an adult alternative-style music fan check out Paste Magazine. Whoever wants to create a wine magazine to address Generation X and Y would do well to start with these two examples.
Mr. Roberts rails against the wine industry and their lack of support. Ultimately, this is the defense mechanism of a man who has lost his magazine, his baby. I feel bad for him because an idea without execution isn’t much to hang your hat on. And, unfortunately, Mr. Roberts is still looking for a place to hang his hat. Instead of raising the hackles of others for his poor form, I think he deserves our sympathy in failure.
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Posted in, Wine: A Business Doing Pleasure. Permalink | Comments (3) | Print | Email This
February 20 2007
There’s an interesting piece in Decanter about the demise of Wine X magazine. For readers unfamiliar with this wine publication, it’s been around for about 8 years and targets young adults with hipster lingo and quite a dollop of irreverence (sample wine review: “Tastier than a food fight at the Playboy Mansion… and the best part is lickin ‘ it clean."). Jeff posted about their recent “Just Points” campaign a few weeks back. Founder and editor Darryl Roberts blamed the entire wine industry for the shuttering of his magazine, stating, “The wine industry says it’s interested in young adults but spends all of its ad and promo money targeting the same people it’s been targeting for the past 30 years - rich, old white people.”
I don’t think the wine industry is as completely to blame as Mr. Roberts accuses here. Sure, this is a very traditional industry slow to catch onto online marketing or the targeting of demographic groups other than Baby Boomers but Wine X itself deserves much of the blame. That’s because they didn’t evolve with their target demographic who don’t read print publications. Yes, I know they have a hip website complete with RSS feeds, podcasts and email newsletters but these always seemed secondary to the print magazine.
It’s interesting to note that when Wine X started, back in 1997, their demographic was Gen-Xers as the oldest Millennials were only in their early teens. Over the past 8 years, Wine X continued to cater to entry level wine drinkers in their early to late 20’s who now are predominantly Millennials. This group has taken to wine, but not exactly like their Baby Boomer parents, and tend to gain their information via the internet. So if Wine X had evolved to serve this group, they would have beefed up their web presence while phasing out the expensive print magazine. Even their “podcasts” were played on the radio; not the way to get into the heads of the iPod generation. And since Millennials are multitaskers, reading blogs while listening to podcasts while watching Family Guy, they just don’t read many magazines. It’s really that simple.
I’m sorry Mr. Roberts, you have to shoulder most of the blame for Wine X’s demise. Let’s hope you have enough funding to reboot your website and really market wine to Millennials.
Cheers,
--
Tim Elliott
Winecast
PS: Sorry to say that it’s been 3 weeks since I posted here so this will be the first of a triple-shot this week to get back on track.
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Posted in, Winecast: A Year in Collaboration. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print | Email This
February 19 2007
In the lifecycle of any business there comes a point in time when you have to metaphorically push your chips to the middle of the table and go for it.
Congratulations to Neil Monnens, Publisher of the recently renamed WineBlueBook, for indicating “all in.”
Last week I received an email/press release highlighting the name change from QPRwines to the Wine Blue Book.
QPRwines, for several years, has published a newsletter 18 times a year; covering 17 different varietals that list wines reviewed by at least two different major wine reviewers, the QPR, or quality to price ratio, is measured based on the price of the bottle measured against the aggregate reviewer numerical score and then baselined against the average sales price of that varietal.
It’s a beautifully simple system, but one that only a spreadsheet lovin’ statistician could pull off, something that Neil probably comes to with either talent or discipline, or both.
I initially found the name change curious because QPR seemed to be a brand-able “Kleenex” like name that could become a category name. I was a touch skeptical even. Being a student of business, and a consumer of far too many business books and magazines, my immediate thought was to get some insight into the back story. Neil and I exchanged an email or two and I was able to glean some additional insight into the name changeover, albeit without much dramatic story arc—no middle of the night epiphanies; just a plain, simple business decision oriented around better building a brand.
It’s an interesting time in the wine business: with the proliferation of wineries and labels and an increasing savvy amongst winemakers interested in penetrating the ultra-premium to luxury price points above $15, regardless of quality of juice, coupled with an absolute dearth of any real quantitative metric in the world of wine and you have a recipe for consumer FUD (FEAR, UNCERTAINTY, DOUBT).
FUD, in essence, typifies today’s current wine buying climate. Sure, on a popular basis, Consumer Reports (CR) tries to fill the void, but I can’t help but speculate that wine enthusiasts view Consumer Reports as a misguided interloper into an area of appreciation they don’t understand. CR doesn’t have the currency of reputation of a Parker or a Laube to credibly command an audience in the wine world. And, they aim at the common denominator, which debases their credibility with those that drink a higher level of wine.
So, there’s a real challenge at hand here—wine reviews on the 100 point scale drive wine sales for ALL consumers. Sure, some say they don’t pay attention, but those are usually the people educated enough to not have to pay attention. For the rest of the wine consuming public, a 90 point score means something. However, if you’re a small business owner and you want to expand your reach beyond those that are cork dorks looking for a QPR score and cross the transom to capitalize on the increasing growth in wine consumption with less educated (think sophomore in college instead of Masters degree), though still passionate consumers that drives to an additional need for education, what do you do?
Enter the WineBlueBook.
Neil indicated, demographically:
Last summer’s survey showed the audience as predominantly male, 45-64 years old with a college/post college degree. They purchased 11-20 cases of wine in the past year, own 1-20 cases of wine and paid an average price of $11 to $30. Favorite issues (varietals) are Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, Bordeaux and Zinfandel.
Neil made the change, in part, because:
Early feedback is already showing WineBlueBook as an easier name to remember and pre-educates the consumer before I even begin explaining the product. Although Kelley Blue Book is the most recognizable “blue book” there are over 160 trademarked “blue books” on the market that cover various subjects including residential property, grammar, legal, wastewater, etc … even “pool cues.” WineBlueBook strives to be the source for wine values.
It’s an interesting dichotomy and it will be interesting to see the development of WineBlueBook. On the one hand, aggregating scores and doing the heavy lifting of analysis for a thirsty high-end customer is a tidy business, especially if you can take the branding of the newsletter/product into an area that can garner more mass acceptance—i.e. beyond the 45 + male that buys at least 11 cases a year.
However, I think in order to really expand the business beyond just being a well-accepted “point solution” and becoming something of far greater value, Neil will have to go from being an aggregator to something of a content creator by having experts review the boutique wines of California and elsewhere that don’t make the critics list.
In response to a question about brand extension and review of boutique wines, Neil says:
There is tremendous potential but at the moment my time is spent producing and improving the core product. There are tremendous partners that could take place in the future to apply the QPR method to wines that don’t get reviewed by the critics.
Something tells me that while Neil kept his cards close to the vest on this question he has other plans that will indicate more of the “all in” nature of a branding change.
Cheers to Neil and WineBlueBook for what appears to be a savvy business decision!
I now respectfully submit that he set out to solve the still vexing problem of figuring out which small production, un-reviewed, up and coming Pinot from Santa Barbara is a good value. If he can do that he’ll truly bridge the gap between wine aficionado and wine consumers becoming the wine equivalent of CarFax, Kelley Blue Book, Consumer Reports and any other indefatigable and trusted resource on third-party value.
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Posted in, Free Run: Field Notes From a Wine Life. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print | Email This
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