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September 24 2006
When just out of college, I worked for a major publisher that, at the time, was the world’s largest computer book publisher.
It was a progressive, entrepreneurial company that gave employees the flexibility to grow rapidly—usually job assignments lasted for about a year until you made a play for more responsibility or another department “poached” you and your capabilities.
While there, I got to try my hand at corporate sales, key account management, licensing, and business development for their online properties.
Foundationally speaking, working for this company really helped define what I would strive for professionally—and, it didn’t hurt that in my early to mid-twenties I found myself managing as much responsibility as I could handle in sink or swim situations.
And, it was while on a sales call in New York City that I learned about the concept of “institutional inertia.”
Sitting across the desk from a gentleman 25 years my senior he conveyed he was sold, but my real challenge was to help him influence the folks at his company that had an entrenched mindset that needed to be overcome. Institutional inertia, as he explained it, was the act of not acting for reasons of benign neglect, self-preservation, or, worse, lack of understanding.
It was a simple lesson, but one that really helped to shape how I interacted professionally—it’s not always your customer that needs convincing, it’s your customers peers in her own organization that need to be convinced. And, from a partnering perspective, I learned that a sphere of influence has to run deep in order to be successful.
And, it was a lesson that resonated with me personally. Inertia is the act of staying still. I didn’t
ever want to be guilty of staying still; of being inert.
Meanwhile, in the late 90s and early portion of this decade, my fascination with wine and wine business had taken off to the point where I started a subscription to Wine Business Monthly and Wines and Vines magazine, instead of Wine Spectator magazine.
A near entrepreneurial miss occurred when I pitched opening a winery at a non-profit living history museum inCentral Indiana that would tie Indiana’s historical legacy with wine in the nineteenth century to this period authentic nineteenth century museum. When the president and 16 of 18 board members were deposed in a de-coupling with the administrators of their foundation my plans were effectively quashed, as well.
Flash forward a few years: I had finished writing a business plan that read as a feasibility study for a wine retail concept. But, inertia, I assume, amongst other market factors, led to overwhelmingly positive feedback on the plan itself, but underwhelming feedback about its viability in Indianapolis based on our maturity in wine consumption as a market and because I was a relative outsider to the wine business with moderate financial wherewithal to manage the cash nature of the business—for a young business carrying a lot of inventory is bad, especially when the terms are 15 days Net as a law.
In an effort to channel my ideas, creativity and passion for wine into *something* interesting and credible, I started Good Grape in January of this year.
I soft launched it and wrote in earnest for the first six or seven weeks without so much as a single other reader to interrupt my thoughts.
It wasn’t until the first or second week of March that I linked to Fermentation and got a mention from Tom that I started getting readers and traffic. A mention from Lenn at Lenndevours similarly drove a nice amount of traffic to see what I was writing about.
Based on Tom’s work with a company called Inertia Beverage Group, I received an email from Paul Mabray, their founder and CEO, who was assumingly tipped off by Tom’s post. Innocently enough, Paul mentioned that he liked the blog and some of the things I was writing.
Wine blogging has been more satisfying for me then I ever could have imagined. In about 8 months I’ve made acquaintances with people all over the country, I’ve received numerous positive (and some not so positive) comments and I’ve been paid to freelance write (Wine Sediments), though the payments equate to about two Venti Latte’s, all from a guy from Indiana, which, as a town, to me, seems urban, cosmopolitan and comfortably adept with wine, but to many people has to seem like a flyover cultural backwater.
As I, myself, got tipped off to Inertia Beverage Group and started reading their blog and
understanding their approach to market I thought to myself that this company is the perfect marriage of technology (my professional background) and
wine with a progressive (read: moving forward in a non-institutional inertia way ) focus.
Inertia Beverage Group has an enterprise technology platform for wineries to manage all of their direct to the consumer relationships and commerce. With the legal changes taking place in the wine industry with Supreme Court ruling in Granholm v. Healds, it strikes me as a great opportunity to help wineries to create greater value for themselves and a wider market for their artisan product.
How poetically just that Inertia’s name ties into what is a surmountable challenge for the wine industry and a concept that I identified with in my young professional life—a not so small coincidence in shared idealogy.
I don’t ever want to be guilty of staying still; of being inert. Most small to medium size wineries, I suspect, feel the same way, but just need a little help.
I’ve written a couple of posts about Inertia over the course of the last six months in an even-handed, but admiring way and long story short, I’m starting a new professional chapterin my life as I begin work for them tomorrow.
It’s an opportunity that I am very excited about and an opportunity that I feel certain is destined for success.
I suspect that my blogging efforts will increase as I write for Inertia and Good Grape, and I will continue to use Good Grape to make observations about the business of wine, but aside from that I’m not putting any hard and fast rules in place except for some self-censoring from too much boosterism.
And, this site is getting a makeover that will be completed in the next two weeks with a significant increase in aesthetic quality completely un-related to my career move, though Inertia does this sort of design work extremely well.
I don’t think I’m the first wine blogger to take a passion and turn it into a career move—I heard of a guy in Wisconsin that took a marketing position with aCalifornia winery, while working remote, as I will continue to do, but it’s still a rare circumstance.
Overall, I’m thankful for a lot of things ... a beautiful and loving wife, a good family, an ability to write flowery, occasionally meandering and frequently verbose prose and a desire not to be inert.
I’m looking forward to helping Inertia Beverage Group and their (our) customers (wineries), grow their business which will aid in all consumers getting access to that special bottle of vino. It’s a good feeling to know that you will be a part of positive change and that, in the end, is as far away from institutional inertia as you can get—an early lesson learned manifested in perseverance and wine blogging.
September 24 2006
When just out of college, I worked for a major publisher that, at the time, was theworld’s largest computer book publisher.
ever want to be guilty of stayingstill; of being inert.
understanding their approach to market I thought to myself that thiscompany is the perfect marriage of technology (my professional background) andwine with a progressive (read: movingforward in a non-institutional inertia way ) focus.
Howpoetically just that Inertia’s name ties into what is a surmountable challengefor the wine industry and a concept that I identified with in my youngprofessional life—a not so small coincidence in shared idealogy.
September 21 2006
The opportunity to taste a 100 pt. Robert Parker wine doesn’t come around too often.
According to this wine-searcher link, as of May ‘05 there were about 140 Robert Parker reviewed wines rated 100 points. Though between Wine Spectator and other reviewers there are undoubtedly dozens of other so-called 100 pointers.
But, most of Parker’s 100 pointers (and all other 100 pt wines for that matter) are predominantly foreign wines and most of them, even if not foreign and allocated, are prohibitively scarce and expensive. 1947 Cheval Blanc, anyone?
So, it was with interest that I recently received an email from my local wine shop promoting the 2003 Quilceda Creek Cabernet Sauvignon—a 100 point wine from Parker. And, the price is just $169.99 per bottle.
These opportunities come around rarely, unless you’re a wine trophy-hunting hobbyist with deeeeeeeep pockets, so $170 bucks seems reasonable enough to have something held in that great of esteem.
100 points.
A perfect wine.
It’s available just a few miles away.
But, at what price and level of professional discrepancy does a 100 point wine become fallible enough that it loses its luster?
Quilceda Creek is the class of the Washington wine industry, most pundits agree. According to Parker there are,“... other serious Washington state wineries, but none approaches the extraordinary world-class quality of Quilceda Creek."
I did a Google search for the Quilceda Creek and found out that Parker had bestowed BOTH the ’02
and the ’03 Cabs with the mythical 100 pts in his April ’06 issue.
Double the pleasure.
For Quilceda Creek this has to be roughly akin to winning the lottery.
Why?
Even if they are not profiting off the current wine in the channel (though plenty of profit whores are), this halo effect will catapult them into the rarified air of the super “Cult Cabs” for many vintages to come—and to a much greater reputational extent than what they already enjoyed.
This is the difference between the state school and the U.S. News & World Reports list of the top 20 schools in the country for some lucky kid or grandchild to the Golitzin family, proprietors of Quilceda Creek.
But, for now, it’s just the channel profiteers working.
Given that, it’s interesting to point out a Wine Spectator blog post written in May of this year (after Parker’s Wine Advocate issue) whereby writer Harvey Steiman gives the ’03 95 points and the ’02 93 points. Both of these vintages are given excellent Spectator scores; make no mistake, but not the kind of scores that move markets, or significant price points.
But, a 100 points does move markets and that’s why Steiman’s article noting the wine at $85 bucks a bottle is inaccurate. 100 points actually turns that wine into a
$170 bottle—a very even and tidy 100% mark-up for somebody if Spectator’s $85 is closer to “true” retail price. The mark-up is too tidy, in fact, to be coincidence, I think.
But, if it’s 95 points to one person and a 100 points to another person, who do I trust especially given that the price just went up significantly? $85 bucks is $85 bucks—that’s an above average dinner for my wife and I.
Not completely dissuaded from buying an $85 dollar bottle of wine that is selling for $170, I did some more research and found that a half case is selling on Wine Commune with a reserve of $1395, or $232.50 a bottle.
At WineZap the Quilceda is going for anywhere from $199 to $275 a bottle.
Suddenly, that $170 bucks a bottle is looking pretty good.
Scarcity + points = profit.
What is my lesson here? Robert Parker trumps Wine Spectator and $85 bucks a bottle turns into $170 bucks a bottle unless, of course, you’re buying it on the Internet in
which case the best deal to be found is $200 bucks a bottle.
Oh well. Some of the reviewers at Cellar Tracker said it showed some heat and moderately high tannins. Maybe I’ll save my $200 bucks, er, $170 bucks and go buy the the ‘04 Woop Woop Shiraz. Parker gave it an 89 and it’s only $11 bucks.
A tip of the hat and cheers to Quilceda Creek for hopefully making some money for themselves with the ‘04’s, it seems the ’02 and the ’03 are already all accounted for, this consumer notwithstanding.
September 21 2006
The opportunity to taste a 100 pt. Robert Parker winedoesn’t come around too often.
and the ’03 Cabs with the mythical 100 pts inhis April ’06 issue.
Not completely dissuaded from buying an $85 dollar bottle ofwine that is selling for $170, I did some more research and found that a halfcase is selling on Wine Commune with a reserve of $1395, or $232.50 a bottle.
Scarcity + points = profit.
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