Good Grape Wine Company

July 1 2009

Field Notes from a Wine Life – Famous Last Words Edition

Your Daily Laugh

If you’re not in the habit of reading Decanter.com news, you’re missing some of the best comedy in the world of wine, laugh track not included.

Literally, on a daily basis, it’s a treasure trove of folly. 

Based on a sometimes arched eyebrow approach I take to a lot of wine issues, I looked up the definition of “curmudgeon” just to make sure that at my still spritely age of 36, I wasn’t turning into too much of a “crusty, ill-tempered man, usually old.”  I feel safe in now saying that, no, I’m not a curmudgeon just a head-scratching observer of foolishness.

Take this Decanter report for example.  The CEO of Vinexpo, Robert Beynat, in response to an inquiry about new media replacing trade shows, an industry that is being hammered in the global recession, said:

The Internet is not the right medium for the sale of wines and spirits, it is not a real alternative to traditional sales circuits and will never reach more than around 8% of the market.

Besides the absurdity of the 8% reference, a number seemingly pulled from thin air, it’s a very narrow view of the world and the future of technology.  Though, being a Luddite and French isn’t a mutually exclusive proposition.

I’m reminded of Thomas J. Watson, the formative President of IBM during the first half of the 20th century, who is often credited for famously saying, “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.”

Internet sales of wine may be an infinitesimally small percentage of overall wine sales now, but all bets are off for what happens in the future.  Methinks blanket statements of fact based on misguided perspective are funny.

Put another way, with the completely life-changing effects of the Internet and mobile that has occurred since 1995, should anybody really be making such foolish, “head in the ground” declarations?  Hell, is anybody really certain what’s going to happen three years from now, let alone 10 or 20?

In more humorous Decanter.com reporting, pundits at Vinexpo called France and Bordeaux “dysfunctional.”  This, of course, is no revelation and seems as obvious to me as saying “rain is wet.”

Welcome to the Party

Elsewhere in “news of the weird,” the National Consumers League (NCL) is getting on a bandwagon with a lot of other people who are singing the same tune about preservation of place in wine labeling, while banning misleading identifiers. 

Now, mind you, I’m not dismissing the need for “truth in labeling.”  In fact, I advocate for it, but what I am poking a little bit is the notion of outsiders getting in on the action without understanding the issues.  It reminds me of Jesse Jackson or the Rev. Al Sharpton both of whom are notorious for getting in front of any cause as long as there is a camera crew present.

The NCL’s letter to the Department of the Treasury and Timothy Geithner in December originally took the tact of advocating for labeling information on alcoholic beverages related to nutrition and caloric information.  Now, their press release from June 29th indicates a different focus on labeling information based on origin of source.

It’s just not politicians that move with the wind, it’s advocacy groups, too. 

The National Consumers League even cites Champagne as an example – a word that has largely become extinct for makers of U.S. sparkling wine.  I’m surprised they didn’t reference Port, too – another product descriptor that has largely been banished to its rightful home in Portugal.

The National Consumer League notes in a press release:

NCL’s comments reflect growing consumer support for more accurate wine labels. A recent national survey of U.S. wine consumers found that 79 percent agree consumers deserve protection from deceptive claims on food and beverage labels, and 63 percent support a law prohibiting such misleading wine labels.

You can almost imagine the survey question that led to this survey result, “Do you agree that you should know where your food and drink comes from and you should be protected from acts of deception?”

Um, is there more than one answer to that?

Good for the National Consumer League for advocating the important work of indicating that detassling corn for teenagers can be dangerous work, but they need to sharpen their pencil and stick to a position if they’re to lobby Washington effectively around wine issues and if they are really hardy souls they should wade into the minutia of AVA’s as the real source of contention.  I doubt they have the fortitude for that level of self-interested public interest work.

Or, alternatively, they can just advocate for the use of an electronic nose, as reported from London, a device that:

Researchers analyzed the compounds in vaporised samples of wine to produce detailed chemical signatures that can be matched against a database of characteristics to identify a wine’s source. They did so by using a kind of electronic nose, known as a mass spectrometer, reports The Telegraph.

From the Office of the Obvious

I tend to revisit several topics with regularity – traditional wine media for missing most of the audience for wine enthusiasts, lemming-like groupthink amongst wine lovers and academia for lumpy bits of research that are in the moment of the cultural zeitgeist, but hardly newsworthy or groundbreaking.

Take, for example, an article yesterday from Wine Business Monthly.

A professor at Sonoma State University indicates from a survey sample size of just forty Millennial’s, who were likely not randomly selected:

In conclusion, based on this short SSU survey of Millennial wine marketing preferences and the statistics highlighting how Millennials have embraced technology, there appear to be new opportunities for wineries to expand their online marketing, as well as to continue to reach out to Millennials in face to face settings at events and other tasting venues. Of key importance, is maintaining an authentic and honest brand message which highlights how your winery and wine is different from others.

Now, take the three major components of this summary:

1) Millenials embrace technology
2) There are new marketing opportunities for wineries
3) Brands must be authentic and honest

Anything new here unless you’re Rip VanWinkle awaking from a five year slumber?

And, in other breathtaking wine consumer research, it’s reported that woman prefer wine to beer … which is actually funny for its like obviousness, but that was put on the wire in a press release, as well.

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