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June 20 2007

Mondavi and my Mount Rushmore

I’m not much for hero worship. In a celebrity-obsessed culture, I wouldn’t ask Brad Pitt for a picture or an autograph if he was eating a cheeseburger next to me in the same restaurant. Ditto that for Britney Spears, a reincarnated Anna Nicole Smith, Paris Hilton, TomKat, or any of the other folks that grace weekly celebrity mags.

That said, there are less than a handful of people that have earned my deep admiration for their professional accomplishments. If I could build my Mount Rushmore with people whom I admire with a great respect and genuine humbleness for their particular genius it would have the following four visages:

Lou Holtz, legendary Notre Dame Coach, walks it like he talks it, a leader of men and master motivator. Quotable Lou:
“I never learn anything talking. I only learn things when I ask questions.”

Frank Sinatra, the Chairman of the Board, might have been the last real man, a legacy of a bygone era. Quotable Frank: “I like intelligent women. When you go out, it shouldn’t be a staring contest.”

Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player to ever lace up a pair of sneakers, had a will to win that surpassed his considerable God-given ability. Quotable Michael: “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

Robert Mondavi, THE visionary for the U.S. wine industry we know today. Quotable Mondavi: “There are a lot of people with a lot of money, and I’m amazed they don’t understand what a great pleasure it can be to give.”

Unfortunately, if news accounts based on the new book on Robert Mondavi are true, it was precisely his philanthropic largesse that was his undoing.

I received my copy of “The House of Mondavi: The Rise and Fall of an American Wine Dynasty” from Amazon.com yesterday. It’s a read I’ve been anxiously looking forward to.

Robert Mondavi accelerated my fascination with wine with his autobiography Harvests of Joy in the late 90s and I consider him (like many others) to be the preeminent figure in the modern wine industry. Likewise, I recently purchased the E&J Gallo autobiography published in the 90s so I could understand previous history—context if you will to know the past in order to understand the future.

I haven’t made it past the first chapter of “The House of Mondavi,” but the below articles all mention the book positively, with particular noteworthiness for evenhandedness.

If you haven’t planned to pick up a copy, you may consider doing so. Wine is a beverage to enjoy, but surely none of us would be sitting here writing about the good grape, fine wine, with such fervent interest if a market hadn’t been made some 40 years ago by Mondavi.

Article link: Virginie Boone, The Press-Democrat

Article link: Jon Bonne, The San Francisco Chronicle

Article link: Laurie Daniel, San Luis Obispo Tribune

Article link: Wall Street Journal Book Review

Article link: The Cork Board

Also, leave a comment. Who would be on your Mount Rushmore?

Posted in, Good Grape Daily: Pomace & Lees. Permalink | Comments (7) | Print | Email This

June 20 2007

The Wine Video Explosion

It used to be that my wine cup runneth close to empty outside of print media. I’ve written on a couple of occasions about the lack of wine media in video form—no cable channel in a universe of 300 stations. This struck me as odd given the diversity and growing interest level in wine across all age segments, particularly the savvy 21 – 34 age group, also highly coveted by advertisers.

And, surely, if there is room for five televangelist channels and two shopping channels on my cable system, there’s room for a channel for those that kneel at the altar of the grape.

I mean, if a cable channel can satisfactorily show “Flavor of Love” or “What Not to Wear” and find an audience than I know that a wine show would go over well.

Mind you, when I mention “What Not to Wear” or another garbage reality show, I am not lumping in “Top Chef” on Bravo! into the same category. “Top Chef” is must-see TV in my house. Other wine bloggers may deign to ascend to a threshold above television, in particular reality television. Not me. I love “Top Chef.” My wife watches Grey’s Anatomy, I watch Top Chef. (If you’re a wine blogger and you want to be humbled, too, check out the Top Chef blogs and see the hundreds to thousands of comments that their blogs elicit, as well).

In regards to wine on TV, ask and ye shall receive, apparently. My wine video cup may now runneth over (flowing).

We’re now presented with options--some are online only, some will be on television and all of them fighting for the attention of wine lovers.

In fact, “Top Chef” figures prominently in one of the television offerings as season 1 contestant Stephen Asprinio has signed on to host “Wine Chefs” on the newly developing Wine Television (web site at http://www.winetelevision.tv forthcoming).

Asprinio, for those that watched the show, was the antagonistic foil in Season 1, demonstrating dismissive derision for virtually everybody. Well, now he has his own show. Stephen is notable, for readers of a wine blog, because he does have an interesting take on his own personal branding—he’s the guy that wants to intrinsically marry food and wine together. It’s not front of house versus back of the house, he’s versed in both and was the youngest person ever to pass US Sommelier Association’s Certificate Exam at 19 and one of the youngest to pass the Court of Master Sommelier’s Certificate course shortly after turning 21. Still his tv persona needs some refining, but, hey, Bobby Flay had some rough edges that needed smoothing, too.

The press release says:

Celebrity Sommelier & Chef Stephen Asprinio has signed on to host Wine Television’s ‘Wine Chefs.” Asprinio will host Wine Chefs as well as an online subscription based wine course and wine tasting, targeting the next generation of wine consumers. Wine Chefs and the innovative online wine course will take a young and exciting approach to the hip, new world of wine, food and popular culture that exists in the 21st Century.

“Stephen Asprinio will be the next great celebrity in the food and wine world, representing the next generation of foodies and wine lovers. His passion and rock and roll attitude is contagious and he will certainly build a loyal fan base,” said Wine Television CEO and founder John Atanasio.

According to the press release, Wine Television will launch in a multi-platform way that includes linear, Video on Demand, Satellite, Broadband, and Internet beginning in September 2007.

Other pending video options are two shows that will be running on a PBS station near you. “Uncorked” is a wine show taped at wineries and vineyards worldwide (Hosted by Ted Allen--co-host for Queer Eye for the Straight Guy, guest judge on Iron Chef and guest judge on Top Chef, too) and the other is the much talked about in the wine blogosphere offering, “The Winemakers” a “Survivor” meets the vineyard show.

Over at Penfolds, the Aussie winery, an online show called “Character” was released on the site on June 14th and is an interview-style show while guests sip wine.

Elsewhere, there’s as much online wine content you could want (of somewhat questionable interest level, albeit) at thewinerychannel.tv—including a character called “Rex Havoc” and his horse “Brokeback”

Like I said, ask and ye shall receive. Some of this content (actually most of this content) is still finding its sea legs, and certainly poses no online risk to the audience that Winelibrary.tv has built. It’s worth a spin if you have 30 minutes of downtime, but don’t say I didn’t warn you about its relative merit for a very savvy wine audience.

Posted in, Free Run: Field Notes From a Wine Life. Permalink | Comments (4) | Print | Email This

June 18 2007

The White Wash in Wine Magazines

File this under: Head-scratcher.

I just read the current “Summer” issue of the Quarterly Review of Wines (QRW). Generally a pretty good magazine, the slim glossy magazine isn’t easily categorized—it’s not wine Spectator with an emphasis on ratings and lifestyle, it’s generally less proletariat oriented than Wine Enthusiast, and it’s not as incisive as Wine & Spirits magazine. And, like its brother-in-arms, Wine News, it has news items that have long since become old hat information for those that read and write blogs.

QRW is a hodge-podge, skewing more towards profile pieces on wineries, written from the inside out—that is they typically come off as flattering, if not fawning, from the wineries perspective and not analytically constructive from an independent third-party perspective i.e. general journalism. In journalism circles, it’s something of a “House Organ” – defined as a periodical that is published by a business for its employees or customers. In this case, a magazine written by the wine industry for the consumer.

While I’m not explicitly in tune with HOW the editorial is written for QRW, I have noticed a trend that is questionable.

Every article written by QRW that is attributed to “QRW Staff” as the writer (akin to a movie directed by Alan Smithee—the pseudonym for a movie director that wanted to be disassociated from the movie) is pretty much a puff piece—a puff piece to the extent that I’m not sure that this editorial isn’t written by an in-house p.r. rep. and provided spec. to the magazine.

Take for example the article in the current issue called “No Mean Feet” about Barefoot Wine.

Barefoot is a winery owned by E&J Gallo and generally has a $4.99 - $5.99 price point, it’s found in most supermarkets with annual production of 2M cases

Some excerpts from the article:

Barefoot Wines, for those unfamiliar with the brand, has virtual cult status with the young, consumers from 21 to 29.

Hmm … maybe this is true, but it flies in the face of a ton of other research that says that Gen. Y is drinking at a much higher price point and predisposed to imports. At any rate, Barefoot Wines doesn’t have a Myspace.com page that I can find. So, if this cult status is true, it must be completely self-manufactured by the consuming public, something I’m somewhat dubious about.

Check out this quote and see if this reads like anything that was directly quoted from somebody’s mouth:

“It’s inaccurate to say I’m enthusiastic. In fact, I’m passionate, fully vested, personally attached, a complete believer in Barefoot wines, and for the charitable assistance we offer. We are doing 1,000 barefoot events just in 2007, and I’ll be at many of them. There are now nine Barefoot regional operations in most major markets and growing.”

Now, read this descriptive piece, patterned after a magazine profile piece akin to Vanity Fair magazine:

In 1995 Jen Wall, a native of California, became winemaker, “much better,” she says than being the MD she planning on becoming after graduating from the University of Santa Cruz. Wall is an attractive thirtysomething woman, with an extrovert’s good cheer. She has handsome features, with a high brow and engaging attentive eyes. If she weren’t stomping grapes, you’d gladly let her take your pulse and hear your heart.

Hmm … we now know it’s written by a male on the alleged “QWR Staff.”

Next comes this piece of fodder straight from E&J Gallo acquisition press release boilerplate:

The best thing that could’ve happened to barefoot was that Gallo bought it. As with everything they buy, Gallo works on a laissez faire attitude, which is to say leave it alone, if they ain’t broke … Gallo, who knows good things when they see it (Louis Martini, MacMurray, Bridlewood Estate, among other winery purchases) infuses money, technology, and marketing/PR into every winery they buy. They make the new winery better. Mike Martini, Kate MacMurray, and David Hopkins (Bridlewood Estate), and Jen Wall would all agree

Methinks that this author is very intimate with these other winery owners, flush with a fat bank account, or somebody on the inside at Gallo. The above paragraph is simply not one a journalist would write, an E&J Gallo p.r. intern, yes. A journalist, no.

The next sentence says:

Anyone looking for good, everyday wines – and who isn’t? – at great prices ($5) should try Barefoot.

Journalistic balance?

The advertorial, er, article ends with this capper:

Most of the “barefooters” we know tell us that Barefoot introduced them to wine, and that it made a lot of difference in their lives. “Best of all,” says “Barefooter Beth,” as she refers to herself, “Barefoot is the only wine I started with that I can still drink today; I’ve outgrown all the others.”

Unnamed sources, too. “Barefooter Beth???” Barefoot is the only wine she hasn’t graduated from? Puh-leeze.

I picked up a bottle of the Zin last year because I was piqued by the on bottle stickering that gave it a positive review from a Beverage Institute in Illinois and, frankly, I dumped the whole damn bottle down the sink.

With this treacle, masquerading as fair and balanced journalism, it’s no wonder that the transparency of blogging is becoming a more influential mode for wine information.

Will the real writer of this article please stand-up: “QRW Staff” or “E&J Gallo” p.r. intern? Or worse still--QRW advertising sales staff.

Posted in, Wine: A Business Doing Pleasure. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print | Email This

June 15 2007

Good Grape 10 Day Sabbatical: The Blogs I read 10 of 10

Jeff’s/Good Grape Note: I’m on a 10 day sabbatical from writing posts for Good Grape, returning over the weekend of June 16th/17th

In lieu of wine-related posts, I’m taking the opportunity to pull a page from the, “To know a man, look at his bookshelf” school of thought, but instead of my bookshelf, I’m highlighting an RSS feed a day that I keep up with that is non wine-related--grist for the mill, so to speak.

See you back, recharged, invigorated with headspace de-gunked in about a week.

The Blog: The Hungry Cabbie

Site URL: http://famousfatdave.com/blog/

What I like about the site: I love New York. I really love the cultural aspects of New York and the food. “Famous Fat Dave,” the author, is starting to get famous, too—a pending new television show. This site explores the multi-cultural food of New York in an everyday kind of way.

Posted in, Influences. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print | Email This

June 14 2007

Good Grape 10 Day Sabbatical: The Blogs I read 9 of 10

Jeff’s/Good Grape Note: I’m on a 10 day sabbatical from writing posts for Good Grape, returning over the weekend of June 16th/17th

See you back, recharged, invigorated with headspace de-gunked in about a week.

The Blog: Church of the Custmer

Site URL: http://www.churchofthecustomer.com/

What I like about the site: In business everything begins and ends with the customer. This site covers not only customer experience, but also the rise in citizen marketing & content. For insight into a seismic shift on the way we –consumers- want to be interacted with, this site is a great asset.

Posted in, Influences. Permalink | Comments (0) | Print | Email This

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