August 8 2007
This edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday has our venerable host, Lenn from Lenndevours, celebrating the 3rd anniversary of his brainchild, a communal exercise in wine blogging goodness and a mass tasting based on theme. This edition implores thematically, “Let’s Get Naked.”
Maybe not “Let’s get Naked” in the literal sense, but in the figurative sense by stripping away the shackles of oaky flavor artifice by drinking un-oaked chardonnay.
Now, one of the values of Wine Blogging Wednesday is it moves you out of your comfort zone and into areas you might not otherwise explore. This edition has that in spades, but I need to make mental note to remind myself that this is, indeed, a good thing. Creatures of habit, we are, I suppose. Last month I drank a tasty white for the “Passionate Spain” theme and this month I’m forced out of California and into France. Gone are the notes of buttered popcorn and tropically oriented pina-pineapple Kool-aid. Nope, bring on an expression of the land manifested in the fruit.
In preparation, I went to a local wine shop and started looking in the Chardonnay aisle--all California wines and nothing that appears to be un-oaked. “Ah, here we go” as I picked up a ‘Silver Un-Oaked Chardonnay.’ $35 bucks. Eh. Hmmm … what else …
Up walks a floor sales guy, “Can I help you?” “Yes, I’m looking for a un-oaked Chardonnay for a tasting, what do you recommend that’s not $35?”
We promptly moved out of the California Chardonnay aisle and into the French aisle. I explained that I preferred a California chard. “Why” he asked looking at me as if I had just grown a third-eye before launching into a riposte that would have made Jess Jackson apologize for his K-J Vintners Reserve.
Next, he asked me when and why I was going to be drinking it. Bonus points for being a good wine guy and asking questions, but this is where it becomes tricky, because I didn’t really want to go to the trouble of explaining that I was going to blog on it, and it’s easier to research a California wine than a French wine, and I like the narrative aspect, etc. I just said, “Well, at our tasting you have to give a brief bit of background on why you chose the wine and I’m more comfortable with California wines.”
Looking down at his name tag, I realized that “Alain” was not the Italian I figured him to be and he was in fact French. I might as well have spit on his mother’s grave. At this point he moved past looking at me like I had a third eye and simply stared right through me. “French it must be,” he said and he pointed me to the Macon-Lugny, which (I’m paraphrasing here), for us ‘Ugly Americans’ even includes the word “chardonnay” on the front. “Chardonnay comes from France, you know” he said
Remind me to ask for more wine recommendations from Alain, because this $11 vino is a steal. What a great wine—steeliness and apple on the nose, crisp, bright acid, nice well-rounded fruit with a medium-long finish.
Thanks and kudos to Lenn and all of the others that have contributed to Wine Blogging Wednesday for the last three years. Much fondness and well wishes for the ongoing online party … and, at least I know which inexpensive Spanish and French whites to bring should an in-person confab ever occur.
Producer: La Cave de Lugny
Wine: Macon-Lugny, “Les Charmes”, Chardonnay
Vintage: 2005
Country: France
Appellation: Burgundy-Macon
Wine Type: White
Varietal: Chardonnay
Price: $10.99
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August 7 2007
The difference between having some marketing shtick and having a “brand” is the ability to execute all of the way, go the distance, give your company a DNA that can be touched and felt. With that in mind, I have to hand it to new “wine-a-day” company “The Wine Spies” because they are clearly committed to executing and building a “brand,” and a fun one at that.
Think about it, have you ever been to Disneyland and ever seen Snow White or any of the other human actors break character? Nope, you never have. Nor does Goofy pull his floppy ears and wagging tongue character-head off within sight of guests at the park. The characters don’t break stride and for good reason, it would ruin the illusion--the suspension of disbelief that separates acting from the real world, creates the ‘magic’ in the ‘Magic Kingdom’ and also is the ingredient that increasingly separates ho-hum marketing from a brand that is sticky and memorable.
And so it goes for “The Wine Spies” the newest entrant in the ‘one wine-a-day’ business model, officially launched on August 1st. No mere shtick with Agent Red and his cohorts, Agent Sparkle, Agent Pinot and a couple of other “Agents.” Exhibit A: I received a sample from them today and the box was marked, “Top Secret Wine Shipment.” They could have taken the easy way out and not spent the extra money or time to have it stamped on the box, but it goes a long way in engendering a positive feeling about what they are trying to do. Their web site found at http://www.thewinespies.com equally goes the distance.
Tina Caputo from the June ’07 Wines & Vines has the round-up on the other ‘wine-a-day’ players here. The premise, in a nutshell, is a single wine is made available for purchase for a set period of time and before it’s gone. Presumably, with each offering, there is a deal to be had or a special not otherwise available to help drive consumer interest. And, with Wine.Woot, Winestilsoldout.com and Radcru.com already engaged in this business model you might think that a fourth player is unnecessary. Perhaps so, but the folks at “The Wine Spies” have done their homework and taken a significant leap forward in building on this business model with a concept, appealing graphics and enough selling copy to really act as a pull enticement. If four competitors in this niche space is one too many, Darwin’s law may come into play, but doubtlessly one of the other competitors would be susceptible to falling prey to the whims of a fickle public.
In fact, their model is a bit of a hybrid in between some of the tasting note sites, as well, because they invite users to sign-up share tasting notes and earn “spy points.” They did their homework to advance the model to Wine 2.0 and beyond. As you increase your “spy points” you increase your rank and become eligible for more promotions, better offers, etc. taking a cue from the allocated wine model.
According to the press release (handily included in the box with free wine, which is always nice):
Agent Red says, “Newer wine drinkers can be intimidated by the language of wine. The Wine Spies makes wine more accessible to the emerging market of the younger generation of wine drinkers while also educating them and rewarding them for buying wines and sharing their tasting experiences with friends.”
With the company’s special relationship with vineyards, the Wine Spies website will showcase an International selection of almost impossible to find wines that most consumers are unable to buy at their local wine shops or even from other online stores.
My lone piece of advice to “The Wine Spies” is to be very careful with positioning towards the old canard of “making wines more accessible for the younger generation.” The statement alone makes them seem like VH1-lovin’ Generation X’ers with enough wherewithal to start a business, while not completely getting their MTV demographic brethren.
Generation Y already craves authentic experiences—shrugging off corporate marketing. The Wine Spies can resonate, but the accessibility and education thing is a bit of schlock that’s more used up than Pam Anderson. A better approach would be to give Generation Y. their due and if they don’t get it, keep piling on the depth of knowledge and force them to keep up, providing an international selection of wines, while maintaining an absolute commitment to the brand of “The Wine Spies.” If you pander to them, for a second, you’ll be left selling wine to Joann, the 44 year old mother of three in Des Moines, Iowa.
Otherwise, I’m stoked that we keep seeing new and strong entrants into the online wine space, trying new things and committing to build customer relationships. As I’ve said before, when we look back on this period of time in online wine sales it will all seem so simple and quaint. The Wine Spies is a strong entrant into the online wine world, advancing beyond quaint with a clever concept and the seeds of a fabulous brand.
*blog transparency alert* My employer has a relationship with The Wine Spies. However, I have not met any of the folks there and was not a part of any meeting or decision-making related to the relationship. I’m an innocent by-stander, but The Wine Spies did sample me a bottle of wine based on this blog. Though that, in and of itself, hasn’t induced me to write anything other than my honest assessment of their business and business model, based on a consumer’s perspective.
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August 6 2007
Despite beating the stuffing out of a now dead moose, er horse, I’m going to beat it again and continue my personal crusade to not have wine medal competitions be invalidated as exercises of dubious merit. Despite bordering on boorishness, this post will serve as a final rejoinder to a series of unplanned posts around wine medal competitions at state fairs and the backlash that occurred with Charles Shaw’s Double-Gold medal win at the California State Fair.
With the Indy International Wine Competition complete for another year (2nd or 3rd largest wine competition in the country depending on the press release) and the winners announced, would you believe that 3 Blind Moose added to their Double Gold for their Pinot Grigio at the California State Fair by winning a Gold medal for their Cabernet Sauvignon? Not only that, but Barefoot Wine continued its streak of medals and won across the board with a gold, several silvers and bronze medals for various reds and whites.
If you’re not acquainted with 3 Blind Moose or Barefoot Cellars you’ll find them nestled next the produce section, but before the snack aisle in the wine section at your grocery store. About $8.99 or less will get you the good stuff: the medal winners. If you don’t find it at your grocery store, you can check out the 3 Blind Moose online where the web site says (while referencing the chardonnay, amongst other grimace-inducing turns of phrase), “You fall head over hooves for this beauty.”
In short, mass-produced, nationally distributed wines are winning medals in competitions at an incredible rate, against much smaller, more expensive competitors.
Instead of wine lovers jumping for joy at the thought of drinking higher quality wines for less money, it seems as if some folks are skeptical.
By way of explanation, and it couldn’t be any more timely, Linda Murphy offers up a great column in the August issue of Decanter magazine and it cuts to the core of the state fair medal/Charles Shaw Double Gold imbroglio.
The lead to her column says with excerpts following says,
The wine labeled ‘RVZN030’ had tangy, wild-respberry fruit, a lashing of peppery spice and mouthwatering acidity. It was intense and ripe, not overly alcoholic, with great balance and freshness. ‘Textbook Zinfandel … Dry Creek Valley?’ I asked myself as I gave the wine a platinum medal, the second-highest award at the Critics Challenge competition in San Diego.
But when the identity of RVZ030 was revealed, I nearly bit my tongue in half: 2004 Big Ass Zinfandel from Sonoma County.
I saw a pleasantly surprising trend towards more $15-and-under California wines winning gold and platinum medals that I remembered in the past.
Not only did bang-for the buck wines such as Barefoot Cellars Chardonnay ($6), Bonterra Cabernet Sauvignon ($15), Pedroncelli Petite Sirah ($14.50), Beringer Founders Estate Chardonnay ($11) and yes, Big Ass Zinfandel from Adler Fels Winery, win gold or higher, they outperformed some wines costing twice as much, or more, within their varietal category.
The $15-and-under wine has nothing to lose, and thus more wines in this price range are entered into competitions. Still any wine that wins gold, regardless of the strength of the field, has to be pretty damn good to pass muster with the judges.
Murphy cites several additional reasons why there has been a rash of medal winners from wineries with high production and inexpensive price points, all of which add up:
1) Improved viticultural techniques
2) Modern winemaking like micro-ox
3) Vertical management by wineries who produce multiple labels and can pass quality juice down to 2nd and 3rd labels
4) High quality on the bulk market
5) Competition from imports keeping a competitive position in the market for pricing many domestic wines
Murphy ends the article with a brief comment about the U.S. becoming a nation of wine drinkers, applauding the availability of affordable, quality wines. I’m going to end this post with a nod to her for writing an informed article, and also a plea to wine drinkers in the wine blogosphere to join me in visiting some of the gems of the supermarket, too. $15 is the new $25 and that change alone has changed the way we need to think about labels. And, I’m not too proud to save some money, either.
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August 5 2007
This post marks the first time that I have officially posted a wine review, aside from the occasional Wine Blogging Wednesday. As periodically as I find a meritorious wine, I will now begin to post wine reviews and tasting notes.
The reason behind this change is pretty simple—I have been convinced that, done judiciously amongst other content, wine reviews have a very valuable place in the wine blogosphere.
The epiphany was driven by Tom Wark’s recent survey in which 68% of survey takers indicated that a wine blog wine review had influenced them—a truly astounding number. Dr. Debs from Good Wine Under $20 gave me additional insight when she indicated in an exchanged email that she viewed wine blogs in three categorical buckets:
1) Business-oriented blogs (Newsy/analysis blogs)
2) Review blogs
3) Blogs that try to bridge these two worlds (Vinography, Spittoon, Dr. Vino, Lenndevours, Winecast, etc.).
Dr. Debs noted that the biggest gap existed between the review blogs and the newsy/analysis blogs. I hadn’t given it much thought, but as Dr. Vino, Vinography, Lenndevours and Wincast all know, reviews are an important and self-satisfying function in their blogging lives. There’s no reason I shouldn’t be cataloging my tasting, as well. Well, there is one slight reason: because of this blog I now work for a technology company in the wine industry and there are some slight conflict of interest reasons I need to be cognizant of. In order to address these potential conflicts of interest, I will only be reviewing samples and nationally distributed wines; those found at the Costco’s, Target’s, grocery stores, World Markets of the world. In addition, the wines that I select will also be, predominantly, wines that have been submitted for judging in competitions—wines that have opened themselves to opinion.
My wine reviews won’t be exactly business as usual. I have adopted a hybrid style that fits the way I want to approach scoring wines. Wines will be reviewed using a modified Napa Valley College (NVC) 25 point system and cross-referenced against the wine blogosphere scoring system championed by Tim from Winecast. So, every wine will be tasted with notes using the NVC tasting notes and point system and given an analogous star rating to support the wine blogosphere.
In addition, and unique to Good Grape, is the category rankings I provide that indicate “Who Would This Wine Interest.”
I’ve taken my own marketing-centric views of wine consumers, cross-referenced it against lifestyle segmentations and the Constellation Project Genome customer study to come up with six categories for wine consumers, which I will denote as the primary target for whom the wine reviewed might be enjoyable or most appreciated.
The categories are:
Terroirista: A “terroirista” is a connoisseur, somebody inclined to go after “Parker Points,” buy wine futures and generally be a wine lover of repute with a nuanced worldly wine palate.
Enthusiast: This is the category I place myself in. I’m confident in my palate, knowledgeable, with a credible amount of depth in tasting. However, I haven’t crossed over to “terroirista,” nor have I lost touch with understanding what it’s like to be less initiated in the grape.
Lifestyler: This is a category for wine lovers who are interested in the lifestyle aspects of wine: wine country, tastings, and the associated collateral benefits of being identified as a wine lover, however they are less confident and less experienced in their palate and overall knowledge, despite their ongoing love of the grape.
Adventurer/Fashionista: This is the adventurous, non-wine monogamous, import-lovin’ Generation Y wine consumer.
Social Sipper: This is a category for the wine consumer who enjoys wine with meals, and while socializing—they know what they like, but frequently have a hard time translating that to a palate pattern—these folks are the ones likely to either buy wine at wine-friendly shops and/or seek the assistance of a Sommelier or a wine shop employee.
Aisle Daze: This is the wine consumer who occasionally buys and enjoys wine and is inclined to buy by label—something that visually engages them from the shelf.
Each wine review will be presented as a downloadable tasting notes file. The first tasting note file can be found here.
Please take a look and leave a comment. Do you like it? Do you have feedback that would make it better?
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August 3 2007
If anybody has disproved the Woody Allen quote, “80 percent of success is showing up” it might be the Australian wine industry.
Despite selling cases of wine by the millions, they have been in something of a quagmire with oversupply and bad perception problems. Frankly speaking, I don’t pay much attention to wine from Australia, nor does the majority of U.S. wine blog readers. It’s simple, pay attention to the topics written about and in this regard Australian wine is pulling up the rear--right ahead of the “glassy sharpshooter.” Despite what I consider to be a benign disinterest from bloggers and many, many wine consumers, I do, however, have a finely tuned respect for their industry efforts which are organized, coherent and rooted in reality and action.
As an example, do a search on Google--any random wine related search for a phrase like “wine marketing” will do. After you sift through information from the 172 different factions from the U.S. wine industry you usually come across information from either a university from Australia or one of the less than a handful of unified Australian wine organizational bodies; they do contribute a good deal of thought leadership in viticulture and winemaking to the global marketplace.
By way of background, Australia is the #1 country in imported wine sales in the U.S. and despite an absolute dearth of export marketing sensibility in any price category above $10, the Aussies at least always seem to be on the same page with that lack of marketing moxie.
As a follow-up to their Strategy 2025 document published in 1996, a blueprint that chartered a course for the industry to achieve annual sales of $4.5 billion by the year 2025 and achieved an astounding 20 years early (thanks to a lil phenomenon called Yellowtail), they are now releasing “Directions 2025” – a blueprint for sustainable growth for their 7,000 + grape growers and 2,000-plus wine producers for the next 18 years.
Released by the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation (AWBC) and the Winemakers Federation of Australia, the “Directions 2025” is an industry-wide strategic framework for expanding Australia’s place in the global wine marketplace.
The greatest challenge the Aussies face in this market, in my estimation, is three-fold:
1) Yellowtail has been allowed to become synonymous with Australian wine
2) A complete lack of consumer awareness around wine being from “a sense of place,”
3) A stigma that Australian wine is for “New World” palates
Thankfully, through this “Directions 2025” planning, the Aussies are planning to alleviate all of these concerns.
Starting off with a brand segmentation strategy, they are going help wineries market around four distinct market “personalities” and then subsequently help wineries create brand and channel management strategies to work within those personality segments.
They are:
Brand Champions: Wines that appeal to a broad market base through accessibility ease of enjoyment and a strong premium brand message about product and country
Generation Next: Wines driven by innovation (marketing; product; packaging) that appeal to consumers who drink wine for social occasions and/or peer group affinity, rather than for wine attribute.
Regional Heroes: Wines from somewhere rather than wines from anywhere – adding and sustaining interest for consumers by fostering a clear association between region variety and/or style
Landmark Australia: High-profile, aspirational wines built on inherent quality and world-class reputation
And, in addition to the above, which are all segments that make sense they are officially dividing the country up into geographical appellation areas that ties into “Regional Heroes” segmentation, a focus that should be mission critical.
The areas include: Western Australia, South Australia, New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania. In doing so, they should be able to focus on cooler climate and less ripe varietals like Riesling and Pinot Grigio that can stem the Shiraz “fruit and oak and not much else” train of thought of consumers.
And, finally, they are developing a “Wine Australia” trust mark or a logo that will be placed on bottles—similar to importers whose stickering we’ve come to trust as a sign of quality.
Slowly, but surely, the Australian wine industry is addressing all of the ills that currently mark their wine climate—they are stratifying their wine industry to different price and quality markers; they are targeting that newly stratified industry to separate and distinct audiences; they are creating appellations. Mercifully, their wine glut is coming to a close, as well, allowing the business of growing to return to more healthy levels.
Overall, hat’s off the Australians for again leading the way in organization with Directions 2025. If nothing else the planning job they do in organizing different constituents is admirable and something that would never get off the ground in the states. And, with imports and competition growing at a steady pace, especially for domestic U.S. attention, it cannot be underestimated how important it is/was for them to get started immediately. I hope this helps them continue to muscle in the market place and hold off their Chilean and Argentinean competition, as well. Perhaps we’ll see dozens of Mollydookers, as we should, in the near future.
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