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September 1 2010
Interested wine enthusiasts love to talk about a back-to-basics approach to wine—a terroir-driven, minimally invasive, natural sensibility that is more Chez Panisse than expense account steakhouse. Yet, it’s no secret, big wine business drives better than 90% of domestic wine sales in the U.S.
Despite the sales velocity of the big boys, the wine industry, cast artistically, as most ardent wine enthusiasts know it, is the province of the small and artisanal, a sleepy hamlet of agrarian idyll, German Mittelstand as manifest reality.
While wine enthusiasts are fixated on the romance in the glass, subtle changes are happening on the business side of the small to medium size domestic wine industry that speaks to a long-term shift with wineries that is more akin to slacks and a button down shirt moreso than dungarees and a chambray.
Simply, a growing counterpoint may reshape our understanding of wineries in the U.S. in the coming decade.
As reported in the North Bay Business Journal, Mario Zepponi, a principle at Zepponi & Company, gave a presentation at the recent Impact Napa event (organized by the North Bay Business Journal), focused on issues important to the Napa business climate.
Zepponi, a Cal Berkley undergrad and a Notre Dame MBA/JD graduate brings significant education and wine industry experience to the table. In his presentation (slides and audio available here), Zepponi covered a great deal of territory survey-style (well summarized here). Two of Zepponi’s nuggets that jumped out to me include an increasing awareness on his part that winery owners may be experiencing, “owner fatigue.” Zepponi said, paraphrasing a common winery owner sentiment about economic conditions, “I don’t know (if) I have it in me to tough it out this time if it’s going to be a longer cycle than I’m prepared for.” Zepponi also noted that, in facing tough business challenges, professional management is frequently needed while also acknowledging that long-time winery owners rarely are able to take a back seat to a hired gun.
These are compelling comments rarely seen – “owner fatigue” and a need for professional management in the wine business.
Last summer when I interviewed Scott Becker, formerly of Global Wine Partners, he too noted a need for more professional management saying, “(In the future) more professional talent will be required … Napa Valley will need to develop the systems and the talent to support a maturing, complex industry in an increasingly competitive market.”
So, what happens when our pastoral ideal meets a need for b-school?
Put another way, what happens when a winery owner, raised on the production side, or coming from out of industry with skills in one functional area, faces a set of business challenges that exceeds their capability to lead successfully?
It’s a good question, certainly, and all wine enthusiasts have a stake in the outcome. But, let’s face it: an MBA program is impractical for most. The time, expense and commitment for an MBA program for an existing business owner rarely makes sense, particularly when case studies and group projects are focused on solving problems that have limited application for an owner already in the proverbial weeds.
And, as mentioned, bringing in a professional manager rarely ends well when somebody’s lifeblood, their baby is involved.
As a trend, there has been an increasing interest in business coaching, a sort of peer mentoring program for those lonely at the top to bounce ideas off and be held accountable. Some reports indicate the business coaching industry is growing at 18% annually.
Yet, the business coaching industry, filled with sages that have done more talking than doing, isn’t perfect, either.
For these reasons, it was with interest that I noted the launch of a program from a company called ShortTrack CEO that takes a hybrid business coaching and educational approach to working with mid-market CEO’s, those that have revenue in between $1M and $100M annually.
Led by a former CEO of three businesses and based on research with over 2,000 mid-market companies, the program is a 12-month long immersion that can be undertaken with existing professional responsibilities combining training, consulting, mentoring, seminars and self-study focused on the four fundamental growth areas of a business– infrastructure, market, people and operations. The outcome of the 12 months of work is an actionable framework for re-shaping a business to address specific needs supported by tools that lead an owner or CEO down the path to creating lasting, tangible, measurable results in their business:
• Find the hidden numbers in your P&L and balance sheet that indicate if time, energy, risk and money are being invested wisely
• Increase the accuracy of managing and hiring decisions to 80%
• Foster morale and galvanize culture to lead people to a shared vision
• Learn how to win mindshare to build competitive advantage and grow sales
Of course, this all sounds good and nearly like a silver bullet. I’m as jaded as the next person is by consultants, particularly because I’ve spent the majority of my career, by choice, in businesses under $100M in revenue where the challenges are real and the solutions aren’t easy. However, ShortTrack CEO does offer an incredible downloadable book (download here) that had me nodding my head in agreement on page after page as they describe the challenges in mid-market businesses before laying out the business concepts and how they affect a business. It’s an excellent read, and highly recommended for most people in the wine business as a precursor to examining the ShortTrack CEO program.
In sum, while most wine enthusiasts prefer to view the wine industry as their own oasis from a harried life, an agricultural ideal that can be escaped to, I don’t think there’s any doubt that future success in the wine business requires a blending of the art with a real business sensibility that drives success.
Or, as Andy Warhol said, “Being good in business is the most fascinating kind of art ... Making money is art and working is art and good business is the best art.” Like it or not, this may be something that the wine enthusiast is forced to allow into their consciousness, alongside thoughts about ambient yeast.
Posted in, Wine: A Business Doing Pleasure. Permalink | Comments (1) | Print |
August 26 2010
Social media marketing isn’t the first internet paradigm where unscrupulous “marketers” have lived to flim-flam and trade on the insecurities of people and companies who don’t know any better, taking shortcuts in the process; it’s just the latest online trend in a long lineage of nefarious evolution dating back to the 1980s.
What is the first clue in sniffing out hucksters? Listen to the spiel. It starts at the web site where, “Monetize your social network to build the wealth you always dreamed of” screams the home page before the video of a dynamic and charismatic speaker says, “The internet, for you guys, is a cash register.”
Uh huh.
Unfortunately, at least one Napa Valley winery and potentially several others are being victimized by this “between the margins” internet marketing.
Hardly a Tom Clancy potboiler, but interesting nonetheless—here’s the anatomy of how this unethical internet marketing is currently being conducted:
A couple of days ago I received a direct message on Twitter from Atalon in Napa Valley, a well-reviewed winery. The direct message said, “A must read before hosting your next get together” and included a link to a web site at http://www.wine-specialist.com. There, I could enter my name and email address and receive free content about hosting a wine tasting party. I took the bait. And, when I entered my email address, the web page then took me to the web site of Destination Cellars.
Hmm. That’s weird, I thought.
Moments later I received an email from wine-specialist.com that said my copy of, “The Guide to Hosting a Wine Tasting” was attached to the email, except it wasn’t. I replied to the email asking for the guide and my email was returned to me as undeliverable. At the bottom of the original email was the contact information for a web site called, “The Steele Method” which, after doing a quick review of the site, was an internet marketer.
Hmm. That’s weird, I thought. Again.
At this point, I go back to Twitter to direct message Atalon to ask them not to direct message me again because I consider it to Spam. Come to find out, I can’t direct message Atalon because they don’t follow me on Twitter. Definitely Spam, then.
Okay. So, now I have a Napa winery Spamming me, a wine-specialist.com web site that takes my email address, sends an email that can’t be responded to with the name of an internet marketer in the body of the email and a browser window that has Destination Cellars.
Whatever. I have better things to do with my time so I move on.
However, a couple of days later, I get another direct message—this time from Dana Estates winery, another well-reviewed Napa Valley winery. Similar message, “Just downloaded this wine guide” was the come-on.
Once bitten, twice shy. Whatever. I ignore the message.
Then, this morning, I received an email from wine-specialist.com and in the email they apologize for not sending the attachments before—they had a server issue. My guide to hosting a wine tasting and other content was attached. I open the attachments and it’s cut and paste generic wine information of the garden variety with no logo, label or anything identifying it with Atalon.
Curiosity piqued, I go to Dana Estates Twitter direct message and hit the link and it too takes me to the wine-specialist.com site, too. This time though, the site has been updated with gushing user comments like, “Great post, Love the tasting guide in the back of the e-book. Made copies for all my friends.”
One problem, here – the site isn’t set-up to take comments, so they’re obviously bogus. If my “bogus” suspicion wasn’t valid enough there was a comment from “Drew” at Domaine Carneros, the Napa sparkling house, with a picture with the comment associated with Cardinale, yet another well-reviewed Napa winery. Now, I’m not the sharpest pencil in the cup, but something is up here.
I did some research and sent an email to an “Allie Drew” at Domaine Carneros (I found her via LinkedIn) and she verified that not only did she NOT leave the comment at wine-specialist.com, but she was the only person at Domaine Carneros with “Drew” in her first or last name.
Things started to unravel at this point.
I then tried to direct message Dana Estates. No can do because they don’t follow me on Twitter, either. At this point, my morning is shot playing Matlock, but I’m invested in sniffing this out.
I search for background info on other allegedly bogus commenter’s from wine-specialist.com including Maria T. Hall, whose Twitter page, ironically enough, was started in the third week of July, just as Atalon’s and Dana Estates were. It links to a health-related scam-oriented looking web site called, “EnergyFactor.” Each of the three Twitter pages has been promoting the wine-specialist.com web site.
I decide to send an email to the internet marketer, David Steele, from the “The Steele Method,” asking who his client is for wine-specialist.com. I received a phone call a short time later from Steele who indicates he would email me when I ask for his contact information, while declining to say who the client was, despite Destination Cellars, again, being the site that a user is directed to after an email submission.
Later Steele emails me and says Destination Cellars is not their customer noting, “Currently we do not have a client in the Wine-Specialists.com we are just gathering statistics and if you know of someone who would benefit from the traffic and name capture we would appreciate it (sic).”
A grammarian he is not.
I email David Keuhner, CEO of Destination Cellars to ask him if he’s associated with wine-specialist.com for internet marketing. I get the vague response of, “We have various organizations as well as individuals involved. We’re been (sic) testing various ideas with regards to Twitter, Facebook, etc. Some things are working and some things aren’t, we’re still evaluating the ideas to determine how much or how little we wish to invest.”
I send another email asking, more specifically, if he’s working with David Steele from “The Steele Method” and Keuhner indicates in a response that, yes, that’s one of the people they are working with.
At this point, I have Twitter spam, bogus comments and two guys who contradict each other about working together.
If all of this isn’t confusing enough, I call Dana Estates winery to ask if they have a Twitter account. The woman on the phone didn’t think so. I sent her an email with a link to the Twitter page for verification. Not 40 minutes later, I get an email from the Dana Estates public relations firm indicating that, no, Dana Estates doesn’t have a Twitter account and they’re going to take measures to have the Twitter page removed.
Representatives from Atalon could not be reached.
Phew. That’s a lot of work to get this allegation: David Steele from “The Steele Method” is trying to work with Destination Cellars on internet marketing. In the process of doing so, he has set-up an internet marketing proof of concept designed to indicate to Destination Cellars that he can deliver qualified leads (email addresses) for Destination Cellars business. In so doing, Steele has set-up bogus Twitter accounts under the names of at least one Napa Valley winery, and possibly others.
Of course, I caveat all of this with “allegedly,” but there’s enough evidence that a jury of 5th grader’s would convict.
Is this legal? A better question might be: is this illegal? Not expressly. Twitter’s terms and conditions absolve them of virtually any responsibility, though they do police if prompted to investigate fraudulent accounts. No money has changed hands and the damage to the winery brand under whose name the fake Twitter account(s) was set-up is negligible. The email from wine-specialist.com does allow the receiver to opt-out of receiving additional messages (a requirement). Is it unethical to represent being something you’re not? Absolutely, but that’s for David Steele to reconcile (allegedly). He indicated in his email to me that he considers it, “gathering statistics” so he’s probably sleeping at night.
Fortunately, some back and forth with Twitter will have this resolved for Dana Estates in a couple of days (and with Atalon, as well, if it’s true that their Twitter is also fake). Destination Cellars will likely eventually see this “grey marketing” for what it is.
The irony of the situation is this messaging to consumers and leading them to a web site (landing page) with a promise of content is standard operating procedure for many technology companies and their business-to-business lead generation activity. However, typically, it’s done via advertising in email newsletters, calls-to-action and quality whitepapers – all done in an ethical way, supported by marketing dollars, with no bogus accounts and no fictitious comments. At the end of the day, if done correctly, the business user feels like giving their email address is an even exchange for the content received.
Not so here, or else I wouldn’t have done the sleuthing.
The moral of the story for wineries? Trust, but verify. Be wary of “internet marketers” that take hard, legitimate work and try to take shortcuts and, especially, those that promise to “monetize your social network” tapping into untold wealth.
P.T. Barnum said, “There is a sucker born every minute,” but wineries don’t have to be one of them.
Proactive action for a winery in response to reading this is to go to knowem.com and register a winery-related user name at as many social media web sites as relevant, this will at least prevent somebody from using the name in an unauthorized fashion. In addition, setting up Google alerts for a winery name will allow the winery to keep an eye out for where their name appears online.
In a subsequent post, I’ll highlight a winery that is doing a good job with legitimate internet marketing.
Here are links to various Twitter accounts, web sites and my sleuthing trail:
Twitter page for Maria T. Hall
Posted in, Wine: A Business Doing Pleasure. Permalink | Comments (12) | Print |
July 30 2010
Summary: An examination of Latitude Beverage Co. and their négociant label 90+ Cellars – a newer entrant in a wine business niche that has been successfully updated for modern times by Oriel Wines and Cameron Hughes wine. 90+ Cellars includes the marketing hook of sourcing wines that have scored at least 90+ points in previous vintages.
90+ Cellars founder Kevin Mehra might be a modern day P.T. Barnum, a new millennium consumer crusader like Ralph Nader, or, perhaps, a poor man’s Cameron Hughes, a serviceable if unoriginal knock-off of the man and company who reinvented the domestic negociant trade for modern times.
It is perhaps ironic that the growth of his nascent business—Latitude Beverage Co.—creator of the wine label 90+ Cellars, is predicated on the latter, a Cameron Hughes-lite with a slight marketing hook.
Unfortunately, rare is the time when a knock-off deserves a rooting interest, particularly when the differentiating marketing hook is something as polarizing as that alleged and mystical quality line of demarcation – a 90-point score. Of course, that’s on top of a model that already has its detractors. To quote top California winemaker David Ramey from a Wall Street Journal profile on Cameron Hughes, “A guy like Hughes has a business model that revolves around other people’s misfortunes. He’s like a vulture feeding on carrion.” By that rational, a derivation of the Cameron Hughes model makes 90+ Cellars not a vulture feeding on carrion, but by analogy, more like the hot, “now you see them, now you don’t” boy band knock-off O-Town who fed on the leftover carcass of ‘tween female scraps created by the Backstreet Boys years ago.
Quoting a 90+ Cellars company blog post from October of last year, “90+ Cellars is just like Cameron Hughes’ Lot Series except that the wines Latitude Beverage purchases come with a ratings pedigree. While we don’t necessarily advocate buying wines based on their ratings (because everyone’s personal taste is different), we think only selecting wines that are well-structured enough to earn a 90+ rating in the first place is a great place to start.”
Started in early 2009 and located at Faneuil Hall in Boston, MA, a building with deep historical roots that has been co-opted for the tourist trade, Latitude Beverage Co. is doing much the same – trading on wines historical roots to those interested only enough to act as tourist in the wine aisle.
The business model, as indicated by the comparison to Cameron Hughes, is very much what you might expect from a négociant model in this period of economic distress. Latitude Beverage Co. buys finished wine (in the states it’s through a broker, somebody like Turrentine or Ciatti Co., and internationally it’s directly with the winery) and labels it at a discount to the retail value of the wine that might have gone on the shelf if the source winery had bottled it. In doing their sourcing, Latitude Beverage Co. looks for wines that have a pedigree of being scored 90-points or more, have “Best Buy” accolades or have won a gold medal at a wine competition. According to a press release, Latitude “…sources only finished wines that have a pedigree of 90+ ratings.”
It’s that particular marketing spin on the 90+ point pedigree, or third-party accolades where the 90+ Cellars business starts to unravel, in my opinion – it stretches the boundaries of what is good marketing in a skeptical age and the transparency that fosters a “suspension of disbelief” with consumers. 90+ Cellars operate at the dangerous intersection where the positive power of suggestion, and its evil twin, “This is bunk marketing hooey” take hold.
If the wine delivers, 90+ Cellars is a hero, and if not, they’re a goat; it’s a black and white equation based on expectation setting.
Cameron Hughes, largely has built a reputation for putting exceptional quality juice in the bottle and more than validating their price point, as validated by mainstream wine criticism. Not so, I fear, with 90+ Cellars.
In reviewing four wines from 90+ Cellars, a California Pinot, a Spanish Garnacha, a Napa Merlot and an Australian Shiraz-Viognier, I found myself ponderously scratching my head after trying each. Not bad wines, and, perhaps, even an arguable value based on their price, each under $16 a bottle, yet, by the same token I found nary a wine that came close to a threshold of quality that I would qualify as a 90-point wine. I found myself muttering to myself, “Not bad, but they should have called it 83+ Cellars.”
In an interview with Mehra, I sought some clarification on my initial impressions, wanting to believe that, perhaps, my palate was a tougher than most, my suspicious nature more keenly negative than the average consumer; the suspension of my disbelief would be overcome, could be overcome.
As it turns out, the business is not intentionally disingenuous, but nor does it deserve the sort of blind faith that is implicit in its labels’ name.
Consider the following:
90+ Cellars gives itself plenty of wiggle room by sourcing wine that has a lineage of a 90+ point score, “Best Buy” accolades or gold medals in competition. However, the 90+ points isn’t related to current vintage, it’s naturally declassified if it’s on the bulk market, the consumer never knows the provenance by source winery name and 90+ cellars doesn’t submit their vintages to traditional critics for validation, instead relying on bloggers.
It is a lot of blind faith for a regular wine consumer, to say nothing of the perceptive.
In particular, most egregious to me is the fact that according to Mehra, they are not submitting the wines to traditional critics noting, “They can take 6 to 8 months to taste a wine and in many instances our wine is already gone. We like online wine bloggers much better (because) they aren’t biased to big name brands, taste quickly and get their information out much faster.”
What’s left unsaid by Mehra is the fact that wine bloggers are susceptible to the sway of free samples, often have a lack of insight into wine business models, are as easily swayed by marketing shtick as the consumers who read their sites, and they lack a penetrating influence that moves markets.
Quite simply, the quantity of good reviews from wine bloggers will likely outpace bad reviews and the bad reviews can be easily discounted.
Overall, it’s disappointing that a wine whose marketing is predicated on mainstream wine reviews doesn’t close the loop for wine reviews with the same mainstream critics. In my opinion, the way forward for this wine business is to have their quality claims—natch—the name of the label, verified.
Live by the sword, die by the sword, that’s what I say. Otherwise, Mehra and 90+ Cellars aren’t just merely Cameron Hughes-lite, it’s P.T. Barnum and his sideshow ...
Alas, a sucker may be born every minute, but I’m not one of them.
Posted in, Wine: A Business Doing Pleasure. Permalink | Comments (9) | Print |
July 25 2010
It is no secret, and definitely not a revelation: wine business marketing is all about the story. But, what does that really mean?
A story carries value only if it’s memorable, and connects with an audience – an audience of one or an audience of hundreds, if not thousands. A litany of facts does not a story make. If a “story” does not connect then it’s merely information, soon to be forgotten like a kids’ math lesson over the summertime.
However, if a story is memorable, it becomes shareable, like a good joke that can be recalled on command. And, when something is shareable, well, that is the good stuff—that’s when a winery has other people doing their marketing for them because customers are sharing stories with their friends, and oftentimes including a dash of brand ambassadorship and a hint of positive projection all wrapped in an anecdotal, personal brand package.
I have been thinking about the nature of stories and was motivated into further research by a recent Wine Business Monthly (WBM) article (magazine only).
WBM offered a recap of the Fine Wine III conference held in April of this year in Ribero del Duero, Spain. Presenting research from U.K. based wine research firm Wine Intelligence, the research breaks down demographic data for luxury wine buyers (over $25 a bottle). The research is drawn from the U.S., U.K and Switzerland. According to Wine Intelligence, a stunning 60% of all luxury wines is based on 12% of luxury wine buyers – these are the regular high-end buyers. Put a different way, 88% of all luxury wine buyers are occasional purchasers and drive 40% of the high-end market.
In a nutshell, based on a deduction even I can make, the reason the upper end of the wine echelon has seen a protracted buying recession is because 88% of luxury wine buyers who buy occasionally, driving 40% of the market, reduced the frequency of their “occasional.” Simple enough.
However, as the market rebounds, and if reports are true that occasional trading up is by this buying segment may be stunted by the quality consumers are seeing at lower price points, how does a winery induce interest?
It’s all about the story.
The WBM article and the Wine Intelligence research went on to detail the top cues for occasional wine buyers, noting: “…Unlike their luxury counterparts, they seek reassurance in their purchasing because they are not as familiar with fine wine.” Reassurance in the form of a story.
The article continues, quoting Erica Donoho of Wine Intelligence, “It’s important for them when they are buying less frequently to have some sort of measure of safety. A well-known wine producer is a safe bet for them.” Left unsaid is the fact that “well-known” is a relative term, but “familiar” is obviously the antidote and stories can create that sense of familiarity.
However, as news articles are wont to do, they provided the list of story cues that occasional luxury wine buyers are looking for, but no larger context for what constitutes a good story.
I did some additional research analyzing two books on the topic – Made to Stick and The Story Factor. The below acts as sort of recipe book for a winery to create their own story that resonates. When viewed sequentially, the first visual offers the six fundamentals of a “sticky” idea, ending with a good story. The second visual offers the six types of stories. The third visual offers the seven types of story themes that occasional luxury wine buyers are looking for and the fourth visual, well, that’s when you know you’re hitting all cylinders.
Made to Stick: 6 Keys to a “Sticky” Idea
The Story Factor: Six Distinct Types of Stories
Wine Intelligence Research: The Seven Top Buying Cues / Story Angles for Occasional Luxury Wine Buyers
What Happens when a Story Hits the Spot?
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July 7 2010
Quick thoughts on wine news from the last week …
Poof! Goes the Wine Deal Web Sites
“Now you see it, now you don’t.” That is the sales premise of the flood of “one wine deal a day” flash sales web sites that have sprung up over the course of the last four years with the economy contributing to the development of a number of sites in just the last two years. Ironically, “Now you see it, now you don’t” can also describe the long-term viability of most of these sites, as well.
In the span of one week, the market innovator was acquired (Woot.com by Amazon.com) and one of wine ecommerce’s oldest players got into the game (Wine.com via dusty, legacy URL wineshopper.com).
You can now be sure that a shakeout of these sites is imminent.
Woot.com was the originator of the concept of one screaming wine deal a day. They were followed shortly thereafter by Wines til Sold Out, the now defunct Radcru.com and then Winespies.com. What followed in the wake of these companies has been a rash of “me too” imitators trying to capitalize on a combination of excess inventory in the wine supply-chain and consumers looking for a deal.
In addition, the concept has been co-opted by dozens of other companies who are not principally in the wine space, but offer deep discounts on luxury goods, including wine – companies like Gilt Groupe and Rue La la and others.
Specific to wine, Cinderella Wine, Winery Insider, One Wine One Deal, and Wine Heist all play in this space, in addition to a rash of others. Anecdotally, I have heard that upwards of 40 of these sites exist.
The consumer-facing business model is simple enough—usually there is some sort of free email sign-up “membership” element and then one wine deal at a time with a time limitation, sometimes one day, sometimes up to a week. The wine on offer is at a significant discount from retail price. Sales copy varies from site to site ranging from the compelling to the hackneyed.
The short-term value is that the consumer gets a “deal” and the wine brand gets a sale with some level of brand protection given the membership and non-broadcast nature of the advertisement.
However, the questions I have related to these sites are numerous:
• At what point does the consumer get numb to wine deals in general?
• Is there a potential degradation to the wine brand in a fire sale?
• Does commoditizing wine with price as the activation lever create long-term, conditioned harm to the wine buying market?
Just as major label clothing brands like Ralph Lauren have segmented their clothing offerings so I can buy a Polo shirt for $65 at Nordstrom, and a Chaps shirt at Kohl’s for $14.99(probably made at the same factory) is it manifest destiny with wine that second labels are going to increase in importance as production in the upper echelon adjusts to normalized market demand?
Paul Mabray, Chief Strategy Officer at VinTank doesn’t anticipate wineries increasing risk with second labels when he noted in an interview:
“The notion of ‘flash sales’ of super luxury products ($40+) does have a life span. As demand shrinks (leaving excess inventory that requires these types of channels), the wineries generally reduce production to match market needs. I would expect that in a 12 - 36 months the pool of excess inventory of these types of wine reduces and the ability for these wine sale sites to source in the category dries up. At that point, these companies will need to move to a different product type (International?) or change their value proposition (e.g. great prices of upcoming wineries).”
Specific to the wine sale sites themselves, how much longer are the number of entrants in the race viable before a shakeout occurs and a winery is on the hook with outstanding receivables?
I have always followed the Jack Welch (former CEO of GE) school of thought – if you can’t be number one or number two in your market, then you’re in the wrong market (paraphrased).
I watch trends closely and the surest sign that a trend has reached its zenith is when an acquisition occurs, or a late adopter gets into the game. The wine business has seen both instances occur within a week.
If I were a winery, I would pay close attention to the tenured players and let the rest of the inquiries to “flash” sale a wine quietly go away, because the majority of these “flash sale” sites are a “flash in the pan,” not long for the world.
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