Good Grape Wine Company

March 14 2006

70 degrees and Fluorescent

I never cease to be amazed at winery tasting rooms and thethrongs of people that come on the weekends.

I live in the Midwest and even here the more notablewineries in the region are packed on the weekends with customers lined up twodeep at the tasting counter as the winery staff fights with noble vigor to keepup with the customers that have made their third trip through the list.   

And, I never cease to be amazed at the purchasing thathappens. Normally rational people getcaught up in a moment of euphoria and suddenly have an urge to buy a case ofwine. The fact that they’ve been buyingonesy-twosy at grocery stores their whole adult wine drinking lifenotwithstanding.

So, I’m at a trade show in Las Vegas this week and I’ve longbeen fascinated with the notion that taking a mobile tasting room concept andacting as a sub-contractor to a catering organization would be a tidy littlebusiness. All of these trade shows arelooking for the edutainment aspect in the “fun” portion of the conference. And, regardless of industry, all conferencessell the fun via location and parties, etc.

And, even more important to them, they usually roll the beerand wine bars in at 4:30 to try and keep the late day traffic in the conferencecenter to placate the exhibitors that are inevitably always grumbling about thebad location, low attendance, or lack of decision-makers.

So, wouldn’t it be cool if you could create a business thatwould pour a bunch of good wines in a sampling format for customers, like awinery tasting room would do? You couldgo to a Mondavi or a larger winery and get a sponsorship deal going—the companyor the sub-contractor manages the personnel and the tasting and the sponsorshipand takes a flat fee for the project from the client.

This beats the pants off of the current beer and wine shtickthat happens on conference floors with wines that are usually not very notable by anybody’s standards—Lindeman’s Shiraz, anybody?

But, I have just talked myself out of this. Why?

Brillat-Savarin wrote extensively on the Physiology ofTaste. Many people may be familiar withhim from a couple of his famous quotes one of which is featured on the FoodNetwork show, The Iron Chef. It goes, “Tellme what you eat, and I will tell you what you are.” 

The Physiology of Taste is more treatise and anecdotal thana true meditation on the science of gustatory pleasures, but the net of it isthat eating and drinking is physiological—the sum of all of our senses. More physiological certainly thanpsychological which deals only with the science of mental processes andbehaviors.

What would Brillat-Savrin say about my little businessmodel? He would say that wine and foodare best enjoyed with friends in a convivial setting. Time, place and circumstance has as much to do with enjoying winethen anything else.

So, the sum of it for me is that I don’t think a businessaround wine tasting at a conference works because I’ve never had a good wine ata wine tasting bar at a conference and nor do I think anybody makes a wine goodenough to stand up to the rigors of when it’s 70 degrees and fluorescent on thefloor of a trade show.

I tasted a Malbec yesterday with a cheese tray in front ofme, but by God, and with God as my witness I don’t think that wine would havebeen worth a damn even if Parker gave it a 99 because I was in Las Vegas on aSunday against my will rubbing elbows with people I hold in semi-contempt.

The lesson here? Order the best looking value wine on the menu and enjoy good company atdinner—the wine and your companions will be the better for it.

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