December 7 2006
I’m incredulous. Seriously, I don’t even know what to say. I wrote a post in March—a scathing post—about a fawning portrait of Olive Garden and their wine program in the March issue of Wine Business Magazine.
I didn’t have a problem with the story being about Olive Garden selling wine in a wine business magazine. My problem was what I believe to be a somewhat disingenuous public relations and the fact that most of the wine that Olive Garden sells is mass market with a capital M.
There is a lot of profit in wine and I think that Olive Garden pushes, no, pimps their cheap wine for the sake of profit. These are grounded, but baseless allegations on my part, and certainly I’m as capitalistic as the next American, but what really galls me is the public relations to make it seem like they are doing some good for America by popularizing wine.
Well, sign up the Olive Garden p.r. person up for an annual bonus because Business Week magazine snuck into the pages of my Wine Enthusiast magazine. Unbelievably, the Olive Garden management team is the winner of the Wine Enthusiast “Person(s) of the Year” award.
Thankfully this is a blog, because verbally I’m speechless.
Let me repeat it. Wine Enthusiast magazine, a magazine for consumers, features the management team of Olive Garden restaurant, a large chain, as their Person(s) of the Year.
It defies any type of rationale and why the hell is it in my Wine Enthusiast magazine? I don’t drink mass market supermarket wine, I don’t eat at Olive Garden and I have to believe that the vast majority of Wine Enthusiast readers don’t either.
Wine Enthusiast says:
“(Olive Garden) … have long been the leaders in bring wine culture to the masses.”
Culture? To the masses? Isn’t that an oxymoron of the first order. Seriously, did this award come with a Wine Enthusiast sales guy attached and an Olive Garden ad contract for ’07? Disgustingly, these is a page out of a 300 level public relations text book—take a weakness and turn it into a strength.
I checked the Olive Garden wine list to make sure I wasn’t somehow missing something. Nope. White Zinfandel, Riunite Lambrusco, Cavit, Turning Leaf, Clos Dubois … all of it can be found at your supermarket.
Methinks that subscription notice to Wine Enthusiast magazine sitting on the office desk is going to go unfilled with a check. I have a big tolerance for sales and marketing shtick, hell I’m in sales and marketing myself, but I refuse to be sucked in by a magazine pushing a fast food restaurant on me pimping mass market wines under the guise that it might appeal to me as a wine lover.
Am I off base here?
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