Good Grape Wine Company

January 25 2008

News, Notes & Dusty Bottle Items

Some quick hitting random thoughts on a few wine related news items from the last two weeks before they turn into dust at the news and wine blog idea graveyard … and a reminder, as well.

First, the Reminder …

There is a small quantity left of the Good Grape Wine Blogger Pack at Domaine547.com.  The jist is, I made wine recommendations, wrote up a newsletter and Jill from Domaine 547 sells the vino.  The theme that I chose to select wines from is, “Alsace by way of Willamette”—Alsatian varieties from Oregon.  With the wines that I chose, you get three delicious wines from two boutique producers.  Amity Vineyards offers up a Riesling and Brooks Wines has two wines with a white blend and a Riesling.  The wines are tasty and affordable and I have no skin in the game, no dog in the fight.  I just get the thrill of playing wine club Sommelier.  You can buy the three pack for an easy $52 at this link.

Consumer Wine Shipments Gain a Temperature Assist from New Packaging Technology

Gaining exactly zero mindshare in the wine blogosphere, a wine logistics and consumer shipping company, New Vine Logistics, announced last week that they partnered with a packaging company to create a line of packaging, called WineAssure, that ensures that consumer wine shipments do not exceed 70 degrees on the high side, nor refrigerator temperatures on the low side.

Frankly, this is very welcome news and the packaging should help alleviate the threat of wine shipments receiving heat damage in the warm summer months. 

The rubber meets the road, however, with adoption, and I will be curious to see how quickly wineries adopt the packaging.  Many wineries shut off shipping in the summer months and I am guessing the wineries desire to turn shipping on in the summer will be based on pure economics.  Assuredly, the design and exclusive packaging development was not cheap, and I hope that New Vine is not expecting the wineries to bear the brunt of that design cost in a pass-along situation, therefore reducing the ability for consumers to win.  Time will tell, but don’t think for a second that the wine industry still doesn’t get in its own way on the path to trying to be successful.

Sacre Bleu Available at Target

One of my favorite wine brands, Sacre Bleu, is now available at Target stores in Florida.  Usually, when you are dropped into a top wine market, it is a temporary way station to a larger rollout.  Let us hope that happens for an underdog wine brand from Minneapolis, MN.  A nicer guy you will never meet, Galen Struwe deserves success with his fledgingly brand.  First, Galen comes from outside the wine industry and it is a long, uphill battle to figure out the Byzantine wine industry without the benefit of experience and, while people are genuinely helpful, there is sometimes a sense of a weary resignation amongst wine folks along the lines, “Yeah, let me know how that goes for you.”  The wine, kind of a negociant/import model from France, is good and third, the way that Sacre Bleu is marrying music with wine and the Millenials is something of a case study in successful marketing.  Think of Sacre Bleu as a Stormhoek for young music lovers instead of semi-young card-carrying wine blogger geeks (yes, I carry the card, too).  When the wine is available in a store near you be sure to confound your friends by saying in your best French accent, “I’m picking up some Sacre Bleu from Target Boutique.”  Congrats to Sacre Bleu and keep an eye on them as a rising story with loads of opportunity for wide success. 

Transparency alert:  Sacre Bleu has an ad on my site.  I have received no compensation from them though I am, occasionally, a sucker for a winery or objet d’art (see also Crushpad Wines) that I take a personal liking to.

Michael Chiarello Sticks his Hand in the Celebrity Chef Till

Anybody besides me read the press release or see the mention on Napa Valley wine blog The Cork Board and scratch their head and say, “What took so long?”

Michael Chiarello, the celebrity chef with the show “Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello” on the Food Network, a cooking show where, despite the name, he never seems to entertain anybody he knows, has announced plans to open a new restaurant in Yountville at the in-progress development called V Marketplace.

The founding Chef of Tra Vigne, Chiarello is going to go back into the kitchen with his new restaurant.

The thing that I could never figure out with Chiarello is that, despite his mail order lifestyle company Napa Style, why didn’t the guy have restaurants going already?

If you look at the Food Network and see Emeril Lagasse, Bobby Flay, Mario Batali, Wolfgang Puck, Morimoto and even Rachael Ray and Tyler Florence cashing in with restaurants and endorsements all over the place, why was Chiarello slow on the draw?

Sheesh, Emeril, Flay and Batali are printing money.  I don’t care how many re-used wine barrel end tables Chiarello sells, there’s got to be more margin turning three tables a night selling $42 steaks ala carte in Vegas.

I’m guessing Chiarello is going to be transplanting, as he says, “my personal blend of Napa Valley’s famous hospitality” to a Vegas hotel pretty darn soon.  Why else would you put the chef toque back on? 

Good luck to him, his show always has him turning out some nice looking food, and, perhaps, he knows, smarter than I do, that timing is right to take a swing at the plate to hit a major food and wine concept with “Napa style.” 

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