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February 7 2007
Welcome to new visitors to Good Grape—my little slice of the wine blogosphere! Please add me to your Favorites list, add me to your reader of choice using the chiclets on the bottom right hand navigation or use this as the master RSS feed in your blog reader of choice:
http://feeds.feedburner.com/GoodGrapeAWineManifesto
At Good Grape I take a literate social reporting approach to wine and the wine industry with an emphasis on ideas—that means content that should be of interest to wine enthusiasts of all stripes and hopefully occasionally thought-provoking, as well.
Through this approach to writing, which tends to skew more towards People magazine (if People magazine wrote at an 11th grade level and not a fourth grade level) as opposed to Wine Spectator in analogy, I was very pleasantly surprised to find out that Good Grape was a finalist in two categories of the American Wine Blog Awards—Best Wine Blog Graphics and Best Overall Wine Blog.
This is something of a shock; particularly the nomination for Best Overall Wine Blog. Credit Tom Wark from Fermentation for conducting and managing the awards. I’m really holding down his spot—his own excellent blog was eliminated by virtue his award oversight.
It feels like Oscar nomination day and I’m the small budget art house flick going into the best picture category against a couple of decades worth of awesome blockbusters like Star Wars, Titantic and The Godfather.
In the Best Overall Wine Blog category, nominated by the people, selected by a panel of professional jurors and then voted on by the people, I am in some pretty esteemed company.
Vinography.com? Alder Yarrow is the granddaddy of wine blogs, our most esteemed colleague and the most popular wine blogger by any count—traffic, influence, awards, prestige; review virtually all measurables for this blogging thing and Vinography is the lead dog. And, he’s a nice guy, too. Send him an email and chances are you’ll get a response inside of four hours. He’s accessible to all of his readers.
Drvino.com? Dr. Vino, the pen name for Tyler Colman, joins Vinography in having one of the most respected palates in the wine blogosphere. Very well traveled and an educator by profession (he is really a Dr., too), Tyler has been blogging since January of ’05 and has received mentions from Food & Wine magazine and Fast Company for being one of the best wine blogs available. Dr. Vino, I suspect, would outpace me in a wine conversation inside of 90 seconds, but the really cool thing about him is his knowledge never manifests itself with any ego and his writing is lucid and clear, for any reader.
Eric Asimov from the New York Times? Not much to say here. “Professional wine writer for the New York Times” does a pretty good job for me. Perhaps the best compliment I can give to his work is the fact that I serendipitously stroked him in a post last night before receiving the wine blog award announcement. Asimov takes a pragmatic and egalitarian approach to wine writing that I greatly admire.
So, there you have it—two high-level pro-am guys, a pro guy and then little old me.
Check out all the finalists and vote for your choice for the winner(s) at Fermentation (link to site here).
Thanks and “Celebrate the Good Grape.”
February 6 2007
Ran across a triple-threat of interesting articles from last week, all found online, covering a wide spectrum of items in the wine industry and all having something of an element of equalization.
Over at The Pour by Eric Asimov, the New York Times writer comments on some regional wines as an entrée into AppellationAmerica.com (AA), a web site dedicated to, as they say, the “appellation-ization of North American wine culture.”
You have to give credit to Asimov. In addition to wading through spin about the “appellation-ization” of anything, he’s acting as something of a wine equalizer. Many in his position would use the bully pulpit to espouse the wines of California, or France or something more mainstream; wine that resonates with a literate, well-heeled reader. But, he frequently goes off the beaten path to discuss wines from less-known regions far a field from Napa or the rolling hills of Burgundy.
Asimov is slowly but surely building a body of work that celebrates non-California wines and wine regions, and he does so with evenhandedness that might be wrought maudlin by other less gifted writers.
In the article, found here, he also quotes Alan Goldfarb and Roger Dial from Appellationamerica.com. Goldfarb had this tidbit on AA:
“documenting terroir from the ground up and doing radical surgery on appellations to give them ecological authenticity.”
Or, this gem from Roger Dial:
“We’re here to establish an alternative place-force, an alternative understanding of producing wine.”
Did I say that Asimov comments with an evenhandedness that might be wrought maudlin by others? Ahem. I meant to say “hyperbolic.”
Good stuff, though, from the NYTimes and Asimov for allowing this sort of thing to be “All the news that’s fit to print.” Appellation America is doing good work and many newspapers would eschew their business and position to market in favor of something more mainstream.
On the other side of the island that is Manhattan, the New York Sun has a really terrific feel-good write-up (found here) on a guy named Jonathan Grossweiler, D.W.S. Grossweiler, one of only 98 Americans to hold the D.W.S designation, received his “Diploma in Wine & Spirits” from the British-based Wine & Spirit Education Trust.
The fact that Grossweiler is a Marine and a prison guard somewhere in New Jersey is the human interest angle to the story. The writer refers to Grossweiler as an ex-Marine, but really, once a Marine, always a Marine, I think. The fact that he is a prison guard at prison that houses sex offenders is unique enough to warrant a story.
Grossweiler started out in 1993 with a bottle of Carlo Rossi accompanied with Macaroni and cheese before moving to Chateau St. Jean chardonnay at Thanksgiving a couple of years later and finally moving to Kevin Zraly’s Windows on the World Wine School in ’02.
He has a really simple, but brilliant quote in the article as well. While he admits in the article that wine was once intimidating, he notes now:
“I think that wine is one of the great equalizers of the world. Everyone has a nose, a palate, and so you meet all kinds of people and you drink wine together and talk about what you’re tasting.”
Grossweiler continues when asked a lame ass question about giving wine advice to the inmates,
“Not the inmates. But, I’m the resident wine geek for the other corrections officers. They’ll be lots of questions now that Valentine’s Day is coming and I’m glad to answer them. Why would you get knowledge and not help people out?”
Welcome to the wine world, Jonathan. We can use a few more good men like you.
Over at Wines & Vines they have an interesting business-oriented article on consumer direct wine sales—the great sales equalizer for many small wineries.
With recent statistics suggesting that the number of wineries in the country has doubled since 2000 to over 5,000 US wineries you would think that smaller winery owners would heed the call of consumer direct sales. Most small business people would LOVE to manage and interact with all of their customers, as ecommerce or consumer direct sales online allows you to do.
But, interestingly, surprisingly and shockingly this poll indicated that fully 34% of respondents agreed with the following statement:
“I should improve my company’s direct sales, but don’t know what changes to make.”
I think I know a couple of people in the business of wine technology that can help out here.
It takes a load of money to start a winery—winery owners are getting this dough from someplace. Here’s my question, for this great equalizing opportunity for small wineries: Why is marketing and technology in the wine space such a difficult concept to grasp? Why are the winery owners that have made money, obviously, in other industries so completely aloof in the ways and means of actually selling their juice to an actual customer, in a DIRECT way via ecommerce, for example?
Joe Consumer i.e. ME wants to buy the stuff. I think the answer may have to do with Amazon.com starting in 1996 and the Internet mania really occurring during the latter half of ’98 to about March of ’01.
Ahead of the curve …
But, please comment if you have other ideas or comments about the lag time between wine industry economic indicators and execution.
February 6 2007
Tim over at Winecast.net has posted the very first edition of the new Unfiltered podcast. He and I are co-hosting and it’s designed to be a monthly podcast that gathers industry folks together to have a conversation in a roundtable format. Topics will range, but it should be something akin to The Sportswriters on ESPN or Face the Nation, except for wine wonks.
This month’s edition features Jeff Stai from Twisted Oak Winery and Tom Wark from Wark Communications and his own leading blog Fermentation. Tom is also now doubling as the Executive Director for the Specialty Wine Retailers Association, which he details on the show.
Overall, the show turns out well, especially for a virgin effort. The only downside to the podcast might be my own staccato pattern—I think most actors and people with personality talent don’t watch themselves because it’s too painful. Even without much of the personality talent, I know what they mean. I’ll work on it.
Kudos to Tim for organizing and look for monthly editions going forward. The link to the podcast can be found with either of the below options:
Link for listening on your PC:
http://winecast.net/2007/02/05/unfiltered-1-twisted-oak/
Link for download:
http://winecast.net/podcasts/Unfiltered_20070121.mp3
February 4 2007
With apologies to Gary Vay-Ner-Chuk at Winelibrary and his likely epitaph, I’ve had the opportunity to meet a couple of other people that are also changing the wine world.
The wine industry has always attracted outsiders—while it seems to be a fairly inclusive community, the truth is that most of the money required to start a winery has come from outside the industry. Very few have bootstrapped their way to the top—it’s just not set-up that way given capital costs for land, personnel and equipment and the lag time in between grapes in the ground and bottle on the shelf.
For many people (myself included) interested in aligning their passion with the industry in a professional capacity, working somewhere in the value chain is the way to go. This model for getting close to the industry is probably the best way to go because outsiders can drive change in what can sometimes be a hidebound and traditional business clinging to legacy models of business.
As a result of professional work, I’ve recently had the opportunity to come across numerous people, most of them young and all of them passionate about creating value in the world of wine.
Interestingly, I say “creating value” because most people in the wine industry, though capitalists they may be, are not nakedly greedy and fueled by the love of money. More often these people are organically fueled by a passion for the vinous arts with an appreciation for good business that begets profits.
Two companies I’ve recently interacted with, led by wine industry outsiders, are examples of companies that are going to change the way we buy wine at retail from a distributor and how we buy wine consumer direct online.
Taken in Two Parts, I’ll review the distributor first.
Many in and around the industry deride the three-tier system as profiteers required to be a part of the sales chain by regulatory mandate and not value-add. The grinding axe usually includes an anecdote about lack of focus for quality-oriented small brands and heavy-handed sales tactics for grocery store wines. While that may philosophically be true, there needs to be a line of demarcation between big distributors and small distributors.
Professionally I’ve been on something of an extended road trip meeting with small distributors in many states and almost to an organization; these are smart, engaged, creative people shaking things up by focusing on artisan brands that require a hand sell.
Candid Wines based in the Chicago area is one such distributor. Started by Scott Kerrigan and Damien Casten, both of the business partners come to the industry from other professional experiences.
Casten was a young American living in Paris when his wine radar went off while eating a fantastic meal, well-paired with wine. After working in the rat race, he enrolled in the New England culinary institute and returned to France to cook at fine dining establishments, include the Michelin three star restaurant Lucas Carton before eventually settling in Chicagoland and meeting up with business partner Scott.
Scott Kerrigan, a fascinating guy and my lunch companion at Blackbird in Chicago recently had a similarly circuitous route to the world of wine. An MBA with a law degree, he’s obviously wicked smart and well-oiled in the machinations of big business. Straddling the line between foodie and passionate wino, he enrolled in culinary evening school to hone his home kitchen chops before transferring his business acumen to the wine industry and starting up Candid Wines with Damien.
Their position to market is, perhaps, the most interesting aspect of their business, though certainly not the only aspect that makes them unique and a safe bet for success.
With their mantra of, “We Make Wine Lovers Happy” they are building a business that does a 180 on the traditional distribution business. And, in my experience, entrepreneurs that are stridently dogmatic about their “brand,” how they do what they do and with whom they do it are the best candidates for long-term success. A clear execution path from points A to B is the result.
Candid wines is just that. They strike me as protégés of Kermit Lynch, creating an iconoclastic reputation for absolutely the best quality wines with a terroir-based organic bent. By building on their own palates with a reputation for quality, they will create a business that succeeds by the dint of their hard work.
But, what’s more interesting is the transparency with which they are building their business. Sure they sell wines to retailers and restaurants in the Chicagoland area, but they also have a robust consumer-oriented events portion of their business and this, in my estimation, is their secret sauce.
Most distributors provide closeout wines to non-profit events and maybe supply a bottle or two for a retailer tasting on Saturdays.
Candid Wines take their personal backgrounds and strengths to create events for consumers that are a likely profit center, and also have the magic opportunity to drive consumer pull demand for their wines at retailers and restaurants.
Smart. Very smart.
Their events, including corporate, public, catered, and charity events is an opportunity for them to give, in their words, a “Candid Wine Experience” that “delivers all the passion and pleasure that embodies great wine.”
With growth occurring in every corner of the wine industry—from amount of wineries to continued record-setting levels of consumption, I’m glad to see that new spins on old business models are occurring to advance the cause of the industry—just like Candid Wines is doing in Chicago with a singular focus on sensibly growing their business while building their wine portfolio and creating events that, of course, “Make Wine Lovers Happy.” They are turning the traditional mode of linear operation of the supply chain inside out.
Next up, I’ll review an online business that is capitalizing on the emerging Wine 2.0 space coupled with the off the charts growth of online winery consumer direct shopping.
February 2 2007
We’re officially in the midst of football mania in Indianapolis.
I haven’t seen anything like it. In the ’99 – ’00 season the Pacers made it to the NBA Finals before losing to the Los Angeles Lakers; in ’02 the Indiana Hoosiers basketball team made it to the NCAA Championship game, every year we have the ‘Greatest Spectacle in Racing’ with the Indianapolis 500 and every few years we have the NCAA Final Four in Indianapolis. None of those events have contributed as much pure frenetic energy to Indianapolis as the Colts being in the Super Bowl.
I kind of feel like drinking some tiny bubbles and sipping on some champagne—a response that might be some sort of associational DNA coding to a celebration.
But, I don’t want to get the cart ahead of the horse (bad cliché choice, I know) just yet. There is some business to take care of—notably some food and drink to be imbibed before, during and after the game. Oh, and a game to win for the hometown Colts.
Just in case anybody was wondering, going to the grocery store is an exercise in peril akin to the rush at the store when a big storm comes and people maniacally buy 19 gallons of water and flashlights, just in case.
Except this time its grocery carts full of chips, beer and other football victuals. You know something weird is going on when the Guacamole flavored Doritos have been picked over.
It’s unfortunate that wine isn’t a better match for football fare. I’ll be drinking wine, though. I haven’t picked out the bottle(s) just yet, but I have a hunch it’ll be an inexpensive Riesling like the Jekel and probably a nice Zinfandel. Perhaps, I’ll pick up another bottle of the Kickin’ Ass Colts Cuvee—a wine now getting more than its fair share of promo on Good Grape.
Wine Spectator (WS) and the San Francisco Chronicle both weigh in with football food pairings. An informal tasting panel at WS tried non-vintage Champagne, White Wines (Riesling, Chardonnay and Sav. Blanc) and some hearty reds (Malbec, Cab blend, Shiraz blend, Crianza, Spain Shiraz). Overall winners, according to WS are Chardonnay’s and New World Reds.
At the Chronicle, they make the pairing a bit more tangible and neutral by offering both a beer and a wine pairing. The best pairing suggestion is for chili:
Wine: If your chili recipe is fairly mild, plenty of wines can cozy up to a simmering bowl. Bold wines and delicate wines do not blend well with chili. If you go red, keep the wine young and fruity with good acidity to match the acid in the tomatoes. An Italian-style Sangiovese works well. A somewhat sweeter Zinfandel, like some of the Zins produced in Sonoma, will stand up to the spice in the chili. Think contrasting flavors—spicy and sweet. If the chili is really hot, try a sweeter white wine.
And, At least the Miami and South Beach is getting broken in this week in advance of the South Beach Food & Wine Festival taking place February 22 – 25th. Some of the wine “personalities” that will be in attendance can be found here. Overall, they pale in pop culture stature to their food brethren. Peter Mondavi, while a nice guy for sure, can’t hold a candle to TV titan Al Roker in terms of mindshare.
Over at Wine Spectator, James Laube dropped an interesting factoid—it seems James, a graduate of Chapman College, and a Chicago native, was invited to a tryout for the Baltimore Colts way back when … he got some good natured cocktail party mileage out of intimating that he was drafted. While coy on his pick for the Super Bowl, my hunch is that the pull of a childhood in the Windy City means that Laube is pulling for the Bears.
My prediction for the game? #1, the wine will be very enjoyable. And, I’ll be very happy to win a friendly wager with Dr. Vino by a big Colts victory.
Colts 26 Bears 16
Super Bowl MVP: Colts Rookie Running Back Joseph Addai with 130 yards rushing and 2 touchdowns
Go Colts! And this will be the last Football related post (except for either a personal back-slap or a licking my wounds post for the result of the Dr. Vino wine/football entanglement).
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