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June 13 2006
I received my limited edition, signed prints from Stormhoek Winery and Hugh at Gapingvoid.com. My wife was bewildered and confused when I was opening this gigantic envelope—this wine blogging thing is kind of like having a mistress (I think) except she’s got partial information which makes her more dangerous—and then she said, "Oh, those are cute."
Wait til it shows up in a frame looking for wall space ...
Cute is her parlance for, "I don’t hate it. Can you hang it in the office."
And, in the office it will go, where I usually write and drinkwineanywaythankyouverymuch.
Hugh at Gapingvoid can be seen here signing said limited edition prints for the Stormhoek promotion.
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June 7 2006
This article that I found on a wine news aggregation site, Wine Science News, from a U.K. newspaper, speculates that growing binge drinking leading to potential alcoholism might be the result of ... larger wine glasses.
This might be viable for the tipple at home where one glass turns into 2.33 glasses over the course of four hours, but the reference points are from restaurants and pubs:
Nick Gully, director of addiction services at the Priory Clinic inRoehampton, said: ‘They fill them up and believe it is OK because theyare only having one glass but that can now amount to a third of abottle.
‘If they have a small glass they feel cheated.
‘It’s the same in pubs. Someone goes to a bar and feel cheated if theyare given a small glass. People expect larger measures. ‘They havebecome normalised and with it the amount of alcohol we drink has goneup and has become normalised by society as well.’
Memo to well meaning social services organizations: Restaurants aren’t in the business of pouring 1/3 of a bottle as 1 glass of wine. If only we could control the size of our purchased glasses of wine…
Also on Wine Science News, the 2nd ranking article for the day is a curious article called "The Viagra of the Wine Industry." Damn. I wrote that. But, it’s a lame, no thought post with a picture I took of the Stormhoek winery wine that I received. If I’m going to get traffic, at least it could be for something thoughtful or insightful that I wrote. Lesson learned here: the headline sells it. Check out any headline for "The Onion" and they practically beg to be clicked. I will be following my own advice, but with content to back it up.
Since we’re talking about wine glasses, I think it stands mentioning that June is wedding month and the time of year when more decanters and glasses are gifted than any other time. There’s an article in Business 2.0 about the Riedel "O" glass—the stemless glass that is selling like hotcakes. It was *groan* a flash of inspiration for the 28 year old heir, Maximimilian Riedel. I quote:
Maximilian woke up one night wth a sudden flash of insight: "I should make a wine tumbler." Using the time difference to his advantage, he immediately called an engineer at his family’s glass factory in Schneegattern, Austria, to create a prototype of a stackable, stemless tumbler that would take up less cabinet space and also fit in a dishwasher.
Why does every business cliche start with a moment of inspiration in the middle of the night? I know exactly how this went down. A 30-something Brand Manager with a wife and kids proposed the idea a couple of times and it went nowhere beyond the walls of his syncophantic Mid-Manager’s office until one day the Mid-Manager gets called on the spot in the brainstorming session and he sheepishly throws the idea out there afraid of ridicule, yet taking credit for the idea. Maximilian sits on the idea through three more follow-up meetings over the course of seven months. Then, one day Maximilian wakes up with a flash of brilliance.
If anybody thinks this a good idea, please do me a favor and buy them from Crate and Barrel for $2 a piece instead of $19.95 for two, or better yet, buy ceramic tumblers and support a local artist—you’ll feel pretty hip and be drinking out of a swank vessel.
And, finally, a nod and thanks for the tip to Tricia at her blog, Vin, Vini, Vino, where she made note that Playstation is coming out with schwag—the detritus of trade shows and it includes wine glasses and corkscrews. You can check it out here.
No word on whether the PS2 glasses aid in the bouquet development on Mountain Dew Code Red.
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June 6 2006
Anybody besides me see the new "Lays Sensations" ads in print—the one that has the quote from Asian fusion Chef Du Jour Ming Tsai, late of the Food Network and last seen on PBS? In the ad he exclaims, "The perfect pairing with your favorite wine."
Methinks Ming Tsai likes to cash checks.
When I see this sort of thing, I usually pause, reflect cynically and then tear out the ad for later skewering.
I mean, honestly, who cracks open a bag of chips and has a glass of wine?
Ah, not so fast. A quick Google search tells me one of two things: A) The world is full of people that drink wine with chips and snacks or B) The world is full of marketing people that would like to presume that people drink wine with chips.
I’m going to go with the latter, but no less a source than the Wine Market Council, an industry association, has potato chip wine pairing advice on the Supermarket Guru web site that can be found here.
They say:
Light and crisp Pinot Gris (or the Italian Pinot Grigio) will balance the oil and salt of chips. Merlot is delicious with onion-flavored chips, or with chips and sour cream dip. Zinfandel stands up nicely to barbecue chips
Hmm. This is a surprise. I thought you just ate a bag of Dorito’s after a 12-pack of Milwaukee’s Best while in college, but here’s a legitimate pairing.
The web site Wineanswers.com goes in a little bit different direction and says this:
Potato chips and popcorn
Nothing goes better with crispChampagne than plain old potato chips. The salty fattiness of chipstakes the edge off sparkling wine’s snap of acidity. Salted nuts oreven buttered popcorn works in much the same way. Best-bet bubbliesinclude Champagne and California sparkling wine labeled Blanc deBlancs, which means the wine is made from chardonnay grapes, and Brut,which indicates the wine is dry.
Creative Loafing, the alternative weekly in Atlanta has this suggestion:
Potato chips: Because of their delicate salty quality, lighterwhite wines tended to meld the best with potato chips. Try a Pinot Gris(PEE NO GREE), a Sauvignon Blanc or a light Chardonnay.
So, what’s the lesson here? I’d like to say that this is another indicator in the "mainstreaming" of wine, but, alas, I think this is really just an ad that’s designed for woman that buy high end chips on the mental basis that they would make their own Panini sandwich on the press at home, that sadly hasn’t been used since being gifted in December.
As for my wine pairing? I personally think a Champagne would go best and barring that I’d go with a Gewurztraminer—the slight sweetness combined with the crispness would go well with a bag of chips, just make sure you keep an eye out for Ming Tsai’s hand in your pocket.
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June 4 2006
I’m still tickled to be a part of the Stormhoek launch. The picture is of the vino that made its way to my doorstep—Shiraz, Pinotage, Sav.Blanc and Pinot Grigio. It was all I could do not to crack the Shiraz this weekend.
An article on the ongoing Stormhoek launch in the states has this to say:
‘Our web site shares the minutiae of ourbusiness. What we call wine porn; building an engaged onlinecommunity,’ claims UK-based Nick Dymoke-Marr. It may sound like an oddstatement from the MD of importer/distributor Orbital and co-owner of a winery that barely has a local presence. It’s all to do with blogging,and flies on the premise that cyber-communities share opinions on avariety of subjects, from clothes to the latest tekkie toys. ‘Webelieve the two social lubricants of wine and blogging will continue togrow, with Stormhoek at its core. Ongoing, unfiltered conversationsabout the wine and our business are shaking things up and having a realimpact on the way our little company develops,’ he continues. On thewider wine community too.
The article’s author refers to Stormhoek as the Viagra of the industry—tying together the fact that blogging to create momentum and community might work, but might also be the thing that wineries or small business might be afraid to do for fear of the unknown.
I hope not, but I’m afraid they are right. This isn’t change for small wineries, this is an outright complete shift in thinking—this is going from the Utne Reader to Fox News ... nonetheless, I’m glad people are taking risks and doing things that appeal to urbane, progressive sensibilities.
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June 2 2006
I received my Stormhoek wine on Wednesday—8 bottles no less. Some Shiraz, some Pinot Grigio and another varietal. These guys are generous. It’s good marketing, though, really, because I do have some contacts at Indiana distributors, and I’d be happy to be a reference and the whole thing ends up being a fabulous case study. Plus, say the wine is $15 at retail, I guarantee I can drum up $120 in word of mouth just with a get-together alone.
I’ll be putting on the soiree very, very shortly.
In the meantime, you can get an update with what’s happening here.
The Stormhoek blog has some pictures from the South Beach party. Sadly, my party will not be attended by as many model quality folks.
The net-net is they are making their way through all of the U.S. marketing events and this is turning into a very cool social experiment.
The challenge for Hugh at Gapingvoid, the marketing whiz du jour, is keeping track and helping build the momentum by moving people in the right direction.
And, as I said before, if the wine delivers, this will be a "Yellowtail" quality product introduction.
I can’t wait to drink the wine.
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