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January 19 2008
Now, a full two weeks after Alder, while adding his own inimitable perspective, created a wide distribution platform for Rich Cartiere’s reporting from the Wine Market Report, you would have to say that Wine.com has seen significant damage to its reputation online and offline.
That is what journalism does; it tells objective stories before those with opinions weigh in with the essential truth and let the chips fall where they may.
Simply, very few wine stories that are not lifestyle and consumer-oriented have had as much historical life, save for the completely boring and pedantic “New World vs. Old World” debate that pops up a couple of times a year with a new set of players.
As the wine.com story heads into the home stretch, as the fire gives way to burning embers, I think it is safe to say it will show up on year-end 2008 wine industry “notable stories” lists.
Classicwines.com announcing that they were removing all advertising from Wine.com from their site was simply a symbolic deathblow from the wine blogosphere court of public opinion. Persona non grata, if you will. Or, to be more colloquial, Wine.com has been Fredoed (see also here).
In the meantime, though, given we have 11.5 more months of ’08 yet to unfold, let’s give a little credit where credit is due before we pull the car past the accident site. Credit goes to Richard Cartiere for breaking the story from a reporting perspective and the Specialty Wine Retailers Association for hosting the Wine Market Report newsletter where the story first appeared. Credit also goes, significantly, to Alder Yarrow, for giving this story a voice with opinion that took the lid off the situation.
Cartiere, especially, should credit for breaking this and that has been a little bit lost in the shuffle. I’m not sure where he got the tip, but it was bold of him to go with it. However, he is a journalist, experienced in investigation. Having the story come from an exclusive newsletter like the Wine Market Report and subsequently using the trickle down effect to Vinography.com seems like it was smart in execution. If it had not started in the Wine Market Report, I am not sure if it would have picked up as much steam as it did when Vinography effectively “broke” the story wide open.
The interesting thing about the story starting in the Wine Market Report, because it’s subscription-only to an influential group of winery insiders, is the fact that it saw the light of day at all to a larger audience. Historically, Cartiere has not made the newsletter available for *any* public consumption outside of his email or fax subscriber list. I know he does not make it available for outside intercourse because I have tried.
In the summer of last year, I read a copy of the Wine Market Report that featured a very damning review of “The House of Mondavi” by Julia Flynn Siler. I subsequently had occasion to exchange a couple of emails with Cartiere. I asked him if I could post the newsletter because I wanted to do a counterpoint review to the book review that he did. He very politely and professionally said, within the context of a longer narrative about his reporting background:
My approach to wine business news is the same I had at The AP, etc:—investigate, verify, verify, report all the news fit for discussion. I do not receive any gifts or accept travel or accommodations from wineries, etc. I accept only a limited bit of ads (rarely if ever are they from wineries) and otherwise support the newsletter through annual subscriptions (roughly 1,000 executive types currently). That is one of many measures I have in place to ensure that editorial is never to be influenced by the wine industry itself.
This model is the same as has been used for decades by newspapers in the United States. My slight twist is that the newsletter is not posted online and is available only via fax or email and it focuses exclusively on the wine business.
As such, I must deny as I always do, any request to publish the newsletter on a web site. Copyright restrictions give you the opportunity to quote from it to a limited degree as long as it is with clear and consistent attribution.
So, again, as the story dies down, let’s give credit to the folks that brought this story to light—Cartiere for writing it and agreeing to expose his newsletter to everybody against his own strictly enforced policy, the Specialty Wine Retailers Association web site for hosting the newsletter, and to Alder Yarrow, of course, for giving an opinion that, once combined with careful reporting, gave the story legs to expose the scurrilous truth.
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January 9 2008
Alder at Vinography.com wrote a post on some scurrilous activity by Wine.com last week. I followed on with a similar post. Alder’s post has generated a firestorm of comments one of which is so fantastic that I’m reproducing in full (and I hope the folks at Winemonger.com don’t mind) because it’s a monologue that would make both the screenwriter AND Jack Nicholson from “A Few Good Men” fawn in admiration.
In fact, if you watch the “A Few Good Men” snippet on YouTube (linked above) you should smile at yourself over the parallels ...
To Wine.com:
As a fellow online retailer who abides by the rules and pays dearly for it every day, we do understand your frustration with those who take illegal shortcuts. We also cannot side with those who call for civil disobedience in this matter. It is an uncomfortable fact of life that our social contract comes with a set of rules that are put down as laws, which at times do grow to be outdated, senseless, archaic and only remain in place to benefit the selfish interests of a few. Freeing the grapes, promoting free trade, and freeing bottles of wine from their legally imposed incarceration are all noble quests, but they hardly constitute a good case for civil disobedience. Furthermore, breaking these laws does, as has been pointed out, only play into the hands of those that profit from them (and pay millions to keep them in place).
However, this argument against those retailers who choose to break the rules has to be kept strictly separate from the path you have chosen. Going vigilante and taking action against those retailers by setting up a sting operation is not only a well-deserved act of PR self-mutilation, it is also just a despicable thing to do. Let’s take Alder’s freeway example a step further. Your action is like tossing nails out onto the freeway and then speeding away ahead of them. All of us online retailers who rely on markets to stay open will get to feel the repercussions of your selfish action.
You state that fairness was the goal. Where then is the fair open letter to all online wine retailers asking them to abide by the rules so we can strip this market from its medieval chastity belt together? You could have even gone so far as to invite everyone to get on board by a certain date and announced your plan to be the monitor of this club of white hat retailers, and then this group of dandy lads could then have jointly approached the authorities and asked to be recognized as those who abide by the rules voluntarily. By process of elimination the trade enforcement authorities (not you but those other guys who actually work for the government) would have then known where to look. You could have been the leader of this noble band of brothers and come out of your quest for a level playing field smelling like a rose (or at least like a carnation). Instead, you chose the way of the sneaky tattle-tailer that everyone couldn’t stand at school and you pissed on yourself.
We adhere to the rules and ship only where we can legally ship to. We are probably one of the smaller online retailers by virtue of importing the wines we sell ourselves rather than buying them from wholesalers who bought from other importers. We, as you, do also work with wholesalers at times, only they are our customers and not our vendors. Meaning we too have an interest in getting along with them. BUT, we will not side with those who have no love for wine and no interest in allowing the free trade of it. Fortunately there are a lot of good distributors out there with their wine hearts beating loudly for those amazing wines that some producers make for the world to enjoy.
So apparently you were the Washington customer that we recently had to refuse to sell wine to. We do want to help you get the wine you requested, and here is a way around the law that is perfectly legal. Instead of shipping your wines to yourself in Washington, send it to your aunt in California or any of the other 26 states we can legally ship to. Then have your dear auntie bring those bottles along the next time she visits you.
In fact, we have put together a special flight of wines for you. It’s called the “Sting Op 007” and is comprised of some of our best Gruner Veltliners, Rieslings, red wines and award winning dessert wines. And if you act now, you will enjoy a special 15% discount, PLUS we will give 10% of the proceeds for all the Sting Op 007 cases ordered by anyone to the SWRA. Just enter ISUCK as a discount code at checkout. Enjoy.
Cheers from Stephan and Emily at Winemonger.com
Beautiful. Just beautiful.
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November 14 2007
Note to self: Do not, under any circumstance, go back to the large Indianapolis wine shop that I hate to go to, even though they have the largest and best Int’l wine selection in the city, without a definite shopping game plan to get in and out without engaging the staff.
Why?
Because if their scurrilous retail price gouging isn’t enough to tip you over the edge, than their brow beating retail sales people are …
Alain, the same guy that over charged me on Saturday for to many discarded Opus One and Grange wooden boxes (they charge $6 bucks per box—can you believe it – for something they get for free for buying the wine it comes in—and I bought three and was charged for six) is the same guy that got mad (very annoyed) at the notion of “Silver Burgundy.”
Hey, I’ll be the first to admit, I’m no Francophile, and the mistake was mine, I should have never mentioned “Silver Burgundy” but Alain got down right mad when I suggested that I was looking for a “Silver Burgundy—something from the Côte Chalonnaise and the Mâconnais. I have to bring a bottle to a tasting tonight.”
Go ahead, you can have a laugh at my expense; it was truly a Clark Griswold moment. I didn’t read Brooklynguy’s post close enough. So, Alain, the Frenchman, probably by way of his parents eating baguettes in Detroit, floor salesperson, says, “Who said Silver Burgundy? Was it Joe from National?”
He was mad that somebody was spreading bad information and apparently had it on good account that somebody at National (a distributor) was the idiot. I quickly retreated and then over-explained that “No, no, it’s an online tasting, a Wednesday once a month, everybody gets wine around a theme and …oh, forget it.”
He quickly looked like he still had some residual anger left over from being mad at the stooge that was telling me to buy a “Silver Burgundy” (Sorry Brooklynguy, while I didn’t cite you by name, I let the fictitiousness of you as an organizer take the fall) and confused at the online stuff all at the same time.
I quickly grabbed a bottle, to just simply disengage from the verbal intercourse and I picked a bad bottle in the process.
How do I know it’s bad? Because I may not trust my French wine knowledge, but I do trust my palate and this is one lifeless, thin, tart, mouth drying Burgundy devoid of fruit. It’s the kind of stuff that you would think would be turned into a cleaning solvent or a fuel by-product by the French when they destroy wine, except, well, this stuff made its way over to the states.
The Matthiew di Brully 2005 Mercurey “La Perriere” is not simply just unexceptional—It’s completely and utterly bad. How else do I know it’s bad? I don’t think it’s distributed in very many places. A search of the Internet—Wine-Searcher, WineZap, etc turns up zero, zilch, nada on this wine—no review, no nothing. The only thing I could find on this wine was a Cork’d review from “iowines” and a rating of 92 out of 100. Hmm … 92 out of 100. “iowines” is based in Des Moines, Iowa … hmmm … let’s look at this wine, why yes, of course, it’s imported by Wine Adventures in Des Moines, Iowa. What an incredible coincidence.
Despite the miss on the WBW wine, I do take it in stride because I did learn a couple of very valuable things—#1) Alain is very concerned about the correctness of understanding French wine and “Silver Burgundy” is not correct in his world view and #2) stretching out of my comfort zone is always a good thing because I will go back and find a wine from Côte Chalonnaise or Mâconnais and celebrate Wine Blogging Wednesday properly and more privately on some random Tuesday in the near future. It will be a “make good” and the point in time I will also secretly apologize to Broonklyguy for letting him take the brunt of the verbal diarreah from Alain when it was my own ineptness in the first place ... ah, well. What is next month’s theme?
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September 18 2007
Fans of the Food Network know, ad nauseum, that Emeril Lagasse is Portuguese. So, I guess, in an incredibly anglo-centric manner, the upcoming Wine Blogging Wednesday (WBW) on October 15th, featuring the wines of Portugal, might be best dubbed, “What Would Emeril Drink?”
Somewhere, I can feel the more internationally savvy Wine Blogging Wednesday participants cringing. But, asking what Emeril would drink is a pretty good question because I have little clue what he would drink besides Port, which is kind of the point of WBW—to stretch the boundaries of comfort and seek out that which is new. Portugese table wine only, please. Ditch the Taylor Fladgate and the Fonseca Port.
To get intrepid wine drinking souls moving in the right direction Ryan and Gabrielle from Catavino, the hosts for the 38th edition of Wednesday communal wine drinking affair, have provided some ground rules and an excellent primer. In what I believe to be a first, Ryan and Gabrielle are bringing their “A” game and providing a 12 page primer to the wines of Portugal. Check it out here.
And, while Catavino is providing bonus points for meeting certain criteria, there is no stated bonus for matching a Portuguese wine to Emeril’s creole cuisine.
Start your Portuguese wine search now and see you on the 17th.
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September 15 2007
Good posts from other wine blogs, news items and notions from around the world of wine and the wine blogosphere
First Big Crush/Fearless Critic Brown Bag Wine Review
Two new wine related books are coming out soon, signaling a mini wine-related riptide of publishing from Gen. Y authors. The first book, First Big Crush by Eric Arnold, now an Editor at Wine Spectator, then an unemployed writer with an affinity for Hogue Fume Blanc, he pitched a book concept to go to New Zealand to do something of an unpaid internship at a winery, Allan Scott. Grist for the mill as it was. Having received a preview copy of this book, I’m going to have an author interview with Arnold sometime in the next week instead of a book review, but to understand his voice—natural, and unpretentious, and that this isn’t your Dad’s wine book all you have to read is the second paragraph of the introduction:
I declared myself a wine expert, wrongly and assholishly, during my senior year of college, for a simple reason: because I was in college. College students think they’re experts in everything, and my circle of friends was no exceptions. We didn’t just think the world would be different if we were in charge—we knew it would be. Because we were drunk.
First Big Crush is available on Monday, 9/17. Author interview sometime this week when I get him pinned down, through the publishers marketing department.
Another book, “Fearless Critic Brown Bag Wine Review” is out in January. 30 year old author Robin Goldstein takes the notion of state fair judging to the people with a book tasted by some 400 consumers in an effort to evaluate the most commonly purchased and widely available wines available under $15. An article from the Springfield, MA The Republican newspaper:
It is one of many of such sessions that will be held in which the tasters, which he calls judges, try wines wrapped and taped into a brown bag and fill out individual evaluations as well as come to a group consensus about their quality. A statistician will help analyze the results of the tastings and other information.
“There is a real need for down-to-earth wine reviewing. Now 90 percent of the wine writing is about the 10 percent of the most expensive bottles and 10 percent of the writing is about the wine most Americans drink,” said Goldstein, 30, who also published “The Menu,” a guide to restaurants in Northampton, Amherst and the surrounding area in 2004.
“I thought it was time to review wine people really drink, the most commonly available bottles,” Goldstein said.
I wish Goldstein the best, and this sounds like a good idea on paper—especially when you pitch it to an Editor, “Hey there are no wine books on the most widely available wines, it’s all about expensive wines.” The editor, she of little wine experience herself immediately thinks this must be some untapped niche she has stumbled upon. Oh, if it were only that easy. Well, as Mr. Goldstein will soon find out, the reason no publishing occurs in the general consumer wine category outside of “how-to” is because nobody buys books to learn more about Hogue Fume Blanc, or wines they can find in their grocery store.
Fearless Critic Brown Bag Wine Review is out in January ’08.
Sacre Bleu Intro./We Get Letters
Speaking of Gen. Y., I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that fast-growing wine brand, Sacre Bleu, aimed at import-lovin’ Gen. Y has started a blog. Building off of the momentum from their Myspace.com page, they’re starting to poke at the conventions of wine via regular updates at: http://sacrebleuwine.blogspot.com/
Hot comedian du jour, Dane Cook, who likewise built an audience on Myspace is famous for being an incredibly funny comedian who, well, doesn’t really tell any jokes. He’s the guy that isn’t really that funny, but everything out of his mouth seems funny. Somebody asks you, “What’s so funny about that guy?” You say, “I dunno, but the guy’s funny.” If you asked Cook for his best joke he’d probably launch into a weaving story that would end 17 minutes later and your side would be aching, but you couldn’t explain what the joke was.
Fortunately or unfortunately, Cook is very influential with Gen. Y, where, in our ironic, self-aware world, every interaction becomes fodder for a life parable, with comedic results. Exhibit A is an email sent to Sacre Bleu with a narrative from young Jeremy and his introduction to the brand.
No simple excerpt would do it justice. Read the whole thing here.
“Good Grape Confessional” Follow-up
A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post called “Good Grape Confessional” and the crux of the post was about feeling a little overwhelmed about all of my information consumption and wanting to chuck it for a while in order to read some good fiction books.
On the comments section of the site I received some pretty good recommendations for books, several of which I will read.
But, more than that, in our perpetual question to understand and to categorize, I feel better already—because I realize that my malady is actually a positive and I am a “Techno//Marketer,” according to this blog.
Phew, I feel better already.
Good Wine Under $20/Winehiker –Adopt a Grape
Winehiker Witiculture and then Dr. Debs have already highlighted “Adopt a Grape” a fun little voyeuristic excursion into grape growing and winemaking, chronicled on the web at this site; it’s cool enough that it merits another mention.
“Adopt a Grape” … why didn’t somebody think of this before? What a fun idea, and best of all, it’s free. Hard to say if there will be the opportunity to buy the wine once it has made it through its natural lifecycle, but I’m guessing so … there is genius in simplicity and potency in entertainment as a selling tool and this is a great example of that. In between Crushpad and things thing this, I’m going to have to start budgeting for online wine expenditures. I adopted grapes in Block 7 of their Cab. Vineyard, adopt your own grapes here.
Benito’s Wine Reviews/California Wine Month
I think anybody who blogs and keeps at it is regarded as media on some level because we all get come-on’s and press releases. I, unfortunately, missed out on one public relation gambit that I wish I would have received. Ben at Benito’s Wine Reviews received a box of chardonnay and cabernet grapes from the California Association of Wine Growers. They’re running a “One Nation Under Vine” program that we’ve talked about in the past. They’re definitely getting good pr help on these clutter-breaking campaigns!
Check out Benito’s site, if you haven’t before.
Coming up in Pt. II of Around the Wine Blogosphere: more news and noteworthy items including a review of “Spoofulation,” a term I became aware of on The Wine Broad’s Board and a term whose history has been bandied about on Joe Dressner’s site—kind of interesting in a wine nerd kind of way, which is a sub-segment I’m a card-carrying member of.
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