Good Grape Wine Company

August 23 2006

Drinking on Asphalt

WhenI was in Paso Robles last month our last stop of the day was at a winery calledFour Vines.

They’rea small winery with distribution in 19 states.

Onthe whole the wines were serviceable, mostly fruit-forward very new world-ishwines—even the Rhone varietals—that complemented their hallmark—a half dozendifferent Zinfandel’s.

Overall,it was a pleasant enough visit to their tasting room. The staff was nice—a school marmish Manager and two youngtwentysomethings—one a lifeguard that led to a lengthy conversation with mybuddy, also a SoCal lifeguard.  She was kind of  cute, and hardly menacing.

I made a note to myself to comment on my blog about some of their positioningwith the wines to customers. Simply,they give each of their wines a single identifying name like their “The Maverick”Zinfandel, “The Biker” Zinfandel, the “Heretic” Petite Sirah, “Anarchy” CentralCoast blend, and on and on …

Theyalso do schwag with names like “ZinBitch” “Naked,” etc.

Whilethe wine was okay, what left me really scratching my head as I left the tastingroom was the fact that all of the marketing seemed a bit forced—a touchunnatural. A prominent picture of thefounder in the tasting room (also found here) made me think that he seemed likea perfectly nice, normal chap.

Perhaps,the marketing was exactly that—marketing. But, it didn’t seem authentic, it didn’t seem to resonate and it seemedlike it had a greater opportunity to mis-fire for them over the long haul thenit did of hitting the mark.

Inthe “even a blind squirrel finds a nut,” file, imagine my surprise when I cruiseover to Wine Waves, a tasting notes blog from a Nashville, TN wine lover, andhe has the Four Vines “Biker” Zinfandel that he picked up on his way to theSturgis Motorcycle Rally.

For the uninitiated, the Sturgis Bike Rally in Sturgis, SD is the premiere bike rally in the country with thousands and thousands of motorcycle enthusiasts descending for what I can only guess is some general hedonistic mayhem, in a South Dakota kind of way.  Liquid friends of the bikers are more likely to be called "Bud," "Jack," and "Johnny" than Harlan, but I’m not quibbling details.

Thelesson here? Never judge a marketingeffort if you, perhaps, fall out of the target. Er, that would be me. Words like “Heretic,” and “Anarchy” don’t have much to do with mylife these days, so I shouldn’t condemn that which I don’t know. Ahem, I doubt thatthose words necessarily have much to do with a gentlemanly blogger from Nashville either, butat least he got the biker part taken care of.

Though,I really don’t want to learn about a “ZinBitch.”

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