March 5 2007
Abbie Hoffman once said, “The 60s are gone, dope will never be as cheap, sex never as free, and the rock and roll never as great.”
He’s right on several counts. Many would argue about the rock and roll portion, though.
When I was talking through web site ideas with my designer I told him I wanted it to look like an imagining of a rock poster from 1920s bourgeoisie Paris.
I think he nailed it.
Rock posters as art have been going through something of a renaissance the last couple of years. Numerous artists and traditional screen printers have taken to modern techniques and antique letterpresses to create what amounts to one-off, or limited edition works of art.
You can see examples of what I’m talking about here.
I’ve made the analogy before, but rock bands and wineries, particularly small wineries, have more in common than they have differences.
And, forget for a moment that there is no winery that has even begun to capture the merchandising opportunity that exists for a winery brand. For interesting insight into a band as a product empire, check out this article on a company called MusicToday.
I thought then, as I still think now, that if somebody started doing letterpress rock posters for winery brands that you could have a really cool little online business going.
I also think it would be a good marketing idea for small wineries that don’t want to change the essence of their brand, but want to create some connecting relevancy with consumers (i.e. younger consumers) that blanch at the normal tasting room schwag and don’t drive off in a Benz, laughing, hair blowing in the wind, plumy cloud of dust trailing with a newly purchased case nestled in the trunk.
That is, most of us.
I have thought that Sebastiani & Sons might get this, since they seem to have a firm grip on packaging, technology and a good quality-to-price ratio for their brands. But, I think there might be some other guys that can step up to the table.
The other guys would be the team that brought out ‘Three Thieves’ wine (quality everyday juice in a jug). Charles Bieler, Joel Gott and Roger Scommegna have just released a Cabernet Sauvignon-based wine blended from the Central and North Coast AVAs called “The Show.”
The cool thing about this, separate from the wine, which I assume to be decent at a $15 price point, is, according to winebusiness.com:
The marketing angle here is the Wild West. Labels were designed by Hatch Show Print in Nashville, Tennessee. The company is famous for letterpress prints and posters depicting the likes of Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Louis Armstrong, Hank Williams, and other music and cultural icons.
Just to make sure that the positioning towards younger consumers is cemented, The Show wine also has a Myspace.com page—pretty savvy considering that Myspace has some 11,000 + members in wine affinity groups.
A relatively new blog, the Napa Valley focused The Cork Board highlighted on Fermentation today, even has a first person interview with Charles Bieler from Three Thieves. The short Q&A provides a couple of insights that are very savvy:
Question: The Three Thieves brand seems to be all about taking a bit of a contrarian stance on wine making and marketing, particularly when compared to the traditional Napa Valley winery. Talk to us a bit about the overarching strategy and thinking there.
Charles Bieler: Yeah, that’s perceptive. I’m a total contrarian by nature. If everyone is going one way, I need to go the other. I feel that the wine business often takes itself far too seriously, and there’s too much elitism associated. THREE THIEVES was founded on challenging all that and bringing good value in different formats (jugs, boxes, off beat labels, and niche categories).
Question: Your latest release, The Show, incorporates the style, packaging and marketing we’ve come to expect from Three Thieves. In fact, you guys even setup a MySpace page as part of the release. How did that idea come about and what’s been the general reception so far?
Bieler: Cool, glad you like THE SHOW. It was a great honor to work with the legendary poster shop, HATCH SHOW PRINT. We’d done some posters with them and I’d always dreamed of using their art to create a label. Eventually I was able to convince them. The response has been VERY strong.
Why MySpace? I draw my promoting inspiration more from the music world, than the wine world, and MySpace is standard for music promo. It’s a natural.
Very cool. You can scarcely go a day without seeing an article about the increase in wine consumption or the adoption of wine by younger consumers. Interesting, as well, that Three Thieves has chosen to push the upper limits of the super-premium wine category at the $15 price point. The way that wine is marketed is just now beginning to change. In 10 years, we’ll look back at “adventure brands” and concept labels like Little Penguin and the like and, perhaps, say that “The Show” ushered in a new era of evolution in marketing to a younger consumer while moving to higher ground, forgoing the schlock that has taken place the last couple of years in popular wine marketing.
If they can pull it off it would be an accomplishment worthy of framing ... maybe even a rock poster.
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March 4 2007
It has dawned on me, on the cusp of the rock band Van Halen’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 12th, that the band saga over the course of the last 30 years is something akin to a vertical wine tasting, what with Van Halen’s myriad of singers (three at last count) within the same framework of music and opinions on superiority so scattered as to almost be divisive.
Everybody has an opinion on which vintage from the same wine type from the same winery is best, so to speak.
When Van Halen’s seminal album “1984” was released (the last album with singer David Lee Roth), I was in 5th grade, just getting into music and still developing my love for hair metal.
Kiss “Animalize” and Motley Crue’s “Shout at the Devil” (members from both bands would go on to make wine, it should be noted) played on my cassette deck as my twin brother and I stomped and pounded our way to a sustained level of Nerf Hoop prowess in our shared bedroom. My parents graciously allowed us to earn valuable body-checking skills against a repeated symphony of door thudding--legacy Dr. J finger rolls and nascent Michael Jordan exalted dunks the reward, even if it was on a 7-foot door.
A couple of years later when I went to a week long basketball camp at Notre Dame, I had Van Halen’s new album, 5150, with new lead singer Sammy Hagar on my Walkman, all the rage in 1987.
In the still-simmering war of which era of Van Halen was better—David Lee Roth or Sammy Hagar, I choose Hagar—blasphemy to most.
But, interestingly enough, while David Lee Roth is a public liability saying all of the wrong things while introducing his reunion with Van Halen for a world tour within the same 10 days that the tour is called off, Wine Spectator had a feature article on their web site with Sammy Hagar, who is a noted wine lover with a 10,000 bottle cellar.
Thankfully, the WS writer mentions nary a word about Van Halen, but readers are treated to a pretty good interview with Sammy who reveals that his very first wine experience, in the mid-70s, included a 1927 Martinez Port, a 1960s Yquem and a 1950s Latour. We should all be so lucky. The thing that sticks out about Sammy is his obvious humility as he talks about his learning curve and trying to age Beaujolais and the fact that he’s never visited any regions in Europe.
Some excerpts below:
My first misconception was that the older the wine, the better it’s going to be. I was under the impression that I had to age all these wines forever. That was because of that Port. I started putting everything away, and then I started figuring out later in life that not everything ages that well. Like when I first got into Beaujolais, I bought some and laid them down, and they were awesome until about three years later!
I saved my money--I wasn’t rich back then--and I got hip to prearrival Bordeauxs, because they were about nine bucks back then. I’ve always tried to buy a case and put one bottle away. I have an area of my cellar that’s one bottle from each case I’ve ever bought, unless I found as I drank the case that the bottles didn’t hold up. A lot of the ‘73 Bordeauxs didn’t hold up too well. I think I have a 1973 Mouton left because of the Picasso label. But back then I was buying some of the fourth or fifth growths, and they weren’t holding up.
I’ve never visited any wineries in Europe. When I’m on tour, I’m on tour. And when I’m finished I’m going to an island rather than to wine country. I’m a coast guy. But here in California I’ve been to pretty much all of them. I used to love going up there because I knew the people, and I knew the Bundschu family. Dick Arrowood became a good friend. [And] I used to go up to Caymus when Chuck Wagner Sr. was selling wine out of his kitchen. But lately if I go up there, I just go to one of the restaurants and just eat and drink … and take a limo home!
And, in response to a question about any other musicians he knows of and their appreciation of wine:
I’m kind of the guru, but in the old days I met Al Stewart, the guy who sang that song “Year of the Cat.” I was with the original bass player from the band Boston, Fran Sheehan, who has a palate and a collection that will blow your mind. He was buying ‘45 Bordeauxs, like four or five of them at a time, and we’d do blind tastings. So one time we were at a restaurant in Boston, probably in 1979, and Al Stewart walked in while we were doing a blind tasting of six Bordeauxs, in decanters. He asked, “What’re you drinking?” and we said, “We don’t know, it’s all blind.” He said, “Mind if I take a sniff?” So he takes a glass, sniffs the first one and says, “That’s ‘66 d’Estournel.” The next one, “That’s ‘76 Mouton.” He nailed every single one of them just with the smell! I’ve never met a guy in my life who could do that. He’s the man!
Interesting, in the context of Rock and Roll, the Hall of Fame and Van Halen that most of the fan debate and questions are pointedly around which lead singer was better, leading to the question of whose music holds up the best as “art,” the ultimate legacy.
Wine is the same way, as the classic vintages from the classic wineries are held up as defining examples of their times.
I’m not sure how the Van Halen soap opera will end as their induction date looms, but knowing that Sammy partakes and appreciates the good grape somehow provides me comfort in my opinion on the winner in this vertical tasting.
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March 3 2007
One of the things that really keep me engaged in the wine blogosphere is the level of immediacy and intimacy that can be conveyed. If I were alive in the depression era, I would liken it to FDR’s old Fireside Chats.
Late last summer, others likened blogs to porches; about as good of an analogy as I can think of.
According to Josh at Pinot Blogger, reporting on this porch phenomenon back in August:
Just like a porch, a blog post is an informal visit where you can share gossip, talk about the weather, ask for feedback, or bounce opinions off your neighbors.
When I started at my employer in September, I spent most evenings of my first week on the job socializing with my new colleague, a guy I would be working with significantly to get our initiative off the ground. As gracious of a guy as you would hope to meet, he gave me a bottle of 2003 Hourglass Cabernet as something of a parting gift. Hourglass is a client.
This past week, Alder at Vinography gave his first person account and tasting notes from the 11th annual Premiere Napa Valley wine auction event held by the Napa Valley Vintners Association.
The barrel auction is something of an insider’s networking love-in where premiere wine retailers come to mingle with Napa winemakers, bid on exclusive barrels for their own personal or business use and support what the Napa Valley Vintners association calls their equivalent of a bake sale.
Alder scored the 2005 Hourglass “36 24 36” Cabernet Sauvignon, St. Helena in between a 9.5 and a 10—his highest mark given to a wine at the show and shared by two others.
As a brief aside, kudos goes to the Hourglass team for clever naming of their beauty with an hourglass figure.
Then, separately, being a member of the Hourglass email mailing list, I received this note from Jeff Smith and his wife Carolyn, Co-Owner’s of Hourglass.
Dear Jeff,
Carolyn and I would like to extend a sincere thank you for your tremendous support and advocacy over the years, as it is your patronage and “word of mouth” that has helped propel Hourglass.
Over the past weekend we submitted our first lot to the prestigious Premiere Napa auction. Premiere is a wine trade only auction for purveyors to purchase unique lots of Napa Valley wines for resale. Not knowing what to expect, Carolyn and I were floored when Hourglass finished the day as the 2nd highest grossing lot out of 200 lots submitted. At $42,000 for 5 cases of 2005 vintage wine, that equates to $700 per bottle! (In case you are now wondering, no, we are not going to go crazy with our pricing next year, but this does indicate healthy market value). We would like to extend a thank you for your support in creating so much interest in Hourglass in the past few years.
We also owe a great deal of our success to Bob Foley. If you recall, 2005 was a cooler vintage, and we were not satisfied with the flavor development late in the season. As October rolled on, I began to get quite nervous. The radar indicated a series of storms off the Pacific, yet Foley remained committed to waiting for the flavors to arrive. As the storms rolled through and the weeks passed, I was preparing for the worst. Bob, in his eminently calm manner, explained that heat is not the only trigger for physiological ripeness. He went on to tell me that what we needed was a cold snap, or hard cold rain to trigger the vines to ripen their fruit. Damned if he wasn’t right. On November 17th, after the fourth hard rain, the flavors arrived!! ‘05 turned out to be a spectacular wine, due to Bob’s steel nerves and intuition for the vineyard.
Once again, Carolyn and I greatly appreciate your support in building such a wonderful story out of this little hillside vineyard.
On my blog front porch, I received Alder’s take on the event and his scores, including the Hourglass. Later, down at the proverbial digital supermarket, I ran into Jeff Smith from Hourglass where he shared his excitement from the same event.
I feel like I was there, certainly I feel intimate enough to share the story. And, if I wanted to buy some of this wine all I would have to do is look up Gary from Gary’s Wine & Marketplace.
From San Francisco to Napa back out to New Jersey, via Indianapolis, that’s a pretty cool front porch.
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March 1 2007
I have curiously been watching technology infiltrate the world of consumer wine—the winepod, the enomatic and now a digital sommelier called Vinio.
Back in the late 90’s (it sounds better than saying a decade ago) I worked for an international technology book publisher that was making the transition from being just a book publisher to being a “content provider”—looking at intellectual property not just in bound form, but also on the internet, in computer-based training, etc.
I still remember fondly when the General Manager for the business, a guy that got to his point in a hurry, pointedly remarked, “What is all of this content talk? We publish books.” Uh huh went the nodding glances before everybody went back to their desks.
I went back to my desk and licensed content to third parties for their use and got a nice royalty stream for the organization for doing so--tens of thousands of dollars for doing so … I didn’t see much of that “free money” make its way into my wallet, which is kind of why I left, now that I reflect on it.
At any rate, a couple of the companies that I did deals with included Softbook and eBook—two early pioneers in the digital book reader market. We were a computer book publisher so the notion was that having an archive of say, SQL server, information in a digital format would be handy for techies and the like.
I don’t think either of their businesses ever got off the ground and you can still hunt down a quote from me in a Wired magazine article online from days gone by.
So, it’s with some interest that I noticed a Hewlett-Packard ad featuring an HP business partner that has an electronic device, similar to an eBook, but this time geared towards restaurants and the wine list. A digital sommelier of sorts.
Let me say briefly, as an aside, that after leaving the computer book publisher, I spent the next seven years in and around the IBM channel working with or for IBM business partners. So, when I see major technology advertising featuring partners, I know most of the back story of how these marketing things get accomplished and what their relative value is. Most of them start with “lipstick” and end with “pig,” by the way. And, most of these channel marketing campaigns are designed to foster goodwill in advance of IBM, or in this case, HP, laying the wood to you at a big channel tradeshow in Las Vegas and ask you how your numbers are going to be this quarter.
But, the Vinio, featured in a very well done online vignette found at this HP site, seems different. It seems like it might have a useful application.
The gist of the Vinio is it is a tablet pc—the kind that lays flat and you can use a stylus to write notes, or click the touch screen.
It is designed to be a digital wine list. So, you’re in a fine dining restaurant and instead of having the 7 lb leather bound wine list presented to you for an exhaustive review of wines that jog absolutely no recall before you select the one California wine that rings a bell, you could now review the same list with CONTEXT.
Yes, Context. Because the Vinio is interactive and lets you pick wines by region, varietal, producer, or really any combination, you get context and information for your decision-making. To me, this is an elegant combination of technology and function. Certainly, because restaurants spend tremendous amount of time on building reputable wine lists, having the opportunity to learn about a small producer and using that as a decision-making tool and as conversation fodder is a really cool thing.
From the site promo, found here:
Using the sleek, 4.6-pound wireless tablet, restaurant goers can select wines by such criteria as varietal, vintage, country of origin, price and even other diners’ recommendations. Now marrying menu selections with wines is as simple as a few taps on the touch screen.
Now, restaurateurs are some of the sharpest guys around because they’re managing businesses with razor thin margins, so investing in technology for technology sake isn’t a likely circumstance. The Vinio also does automatic inventory depletions, and a bunch of other “make life easy” kinds of things.
Very, very interesting. Andrew Bradbury, the principal for Vinio in the featurette indicates that they are taking the sommelier job to the next level and using technology to marry the aspects of the job that are parts journalist, marketer and storyteller.
I like that.
Check out the online featurette and their web site and leave a comment here. Is this cool? Is it technology for technology sake? Or is it just merely interesting with potential.
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