November 22 2007
Okay, I’ll take the bait. I can be taken in by a clever pr campaign.
Last week I received a bit of a teaser campaign in three parts. I suspect several of my wine blogging colleagues received the same packages—an anonymously sent picture of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers with a hang tag note that that says, “Matched Perfectly.” A couple of days later I received two aces from a deck of cards with a hang tag note again noting, “Matched Perfectly.” Finally, a day later comes a bottle of wine from Riddling Bros., a marketing firm that has created a spec. wine package and positioning called “Goes With Cellars …”
If my research is correct, the lead principal, Fred Schwartz, is an advertising agency vet with his own company, Fred & Company, which provides creative and strategic consulting to the wine industry.
It’s interesting then to note that the concept of “Goes With Cellars …” is virtually identical to that of “Wine that Loves …” Many bloggers will recall the surge of P.R. that followed the introduction of “Wine that Loves …” in the spring of this year. Many bloggers had an opinion that wavered somewhere between indifference to derision, but then, we’re not the audience, either.
The concept is simple, and in having conversations with Tracy Gardner, the principal for the Amazing Food Wine Company, the umbrella organization for “Wine that Loves …” it’s genius in its simplicity. Taking a page from the concept of Blue Ocean strategy whereby research is conducted to find uncontested market space and then executing a product strategy to address that unfulfilled demand, the “Wine that loves …” and “Goes With Cellars …” concept simply creates wine that does not have any varietal, appellation or country of origin information, but is matched to the food that it would be served with; food that is commonly eaten by a wide swath of Americans like grilled steak, grilled salmon, pasta, roasted chicken, etc.
From a practical perspective, it makes perfect sense—most wine is consumed the same day it is purchased, and usually it is purchased at the grocery store when other dinner provisions are being picked up. Why wouldn’t this be a good idea?
I now also have full context on why Tracy, in my conversations with him via work with my employer, was incredibly secretive—secretive to the extent that I initially thought him a bit paranoid. He apparently knew what I wasn’t thinking about—a good idea will be quickly replicated.
Besides the idea flying in the face of wine enthusiasts for whom knowledge and esoterica is stock in trade, I suspect this concept in its original form with “Wine that Loves …” and its secondary form, “Goes With Cellars …” has a tremendous opportunity in the market.
Goes With Cellars appears to be targeting a more finite audience with more specificity in its wine—Beef: Peppercorn Steak with an associated recipe whereas “Wine that Loves …” is broader with just simply, “Grilled Steak.”
Anybody that thinks that both of these concepts are fads that will meet a timely death would do well to recall a publishing phenomenon started a decade ago called the, “For Dummies …” series. These are general reference books aimed at a broad audience that were quickly copied in the market by a host of competitors including “The Complete Idiot’s Guide.” Both of these series were initially met with a lot of resistance from the intelligentsia and academians who derided the “dumbing down” of information in such a crass, pandering format.
There are a lot of parallels between our wine scenario and this publishing scenario, and 10 years later we know the outcome and success of the book publishing opportunity. The “For Dummies …” brand is now, by many estimates, as recognizable as Coca-Cola, Starbucks and McDonald’s.
Time will tell which of these wine concepts becomes the “For Dummies …” of the wine world, but I suspect one will.
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October 22 2007
Please help a wine blogger out. With the recent news that Indiana is now open to consumer wine shipping up to a 24 case annual limit, I have a lot of buying ground to make up. Some estimates have our states winery availability at approximately 5% of that of California and New York.
Consider this a cause. The two most popular wine blogs in the U.S. are Vinography.com (San Francisco) and Dr. Vino (New York). Imagine what could happen with Good Grape (Midwest/Indianapolis) if I could only increase my accessibility to wine by doubling it from 5% to 10%. I could act as a national bridge to these two coastal leaders.
Not only am I committed to making a dent into that 24 case limit, but I’m also committed to finding a bunch of wine that I haven’t yet discovered through my own diligence or by virtue of finding something new at my local bottle shop.
Please help me fill my cellar!
So, I’m opening it up to you. My request of ye olde reader: please leave a comment and answer this question: if you had to make a single recommendation for your favorite winery, a little known gem that didn’t cost a car payment for one wine club shipment, to somebody that respected your opinion, who would that winery be?
To get your mind started about recommendations, I’ll start with my top five wish list for wines that I will/want to buy online or via their wine club.
Dover Canyon
Tablas Creek
Kosta Browne (Perhaps the best wine I’ve had this year)
Hartley Ostini/Hitching Post wines
Channing Daughters
Thanks for your help—know and understand that you’re helping me spend money in a positive and worthwhile fashion.
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October 17 2007
I’ve been running crazy lately and should return to a normal five or more times a week post schedule after the weekend, but in the meantime it’s off to New York for some Harry Potter madness.
My wife, the lovely and dear Lindsay, was an English Lit. major in school, she is in book publishing and she actually considered becoming a librarian. Her love of books runs deep. We share an enjoyment of reading except I read magazines because my attention span taps out at about the 39 minute mark. That aside, we’re both kind of nerdy in a hardcore reading kind of way.
Her love of all things printed word runs so deep in fact that she has read the Harry Potter series and or listened to them on book-on-tape at least three times a piece. Yes, each book at least three times a piece.
She loves Harry Potter so much that is was actually a condition of marriage, as in: “You have to promise me that you’ll read the Harry Potter series.” This might have been shortly after she accepted the engagement ring, I don’t recall exactly.
I addition, I went to a perfectly horrible Broadway play (I didn’t have a choice) that had a very short run and starred Jim Dale, the voice author for the Harry Potter books-on-tape.
The point is she loves Harry Potter. Her fandom might exceed my wine enthusiasm.
So, she enters a contest run by the Harry Potter publisher, Scholastic. The prize is tickets to go to a book reading and autograph session by the Harry Potter author, J.K. Rowling, at Carnegie Hall in New York City.
Um, guess who won? Alongside 999 of our closest Harry Potter fan friends; we’re heading to New York.
I have to wear a custom made t-shirt, too. My wife is crafty like that. Apparently it has something to do with Quidditch, which means something if you’ve read the books.
Now winning these tickets is well and good because I happen to love New York City, but this also puts me in a bind because I have to at least read the first book now. The reading with the author is on Friday night. My own reading commences now. Fortunately, the first book is geared towards kids, because I can do 300 pages of big print.
This whole scenario led me to ask my wife if there was anything wine-related in Harry Potter. Four minutes later I’m at my desk looking up Madame Rosmerta on the Internet.
For all other Muggles, Madame Rosemerta is the owner of The Three Broomsticks pub. The Three Broomsticks is one of the local pubs in Hogsmeade (Hogsmeade is the village outside of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, the school that young Harry Potter attends). The Three Broomsticks is known for its delicious butterbeer and they also apparently serve Mead there, as well.
See, throw in a little tavern action and I can get down with Harry. I do have to say, however, all of this Potter backstory stuff is a little forbidding. But, I do have a greater appreciation now for what it’s like to be a wine layperson. Just as my wife takes this stuff as assumed knowledge, I guess I do the same with wine …
Nonetheless, in the spirit of my trip to NYC to hear a British author and billionaire (who lives in Scotland) read a kids book to me while I wear a homemade t-shirt, I thought I’d offer up a couple of recipes found on the Internet for butter beer and mead.
Please pour a glass of wine in my name on Friday at 7:00 pm.
Butterbeer (excerpted from MuggleNet)
Ingredients:
• 1 cup (8 oz) club soda or cream soda
• ½ cup (4 oz) butterscotch syrup (ice cream topping)
• ½ tablespoon butter
Directions:
Step 1: Measure butterscotch and butter into a 2 cup (16 oz) glass. Microwave on high for 1 to 1½ minutes, or until syrup is bubbly and butter is completely incorporated.
Step 2: Stir and cool for 30 seconds, then slowly mix in club soda. Mixture will fizz quite a bit.
Source: Mead Lover’s Digest #289, 10 April 1994
Ingredients (2 gallons):
1 gallon ripe blackberries
4 1/2 lbs clover honey from Kroger (grocery)
acid blend and yeast nutrient according to package directions
Montrache wine yeast
Procedure:
Start a simple mead with 2 1/2lbs of clover honey from the grocery and enough water to make a gallon. I used Montrache wine yeast and add yeast nutrient and acid blend according to the directions on the package. Fermentation should stop after three weeks. Mash berries and add mead. Two weeks later rack the liquid off of the fruit and into a carboy. Add another 2 lbs of honey and enough water to fill it up to 2 gallons. Bottle a month later and age eight months.
Comments:
It turned out like a red wine with a blackberry nose and aftertaste.
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October 10 2007
Normally in this spot, on the second Wednesday of the month or thereabouts, I would participate in Wine Blogging Wednesday, a communal exercise in online wine drinking around a theme. This month the featured theme from our gracious hosts, Catavino, is Portuguese wine.
However, unfortunately, sitting in the land of milk and honey, Napa, California, traveling for business, I’m coming up dry on Portuguese wine. Two stops in these parts yielded nada, so, alas, I’m sending good vibes in lieu of an actual wine review.
But, the good news about the trip out to CA this week is I got caught up on a bunch of reading on the flight out, including a couple of October issues of Wine Spectator. This marks the third time in the last three weeks that I have referenced Wine Spectator, easily a record here, the magazine receiving only grudging acknowledgement in the past.
As an inveterate consumer of wine information, it has been easy for me to take shots at Wine Spectator in the past—the content frequently seemed aimed at a fictitious, stereotypical demographic—the fifty-something male with more money than actual knowledge and a proclivity for buying wines by the point. Some of the articles bordered on the insipid explaining things that would seem to be a base level of knowledge for any wine enthusiast; the sole redeeming value being Matt Kramer’s always smart columns.
But, something positive has happened in the last year or so—the Wine Spectator’s editorial coverage seems to have changed. Maybe it’s me, but I don’t think so. The writing is sharper, more insightful and SMARTER. And, it’s smarter at a greater level of accessibility, if that makes sense. It’s not smarter by virtue of casting a wider net to appeal to more people; it’s smarter by virtue of better insight and analysis for people that already “get it.”
More or less, Wine Spectator is more appealing to me, and since I’m my own baseline, I’m assuming it’s the magazine that has changed and I haven’t gotten dumber (or smarter) in the intervening 12 months.
So, to Wine Spectator, I offer up thanks for creating a more relevant magazine and competing against the intelligence and verve that Wine & Spirits magazine serves up.
A couple of notes and things that provoked thought from the October 15th and October 31st issues:
1) In an October 15th article on Napa wineries selling, including Stag’s Leap, there was a quote from Gladys Horiuchi, manager of communications for the Wine Institute. The following quote, in context, is related to the number of wineries that have sold since 2000 (50). She says, “These California wineries are finding they’re not competing against single companies abroad, but whole countries.”
Keep that quote in mind over the course of the next several years as California wine prices and consumption increases create demand fulfillment challenges that will be filled by high QPR Int’l wines at much lower price points. It’s a very prescient quote from Horiuchi, in my opinion.
2) Somewhat obscurely noted in the opening editorial by Marvin Shaken and Thomas Matthews, WS Executive Editor, is the mention that they have added new team members to the tasting team, noting, amongst other team members, that James Laube is getting some company in California tasting with the addition of two new reviewers who are now allowed to sign their initials to their notes. What does this mean? One could speculate about hegemony and house style in tasting, but it probably simply means that Laube needs some help tasting through the ever increasing pile of wine that shows up everyday. From the editorial:
In order to bring you comprehensive coverage, we train new tasters. It’s a lengthy process. They taste with our senior editors for three to five years, learning to write tasting notes and give accurate, consistent scores. They undergo blind tasting evaluations in our New York office. When they meet our rigorous standards for expertise and reliability, they are authorized to sign their initials to their reviews.
… joining Laube is Napa-based tasting coordinator MaryAnn Worobiec and associate editor Tim Fish.
3) One of the things that Wine Spectator HAS NOT done is back down from the point’s adornment to cult cabs. It’s another year and notch on the belt for many of these untouchable brands. From the October 15th issue comes ratings for the following: Harlan Estate – 97 points; Bryant Family – 96 points; Colgin – 95 points; Dalla Valle – 94 points; Paul Hobbs – 94 points; Joseph Phelps Insignia – 94 points; Araujo – 95 points; … let the games begin for those inclined to buy wines at $225 a bottle and up …
4) Another reason why Wine Spectator is becoming a better magazine has to do with more of a contemporary and culturally relevant take on things for people other then upper-middle class white guys that drive Mercedes. Case in point is a blurb in the “Grapevine” sidebar written by Eric Arnold and Heather Morgan Shott where they mention backstage riders for celebrities. Riders are the contracted demands for food and drink that needs to be furnished backstage in order to satisfy a performing celebrity. The rock band Van Halen notoriously requested a bowl of only green M&M’s backstage after every concert leading to an urban myth that green M&M’s are an aphrodisiac, as an example. Either Arnold or Shott went through thesmokinggun.com web site to find out that several stars have fun wine related requests. If you have some time to kill check out this link and search for Diana Krall, Amy Winehouse and others …
What do you think? Wine Spectator is the pillar of wine editorial and that hasn’t changed? Wine Spectator is improving their content and staying current, their blogs and online content is demonstration of that, in addition to the magazine? Wine Spectator is dying the death of a thousand cuts by the rise of community journalism and wine blogging?
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September 28 2007
Throw away the question of hereditary palate and being a super taster because the simple fact is that training your palate can be done just as you can learn to hit a 20 foot jumper off the dribble with a hand in your face.
Credit goes to Matt Kramer from Wine Spectator for highlighting the concept of 10,000 hours of training to be an expert in anything. He culled a couple of nuggets from a book called, “This is Your Brain on Music” by Daniel Levitin. The premise of the book is more focused on a certain capability for musical genius, but it’s applicable to anything, including wine as he deftly points out in his column found here.
A couple of the excerpts from Levitin’s book, highlighted in Kramer’s article, are worth repeating here:
Ten thousand hours of practice is required to achieve the level of mastery associated with being a world-class expert—in anything.
In study after study of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what you, this number comes up again and again. Ten thousand hours is equivalent to roughly three hours a day, or twenty hours a week, of practice over ten years.
No one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time.
The ten-thousand-hours theory is consistent with what we know about how the brain learns. Learning requires the assimilation and consolidation of information in neural tissue. The more experiences we have with something the stronger the memory/learning trace for the experience becomes.
Additional credit goes to Kramer for not staking a pious point of view about his own expertise; it’s an integrity-based position, probably more humble than reality, though. He and his professional writing brethren all have an easy 10,000 hours in.
How is this related to wine blogging? Well, the short answer is very few people, chance are, that do wine reviews on a wine blog are qualified under the premise of having to have 10,000 hrs. of training to be an expert, particularly when you consider the diversity of wines tasted and the need to have an expertise not at a macro-level, but instead at a micro-level. Most of us are hacks. And, it’s us against them—the pro’s versus the blogs.
What’s the good news? Well, chances are if you had the gumption to start a wine-related blog, you have a long head start on the 10,000 hours and the next couple of years should be interesting as newly minted experts cross the 10,000 hour threshold. This wine blogging online thing becomes a whole lot more interesting when we overtake the pro’s in numbers and I’m guessing a lot of people are accruing their hours quickly …
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