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They say there’s nothing you can bet on with a cast-iron guarantee of being right - apart from the inexorability of death and taxes. Well, here’s my best shot at a sure-fire winner for the wine industry. The next big thing - the thing that ’s going to make Pinot Grigio look like an unusually small Smurf, is going to be… Moscato.
Now, you may possibly have read those last few words without letting forth as much as a silent groan, but if you didn’t even wince, you’re probably in a minority. I know, because I’ve had a fair few conversations with all sorts of wine people over the last few weeks, and the ones that have have accepted my prediction with any kind of equanimity are the exceptions to the rule. By far the most bothered have probably been the winemakers, and most especially the winemakers who suspect that a likely result of any kind of Moscato boom will include their actually having to turn Muscat grapes into a sweet, grapey beverage.
Before considering why the wine world is likely to treat a global Moscato Moment as though it were the next worst thing to the emergence of a virulent breed of resistant phylloxera, perhaps it’s time for me to explain why I’m so sure I’m right. And why I’d go as far as to say that if Muscat didn’t exist, some clever people would be currently working flat out to invent it.
Just consider the way most red, white and pink wines taste, and the way Moscato tastes. Which of these most closely resembles most of the stuff most people most enjoy drinking? Fruit juice, Coca Cola, Red Bull, tonic water and every other kind of non alcoholic beverage… they’re all sweet. As is a Starbucks Grande Latte, by the way, which, at 17g of sugar, has one and three quarters as much sweetness as a Krispy Kreme glazed doughnut. All of these drinks have helped lay the foundations for Moscato, but so have a fair few bottles of wine. A litre of average Pinot Grigio may easily have five or six grams of sugar; Yellow Tail Merlot and a wide range of reds have weighed in at 10g/l or more, while Extra Dry Prosecco can be up at 17g/litre. Just behind White Zinfandel at 20g.
For most modern purists, the very idea of semi-sweet and frankly sweet wine - unless it has been blessed by botrytis - is anathema. Even Germany, historically home of some of the most glorious naturally sweet Kabinetts, is now marching to the beat of the dry, dry drum. But Germany is far from the only place that has turned its back on sweet wine.
Bordeaux once produced an ocean of - pretty filthy, it must be said - sugary white wine. Until a Frenchman called Louis Oudart was invited to Piedmont by the Marchesa di Barolo, the most famous wine of her region would have often been sweet. In those days, Champagne was often also lusciously sweet, making it a far better partner for pudding than the brut that is often wasted on this stage of the meal today.
Sweet wines have crept back onto the shelves over the last few years. In some countries, this has been in the shape of frankly sugary pinks - one of the huge successes of the last few years - while in others it has been in the form of reds that have been sweetened after fermentation. In the US, the latest trend has been the arrival of smartly packaged wines such as Sweet Bliss White (90g/l) and Adler Fels’ recently launched Totally Random Sweet Red. Sales of frankly labeled sweet wines in the US are currently up to 500,000 cases. Not a huge amount when viewed in the context of the market as a whole, but still pretty significant, given the fact that this was acategory thar did not exist at all a few years ago.
If unashamedly sweet reds and whites are now becoming socially acceptable, the stage seems to be perfectly set for the entrance of a grape with a sexy-sounding Italian name and a deliciously grapey flavour. In the US, Moscato is already on a roll. According to the August 18 2011 edition of Market Watch, it was the fastest growing varietal in America with brands like Gallo’s Barefoot and Woodbridge seeing a tenfold increase in sales over the last three years.
If the US loves Moscato, there are plenty of other markets that are likely to share its enthusiasm. At DoILikeIt? we carried out some research before Christmas in the UK that involved giving Moscato to food and wine enthusiasts as part of a blind line-up. While there were plenty who dismissed it as being too sweet for their taste, over half embraced it. Less formal research with Chinese female wine drinkers revealed even greater potential for the style.
For wine purists, who rarely imagine drinking this kind of drink themselves, the trend smacks of barbarism. I choose to differ. I happen to love fresh, good examples of Moscato and would much rather be offered a well chilled glass on a hot day sitting by a swimming pool than a long list of great dry reds and whites. But that’s not my point. I can also easily understand why a large number of people whose other favourite drinks include Coke, latte, gin-and-tonic and orange juice might also prefer a frankly grapey beverage to a tannic, weedily unripe-tasting basic red or white with an authentically earthy gout de terroir.
Disclosure. I'm putting my own money where my mouth is, by speculatively shipping a few cases of le Grand Noir Languedoc Moscato to the US and launching a study into Chinese reactions to the style. Watch this space.
Sunday, February 05, 2012
Monday, January 30, 2012
If alcohol labels told the truth
Sunday, January 29, 2012
That's quite enough about me. Let's talk about you. How did you enjoy my show..?
A column that appears in the December 2011 edition of Meininger's Wine Business International
“Hello, my name’s George. I’d like to tell you all about my parents, the place where I grew up and the school I went to and the exams I passed. When I’ve done all that, I’m sure you’ll want me to be your friend”.
If George, or anyone like him introduced himself in those terms at a party, even the most polite among us would be desperately looking over his shoulder for someone else to talk to; the rest of us would already have made our excuses and be heading straight for the door.
But George seems to be a very attractive role model for the wine industry. Give many producers the opportunity to express themselves and the first thing they will do is launch into all manner of technical details about the way the stuff in their bottle has been produced. Take this little offering about its Pinot Noir from the website of a large New World winery.
“Harvest commenced 6th April. The grapes were gently destemmed, allowing whole berries to remain intact. After a cold soak, each parcel was fermented separately, with a combination of wild and cultured yeast. Each batch was hand plunged to extract the vibrant colour, flavour and delicate tannin structure. Each parcel was then pressed separately to a mix of new and used French oak barrels or remained in tank. In the spring after completing malolactic fermentation, each parcel and tank was tasted and blended.”
Once the reader has made their way through the jungle of jargon – “destemmed”; “cold soak”; “parcel”, “cultured yeast”, “hand plunged”, “tannin structure”; “malolactic fermentation” – they are belatedly treated to a brief description of the way the wine looks and tastes.
“Garnet red. Deep red fruit notes with a hint of spice. Generous flavours of cherry and currant combine with subtle oak. The silky dry tannins lead to a generous fruitful finish.”
The sense of priorities is all too clear. Just 31 relatively opaque words (what are "silky dry tannins"? one might reasonably ask) about the stuff a consumer might pay for and get to drink, against 82 on the process used to make it. I haven’t named the winery, because to single it out would be unfair: it is far too typical of the way so much of the wine industry thinks. Of course we are not always so fixated on the technicalities of winemaking. Elsewhere, in the Old World, the focus might be on the age of the chateau or the number of generations of the family that have been involved in winemaking, or even the peculiarities of the soil in which the vines are grown. In other words, we’ll talk about almost anything on earth – apart from the flavour of the wine and the way it might best be served.
Most recently, the arrival on the scene of Youtube and of QR codes that can be scanned by anyone with smartphones such as Blackberries and iPhones, have jointly offered wine producers with an exciting new opportunity to behave like George. Scan the code on some bottles and you will be whisked directly to a video in which the winemaker provides a brief presentation while standing among his vines or barrels. In the best of these, he or she will taste their wine and describe the way it tastes, but in others the focus will be on allowing viewers to admire the incline of the vineyards or the pattern formed by the lines of casks in the cellars.
For anyone involved in the business of selling cars, cosmetics or almost anything else, this way of thinking would seem to be bizarre. Canon and Nikon don’t waste their time informing us who designed their cameras or where they were manufactured; they tell us how they will allow us to take better pictures. Jaguar and Toyota want us to know how fast, economical, safe and sexy their latest models are, not how cleverly their engines were constructed.
What these companies understand is that the only time we – and by that I mean a small minority of us - are likely to be interested in the background to a product is once we have already developed an emotional and intellectual attachment to it. Some of the people who have bought Apple’s iPods, iMacs and iPads might, conceivably, be curious about Sir Jonathan Ive, the firm’s brilliant head of design. Women who daily spray themselves with Guerlain perfumes can delve into perfumer’s website to read about Jean Paul Guerlain and Thierry Wasser the firm’s recently-arrived chief perfumer. But the information about both men comes after a brilliant section called “My fragrance consultation” that invites visitors to discover precisely the kind of Guerlain perfume that is most likely to suit them.
Just reread that last sentence. Yes, Guerlain cleverly puts itself into the shoes of the person reading their website. It’s “My” consultation, not “Your” consultation. Unlike George – and too much of the wine world – they know that what interests most of us, is us. And the reason we buy wine has nothing to do with the people who produced it, and everything to do with the way that it might just improve our lives.
“Hello, my name’s George. I’d like to tell you all about my parents, the place where I grew up and the school I went to and the exams I passed. When I’ve done all that, I’m sure you’ll want me to be your friend”.
If George, or anyone like him introduced himself in those terms at a party, even the most polite among us would be desperately looking over his shoulder for someone else to talk to; the rest of us would already have made our excuses and be heading straight for the door.
But George seems to be a very attractive role model for the wine industry. Give many producers the opportunity to express themselves and the first thing they will do is launch into all manner of technical details about the way the stuff in their bottle has been produced. Take this little offering about its Pinot Noir from the website of a large New World winery.
“Harvest commenced 6th April. The grapes were gently destemmed, allowing whole berries to remain intact. After a cold soak, each parcel was fermented separately, with a combination of wild and cultured yeast. Each batch was hand plunged to extract the vibrant colour, flavour and delicate tannin structure. Each parcel was then pressed separately to a mix of new and used French oak barrels or remained in tank. In the spring after completing malolactic fermentation, each parcel and tank was tasted and blended.”
Once the reader has made their way through the jungle of jargon – “destemmed”; “cold soak”; “parcel”, “cultured yeast”, “hand plunged”, “tannin structure”; “malolactic fermentation” – they are belatedly treated to a brief description of the way the wine looks and tastes.
“Garnet red. Deep red fruit notes with a hint of spice. Generous flavours of cherry and currant combine with subtle oak. The silky dry tannins lead to a generous fruitful finish.”
The sense of priorities is all too clear. Just 31 relatively opaque words (what are "silky dry tannins"? one might reasonably ask) about the stuff a consumer might pay for and get to drink, against 82 on the process used to make it. I haven’t named the winery, because to single it out would be unfair: it is far too typical of the way so much of the wine industry thinks. Of course we are not always so fixated on the technicalities of winemaking. Elsewhere, in the Old World, the focus might be on the age of the chateau or the number of generations of the family that have been involved in winemaking, or even the peculiarities of the soil in which the vines are grown. In other words, we’ll talk about almost anything on earth – apart from the flavour of the wine and the way it might best be served.
Most recently, the arrival on the scene of Youtube and of QR codes that can be scanned by anyone with smartphones such as Blackberries and iPhones, have jointly offered wine producers with an exciting new opportunity to behave like George. Scan the code on some bottles and you will be whisked directly to a video in which the winemaker provides a brief presentation while standing among his vines or barrels. In the best of these, he or she will taste their wine and describe the way it tastes, but in others the focus will be on allowing viewers to admire the incline of the vineyards or the pattern formed by the lines of casks in the cellars.
For anyone involved in the business of selling cars, cosmetics or almost anything else, this way of thinking would seem to be bizarre. Canon and Nikon don’t waste their time informing us who designed their cameras or where they were manufactured; they tell us how they will allow us to take better pictures. Jaguar and Toyota want us to know how fast, economical, safe and sexy their latest models are, not how cleverly their engines were constructed.
What these companies understand is that the only time we – and by that I mean a small minority of us - are likely to be interested in the background to a product is once we have already developed an emotional and intellectual attachment to it. Some of the people who have bought Apple’s iPods, iMacs and iPads might, conceivably, be curious about Sir Jonathan Ive, the firm’s brilliant head of design. Women who daily spray themselves with Guerlain perfumes can delve into perfumer’s website to read about Jean Paul Guerlain and Thierry Wasser the firm’s recently-arrived chief perfumer. But the information about both men comes after a brilliant section called “My fragrance consultation” that invites visitors to discover precisely the kind of Guerlain perfume that is most likely to suit them.
Just reread that last sentence. Yes, Guerlain cleverly puts itself into the shoes of the person reading their website. It’s “My” consultation, not “Your” consultation. Unlike George – and too much of the wine world – they know that what interests most of us, is us. And the reason we buy wine has nothing to do with the people who produced it, and everything to do with the way that it might just improve our lives.
Thursday, January 06, 2011
Portrait of the Artist as a Winemaker
A column that appears in the September 2010 edition of Meininger's Wine Business International
Are you an artist or an artisan? The question is one that needs to be carefully considered by anyone in almost any kind of business today. The difference
between these two similarly honourable human activities is quite fundamental. Artisans make things like tables, chairs, clocks, glasses and rugs. They may use artistic skills to render these items aesthetically pleasing, or they can adopt utilitarian designs that place function above form. In either case, however, whatever they produce has, to use the modern jargon, to be fit for purpose.
Tables and chairs usually have four legs of equal length because most customers reject wobbly furniture. Another essential quality expected of artisans is consistency. Even when they are blowing glasses by hand, they still have to produce a set of goblets that are almost identical.
Artists march to the beat of a very different drum. Their task is to express themselves and their personal perception of the world around them. An artist might quite legitimately make a chair out of ice cream cones on which no one could actually sit. Or a clock whose hands never move. Crucially, he or she is rarely expected to explain or defend the artworks they have conceived. These are supposed to speak for themselves - if they have something to say — and it is up to viewers to develop our own understanding of them, possibly with a little help from a well-informed critic.
I’d like to suggest that almost every commercial activity can be more or less pigeonholed into one of these categories. Michelin-starred chefs are artists (though they have to maintain a certain measure of consistency); the cooks in most humbler restaurants are, however, artisans. Most of us would prefer a taxi driver to be an artisan; his job, after all, is to get us from one place to another as efficiently a possible. And the same might be said of authors of factual books, whereas novelists and poets are artists. Journalists are allowed the occasional poetic phrase, but they are as obliged to respect the facts of their stories as carpenters are to create chairs that can withstand the weight of an average human being.
Now let’s look at the world of wine. Most winemakers, even when they are at the helm of enterprises turning out tens of thousands of cases of wine, instinctively consider themselves to be artists, and openly reject many of the characteristics associated with artisanship.
Consistency – unless the wine in question is non-vintage Champagne – is usually treated with disdain. Winemakers take pride in the variation between vintages and, in an astonishing number of cases, are still happy to accept the random oxidation and occasionally mouldy character that inevitably accompany the use of natural corks. The very idea of wanting to iron out vintages is dismissed as “industrial”.
When winemakers talk about the need to “educate” consumers about grapes and regions, it is eerily reminiscent of artists’ calls for more art appreciation courses. European winemakers’ reluctance to provide informative back-labels or main labels that reveal the grape variety used to make the wine, or its sweetness, recall a painter refusing to disclose the meaning of his or her “opus one”.
Art and wine classes are obviously a good thing – for people who choose to take them and absorb their contents. But art, for most people, is probably a mass-produced poster that cheers up an empty bit of wall. And wine is a liquid they enjoy drinking without the expenditure of too much thought.
Winemakers who look down on this kind of attitude should perhaps take the time to look around their own homes. How many of the things by which they are surrounded are the work of artists, and how many conform to more artisan rules?
Does the hand-knitted sweater in the cupboard reveal the nature of the fabric from which it has been made and how ir should be washed? Does the single-estate oliveoil come with recommendations of how long it should be kept? Do the covers of the book on the bedside table include a description of the nature of the story within and a few words about the author?
Someone once bluntly said in response to the suggestion that a bottle of wine was an artistic masterpiece, “If I want art, I’ll buy a painting”. Maybe that was going a little too far, but is it too much to ask for winemakers to accept that they might possibly have more in common with a chair maker or a cheese maker than a sculptor.
Are you an artist or an artisan? The question is one that needs to be carefully considered by anyone in almost any kind of business today. The difference
between these two similarly honourable human activities is quite fundamental. Artisans make things like tables, chairs, clocks, glasses and rugs. They may use artistic skills to render these items aesthetically pleasing, or they can adopt utilitarian designs that place function above form. In either case, however, whatever they produce has, to use the modern jargon, to be fit for purpose.
Tables and chairs usually have four legs of equal length because most customers reject wobbly furniture. Another essential quality expected of artisans is consistency. Even when they are blowing glasses by hand, they still have to produce a set of goblets that are almost identical.
Artists march to the beat of a very different drum. Their task is to express themselves and their personal perception of the world around them. An artist might quite legitimately make a chair out of ice cream cones on which no one could actually sit. Or a clock whose hands never move. Crucially, he or she is rarely expected to explain or defend the artworks they have conceived. These are supposed to speak for themselves - if they have something to say — and it is up to viewers to develop our own understanding of them, possibly with a little help from a well-informed critic.
I’d like to suggest that almost every commercial activity can be more or less pigeonholed into one of these categories. Michelin-starred chefs are artists (though they have to maintain a certain measure of consistency); the cooks in most humbler restaurants are, however, artisans. Most of us would prefer a taxi driver to be an artisan; his job, after all, is to get us from one place to another as efficiently a possible. And the same might be said of authors of factual books, whereas novelists and poets are artists. Journalists are allowed the occasional poetic phrase, but they are as obliged to respect the facts of their stories as carpenters are to create chairs that can withstand the weight of an average human being.
Now let’s look at the world of wine. Most winemakers, even when they are at the helm of enterprises turning out tens of thousands of cases of wine, instinctively consider themselves to be artists, and openly reject many of the characteristics associated with artisanship.
Consistency – unless the wine in question is non-vintage Champagne – is usually treated with disdain. Winemakers take pride in the variation between vintages and, in an astonishing number of cases, are still happy to accept the random oxidation and occasionally mouldy character that inevitably accompany the use of natural corks. The very idea of wanting to iron out vintages is dismissed as “industrial”.
When winemakers talk about the need to “educate” consumers about grapes and regions, it is eerily reminiscent of artists’ calls for more art appreciation courses. European winemakers’ reluctance to provide informative back-labels or main labels that reveal the grape variety used to make the wine, or its sweetness, recall a painter refusing to disclose the meaning of his or her “opus one”.
Art and wine classes are obviously a good thing – for people who choose to take them and absorb their contents. But art, for most people, is probably a mass-produced poster that cheers up an empty bit of wall. And wine is a liquid they enjoy drinking without the expenditure of too much thought.
Winemakers who look down on this kind of attitude should perhaps take the time to look around their own homes. How many of the things by which they are surrounded are the work of artists, and how many conform to more artisan rules?
Does the hand-knitted sweater in the cupboard reveal the nature of the fabric from which it has been made and how ir should be washed? Does the single-estate oliveoil come with recommendations of how long it should be kept? Do the covers of the book on the bedside table include a description of the nature of the story within and a few words about the author?
Someone once bluntly said in response to the suggestion that a bottle of wine was an artistic masterpiece, “If I want art, I’ll buy a painting”. Maybe that was going a little too far, but is it too much to ask for winemakers to accept that they might possibly have more in common with a chair maker or a cheese maker than a sculptor.
Is the UK the wine world's Afghanistan?
A column that appears in the December 2010 edition of Meininger's Wine Business International
The notion of the unwinnable war is far from new. The difference today, since the later days of the Vietnam war and the beginning of hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that it has become acceptable to talk about unwinnability without automatically being accused of wanting to demoralise the troops. There is a parallel with business. In wars and sporting encounters, it is customary to grit one’s teeth and fight until the bitter end. In the world of making, buying and selling, however, it is acknowledged that, when the numbers cease to add up it is quite proper to sell up or close down. In recent weeks, the biggest example of this kind of acknowledgment has been the decision by Constellation Brands to sell its Australian and UK operations to a Sydney-based private equity group. The sale, and its financial implications are significant. The US giant paid AU$1.85bn for these businesses in 2003; today, it is offloading 80% of its shares in them for a mere AU$290.
With admirable understatement, Rob Sands, Constellation’s chief executive described the sale as “tidying up” its portfolio in the face of "challenging market conditions." It is no coincidence that brands like the Canadian Jackson-Triggs, and Inniskillin, New Zealand’s Nobilo and California’s Robert Mondavi and Ravenswood were not subject to this kind of early spring cleaning. These, of course, are labels with a successful record in the US, while the brands that were sold all depended heavily on the UK.
Constellation is far from alone in feeling disenchanted with the British wine market. The renaming by Foster’s of its historically UK-focused wine business as Treasury Wine Estates and its hiving off have widely been seen as a prelude to a sale. Pernod Ricard also set up a separate fine wine division in 2010, giving rise to rumours that it might sell off Jacob’s Creek and Brancott Estate, the New Zealand brand that was formerly known as Montana. The French firm may indeed be intending to hold onto these brands, but there are certainly questions about how committed it is to the UK market. The renaming of Montana, after all, was driven by the need to make the brand more palatable to US consumers who were unready to buy Sauvignon Blanc they thought came from a sparsely-populated state in the north of their country.
If Pernod Ricard is not pulling out of Britain, it is certainly pulling back from the games UK retailers have asked it to play. Along with the similarly disenchanted Gallo Family Estates, it has made it clear that loss-making discounting is not an activity it wishes to pursue. And if this means losing market share, so be it.
Diageo, the other giant of the wine world, has wisely, consistently and revealingly, declined even to try to sell its premium US wines in Britain. Instead, it has restricted its vinous efforts there to Piat d’Or and Blossom Hill: non-regional products with low production costs.
So, is the simple conclusion that the British wine market, for the moment at least, has become the Afghanistan of the wine world? Is it the market where the battles are too costly and thoughts of capturing hearts and minds now seem to be too ambitious?
Or is there a bigger question? Was Philip Bowman right when, as CEO of Allied Domecq, he openly wondered whether ownership in the wine business was really more appropriate for families and cooperatives than for investors looking for short- and even mid-term returns. The spirits business is far from easy, but it ticks many more boxes for anyone watching quarterly and half-yearly results. Scaleable major brands can be launched and built, and value can be added to them in ways that winemakers can rarely dream of. Just think of Hendricks gin and Grey Goose vodka. Of course many fail - as do many films - but the hits succeed so much more dramatically than any wine. The week that brought news of the Constellation sale also brought an announcement from Brown Forman that it was ready to offload its Californian Fetzer and Bonterra wine businesses. These are not Australian brands retreating from being battered by UK retailers; they’re US brands selling in North America.
I wish the private equity buyers of Hardy’s et al well, but I wonder how much fun they are really going to have with the extravagant Christmas present they have bought themselves.
The notion of the unwinnable war is far from new. The difference today, since the later days of the Vietnam war and the beginning of hostilities in Iraq and Afghanistan, is that it has become acceptable to talk about unwinnability without automatically being accused of wanting to demoralise the troops. There is a parallel with business. In wars and sporting encounters, it is customary to grit one’s teeth and fight until the bitter end. In the world of making, buying and selling, however, it is acknowledged that, when the numbers cease to add up it is quite proper to sell up or close down. In recent weeks, the biggest example of this kind of acknowledgment has been the decision by Constellation Brands to sell its Australian and UK operations to a Sydney-based private equity group. The sale, and its financial implications are significant. The US giant paid AU$1.85bn for these businesses in 2003; today, it is offloading 80% of its shares in them for a mere AU$290.
With admirable understatement, Rob Sands, Constellation’s chief executive described the sale as “tidying up” its portfolio in the face of "challenging market conditions." It is no coincidence that brands like the Canadian Jackson-Triggs, and Inniskillin, New Zealand’s Nobilo and California’s Robert Mondavi and Ravenswood were not subject to this kind of early spring cleaning. These, of course, are labels with a successful record in the US, while the brands that were sold all depended heavily on the UK.
Constellation is far from alone in feeling disenchanted with the British wine market. The renaming by Foster’s of its historically UK-focused wine business as Treasury Wine Estates and its hiving off have widely been seen as a prelude to a sale. Pernod Ricard also set up a separate fine wine division in 2010, giving rise to rumours that it might sell off Jacob’s Creek and Brancott Estate, the New Zealand brand that was formerly known as Montana. The French firm may indeed be intending to hold onto these brands, but there are certainly questions about how committed it is to the UK market. The renaming of Montana, after all, was driven by the need to make the brand more palatable to US consumers who were unready to buy Sauvignon Blanc they thought came from a sparsely-populated state in the north of their country.
If Pernod Ricard is not pulling out of Britain, it is certainly pulling back from the games UK retailers have asked it to play. Along with the similarly disenchanted Gallo Family Estates, it has made it clear that loss-making discounting is not an activity it wishes to pursue. And if this means losing market share, so be it.
Diageo, the other giant of the wine world, has wisely, consistently and revealingly, declined even to try to sell its premium US wines in Britain. Instead, it has restricted its vinous efforts there to Piat d’Or and Blossom Hill: non-regional products with low production costs.
So, is the simple conclusion that the British wine market, for the moment at least, has become the Afghanistan of the wine world? Is it the market where the battles are too costly and thoughts of capturing hearts and minds now seem to be too ambitious?
Or is there a bigger question? Was Philip Bowman right when, as CEO of Allied Domecq, he openly wondered whether ownership in the wine business was really more appropriate for families and cooperatives than for investors looking for short- and even mid-term returns. The spirits business is far from easy, but it ticks many more boxes for anyone watching quarterly and half-yearly results. Scaleable major brands can be launched and built, and value can be added to them in ways that winemakers can rarely dream of. Just think of Hendricks gin and Grey Goose vodka. Of course many fail - as do many films - but the hits succeed so much more dramatically than any wine. The week that brought news of the Constellation sale also brought an announcement from Brown Forman that it was ready to offload its Californian Fetzer and Bonterra wine businesses. These are not Australian brands retreating from being battered by UK retailers; they’re US brands selling in North America.
I wish the private equity buyers of Hardy’s et al well, but I wonder how much fun they are really going to have with the extravagant Christmas present they have bought themselves.
Plus ça change
A column that appears in the October 2010 edition of Meininger's Wine Business International
A lot can happen in two years, and much can change beyond most of our imaginations. 24 months ago, we were all told that politics and the way we spend money had changed for good. A black man had been elected to the Presidency and ushered in a time of hope. Faced with the threat of imminent collapse in the banking, motor and other industries, all the talk was of a permanent end to partisanship and a move towards collective efforts to get America back on track.
On other pages in those same newspapers columnists picked over the bones of one of the most obvious and predictable victims of the recession. Conspicuous consumption, they declared, was dead. At a time when countless people were wondering whether they would still have a job or a house, it was no longer appropriate to be dazzling your entourage with a $10,000 handbag, or a $1,000 bottle of wine. But even when good times returned, we would handle our disposable income differently. Paradigms, we were told, had shifted. We were moving into a period of more considered consumption and of sustainability.
Fast forward to the eve of 2011. Millions of voters seem, for reasons that remain opaque to many beyond their shores, actually to hate their president and see an appeal in some of the undeniably eccentric candidates of the Tea Party.
A similar revival has been seen in the realm of conspicuous spending. Two years ago, many in the publishing world openly wondered how long the Financial Times could continue to publish its glossy international ‘How to Spend It’ supplement. Where would the advertisers come from? Who would want to read about hedonistic ways to spend thousands of dollars?
Today, the magazine is packed with advertising for watches, art, cars and clothes and a digital version was launched this year with the help of a £2m ($2.9m) advertising campaign. The presence of all that advertising is explained by the remarkable recovery in the sales of luxury goods.
A study by US analysts Bain & Co on behalf of Fondazione Altagamma, the Italian association of luxury producers has revealed an extraordinary recovery between 2009 and 2010. Sales of watches, jewelry, leather goods and designer clothes dropped by 8% in 2009 - less than one might have expected - but last year they have surged back by an estimated 10%.
Bain’s figures are supported by the results declared by luxury brand owners such as LVMH and Richemont, owner of brands such as Cartier, Dunhill and Mont Blanc. Sales for the five months until August 31 2010 by the latter company rose by 37 percent. Obviously China accounts for much of this growth, but not as much as you might suppose. Richemont’s sales rose by a dazzling 51% in Asia Pacific - but an even more impressive 52% in the Americas.
Many - probably most - members of the wine world viscerally dislike the notion of a bottle of wine as a luxury item. For them, it is an agricultural artifact - a piece of terroir - or a food or an artwork. Or a combination of these. What it should not be is something people buy in order to show off their wealth. To read the comments by some European wine critics, the very idea of the $1,000 bottle is absurd, if not actually obscene. Chateau Lafite gained little applause from these writers for cannily exploiting its Chinese success by adding a gold figure ‘8’ to the label of its 2008 wine.
Looked at rationally, however, the $1,000 bottle is no more crazy than the $10,000 handbag, the $100,000 watch or the $250,000 car. The only difference is that the makers of humbler cars, watches and bags seem to be rather more comfortable with the situation than their counterparts in the vineyards and cellars. It’s time for the wine industry to wake up to reality. Many of us might balk at paying mad prices for fermented grape juice, just as many of us might shake our heads in disbelief at the readiness of US voters to support political candidates from another planet. But my guess is in some form or other both are here to stay. Some of the wine professionals who learn to give luxury buyers what they want may actually fare better than those who are currently struggling to offer value for money.
A lot can happen in two years, and much can change beyond most of our imaginations. 24 months ago, we were all told that politics and the way we spend money had changed for good. A black man had been elected to the Presidency and ushered in a time of hope. Faced with the threat of imminent collapse in the banking, motor and other industries, all the talk was of a permanent end to partisanship and a move towards collective efforts to get America back on track.
On other pages in those same newspapers columnists picked over the bones of one of the most obvious and predictable victims of the recession. Conspicuous consumption, they declared, was dead. At a time when countless people were wondering whether they would still have a job or a house, it was no longer appropriate to be dazzling your entourage with a $10,000 handbag, or a $1,000 bottle of wine. But even when good times returned, we would handle our disposable income differently. Paradigms, we were told, had shifted. We were moving into a period of more considered consumption and of sustainability.
Fast forward to the eve of 2011. Millions of voters seem, for reasons that remain opaque to many beyond their shores, actually to hate their president and see an appeal in some of the undeniably eccentric candidates of the Tea Party.
A similar revival has been seen in the realm of conspicuous spending. Two years ago, many in the publishing world openly wondered how long the Financial Times could continue to publish its glossy international ‘How to Spend It’ supplement. Where would the advertisers come from? Who would want to read about hedonistic ways to spend thousands of dollars?
Today, the magazine is packed with advertising for watches, art, cars and clothes and a digital version was launched this year with the help of a £2m ($2.9m) advertising campaign. The presence of all that advertising is explained by the remarkable recovery in the sales of luxury goods.
A study by US analysts Bain & Co on behalf of Fondazione Altagamma, the Italian association of luxury producers has revealed an extraordinary recovery between 2009 and 2010. Sales of watches, jewelry, leather goods and designer clothes dropped by 8% in 2009 - less than one might have expected - but last year they have surged back by an estimated 10%.
Bain’s figures are supported by the results declared by luxury brand owners such as LVMH and Richemont, owner of brands such as Cartier, Dunhill and Mont Blanc. Sales for the five months until August 31 2010 by the latter company rose by 37 percent. Obviously China accounts for much of this growth, but not as much as you might suppose. Richemont’s sales rose by a dazzling 51% in Asia Pacific - but an even more impressive 52% in the Americas.
Many - probably most - members of the wine world viscerally dislike the notion of a bottle of wine as a luxury item. For them, it is an agricultural artifact - a piece of terroir - or a food or an artwork. Or a combination of these. What it should not be is something people buy in order to show off their wealth. To read the comments by some European wine critics, the very idea of the $1,000 bottle is absurd, if not actually obscene. Chateau Lafite gained little applause from these writers for cannily exploiting its Chinese success by adding a gold figure ‘8’ to the label of its 2008 wine.
Looked at rationally, however, the $1,000 bottle is no more crazy than the $10,000 handbag, the $100,000 watch or the $250,000 car. The only difference is that the makers of humbler cars, watches and bags seem to be rather more comfortable with the situation than their counterparts in the vineyards and cellars. It’s time for the wine industry to wake up to reality. Many of us might balk at paying mad prices for fermented grape juice, just as many of us might shake our heads in disbelief at the readiness of US voters to support political candidates from another planet. But my guess is in some form or other both are here to stay. Some of the wine professionals who learn to give luxury buyers what they want may actually fare better than those who are currently struggling to offer value for money.
Friday, July 23, 2010
Death of the Wine Critic
A column that appears in the July 2010 edition of Meininger's wine Business International
“The incessant whining of… critics as they find themselves jobless and journalistically homeless... sacrificial offerings to the bottom line. There has been a drastic kill-off… during the Great Recession, which has proven to be not a typical cyclical downturn, but a profound reordering of the media universe – the cannibalizing of traditional print by digital”.
Reports of the apparently terminal decline in the prospects of wine criticism will come as no surprise to anyone with an interest in the way our industry communicates with its customers. But the quote with which I opened this column actually had nothing to do with wine. Written by James Wolcott in the July 2010 edition of Vanity Fair, it is concerned with a species I’d have imagined to be far less endangered: the film critic. According to Salt Lake Tribune blogger Sean P. Means, no fewer than 65 critics have lost jobs from publications such as Newsweek, USA Today and The New Republic.
The wine world is very good at examining its own navel and ignoring changes in the landscape beyond its cellar and tasting room doors. But the shrinkage in the role of the traditional critic, almost across the board, is a phenomenon that needs to be taken very, very seriously. For the simple reason that the wine world has an almost ludicrous reliance on people who have historically helped to fill the pages of newspapers and magazines. Setting aside the totemic influence of Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator, a few hundred pen-wielders across the globe constitute many wineries’ only real means of communication. Wineries justify spending tens of thousands of dollars at exhibitions on the basis of the journalists they’ve met. Entire forests are felled to produce glossy brochures and press-packs that, even in journalistically happier times, mostly went straight into the recycling bag.
The movie industry in its US homeland is painfully aware of the power of the pen. Traditionally, the reviews that appear in the Friday print media before a weekend opening can make or break a movie. Which is why producers sometimes decide not to hold screenings for critics, or to open their films midweek, relying on word-of-mouth to build ticket sales. The trouble is that today, word-of-mouth is increasingly driven by “word-of-Social-Media”. Last year, when Bruno, the successor to the highly successful Borat opened, it did so to big audiences, but was hugely criticised on Twitter by people who used their mobile phones to express their disapproval within minutes of leaving the cinema – or even while watching the film. Ticket sales plummeted by 40% on the second day.
But the shift in the balance of power from critics to consumers that social media like Twitter has created is only part of the story. There’s also the crucial question of the all-too visible gulf that separates the two groups. Some of the films and wines that are most hated by critics are among the most successful in delighting audiences. And vice versa. The critics respond to this kind of
criticism by saying that it isn’t their job to reflect consumer taste, but to use their knowledge and experienced to form that taste. It is a totally reasonable view, and one that would probably be echoed by serious writers on art and music. But, what if the publishers’ accountants have discovered that the number of readers who want their tastes to be formed simply fail to add up to a commercially viable group? What if the column has become an irrelevance? In a recent Financial Times interview, Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, explains his reason for giving up a job as a television critic. “I realised people who read didn’t watch TV and people who watched TV didn’t read.”
The film industry has a huge advantage over the world of wine. It doesn’t actually need critics to promote its wares. Profiles of the stars – and possibly even the director – can, like those of musicians, be written by journalists with no specialist knowledge. And most importantly, these profiles can appear in a wide variety of places.
Professional wine writers naturally hate being pushed off the perch by unqualified colleagues, but to be brutally frank, the discomfiture of these writers is not the concern of wine producers and distributors. Their challenge lies in finding ways to make their product, the place they make it, and even themselves and their employees sufficiently interesting to warrent writing about for an audience with no intrinsic interest in wine.
“The incessant whining of… critics as they find themselves jobless and journalistically homeless... sacrificial offerings to the bottom line. There has been a drastic kill-off… during the Great Recession, which has proven to be not a typical cyclical downturn, but a profound reordering of the media universe – the cannibalizing of traditional print by digital”.
Reports of the apparently terminal decline in the prospects of wine criticism will come as no surprise to anyone with an interest in the way our industry communicates with its customers. But the quote with which I opened this column actually had nothing to do with wine. Written by James Wolcott in the July 2010 edition of Vanity Fair, it is concerned with a species I’d have imagined to be far less endangered: the film critic. According to Salt Lake Tribune blogger Sean P. Means, no fewer than 65 critics have lost jobs from publications such as Newsweek, USA Today and The New Republic.
The wine world is very good at examining its own navel and ignoring changes in the landscape beyond its cellar and tasting room doors. But the shrinkage in the role of the traditional critic, almost across the board, is a phenomenon that needs to be taken very, very seriously. For the simple reason that the wine world has an almost ludicrous reliance on people who have historically helped to fill the pages of newspapers and magazines. Setting aside the totemic influence of Robert Parker and the Wine Spectator, a few hundred pen-wielders across the globe constitute many wineries’ only real means of communication. Wineries justify spending tens of thousands of dollars at exhibitions on the basis of the journalists they’ve met. Entire forests are felled to produce glossy brochures and press-packs that, even in journalistically happier times, mostly went straight into the recycling bag.
The movie industry in its US homeland is painfully aware of the power of the pen. Traditionally, the reviews that appear in the Friday print media before a weekend opening can make or break a movie. Which is why producers sometimes decide not to hold screenings for critics, or to open their films midweek, relying on word-of-mouth to build ticket sales. The trouble is that today, word-of-mouth is increasingly driven by “word-of-Social-Media”. Last year, when Bruno, the successor to the highly successful Borat opened, it did so to big audiences, but was hugely criticised on Twitter by people who used their mobile phones to express their disapproval within minutes of leaving the cinema – or even while watching the film. Ticket sales plummeted by 40% on the second day.
But the shift in the balance of power from critics to consumers that social media like Twitter has created is only part of the story. There’s also the crucial question of the all-too visible gulf that separates the two groups. Some of the films and wines that are most hated by critics are among the most successful in delighting audiences. And vice versa. The critics respond to this kind of
criticism by saying that it isn’t their job to reflect consumer taste, but to use their knowledge and experienced to form that taste. It is a totally reasonable view, and one that would probably be echoed by serious writers on art and music. But, what if the publishers’ accountants have discovered that the number of readers who want their tastes to be formed simply fail to add up to a commercially viable group? What if the column has become an irrelevance? In a recent Financial Times interview, Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore’s Dilemma, explains his reason for giving up a job as a television critic. “I realised people who read didn’t watch TV and people who watched TV didn’t read.”
The film industry has a huge advantage over the world of wine. It doesn’t actually need critics to promote its wares. Profiles of the stars – and possibly even the director – can, like those of musicians, be written by journalists with no specialist knowledge. And most importantly, these profiles can appear in a wide variety of places.
Professional wine writers naturally hate being pushed off the perch by unqualified colleagues, but to be brutally frank, the discomfiture of these writers is not the concern of wine producers and distributors. Their challenge lies in finding ways to make their product, the place they make it, and even themselves and their employees sufficiently interesting to warrent writing about for an audience with no intrinsic interest in wine.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
Thinking about the land of Oz
Twenty years ago, I annoyed one of the biggest wine producers in California by suggesting that Australia’s winemakers had become the vinous equivalent of the Japanese motor industry. Good at listening to the market and giving it what it wanted.
Today, if some of the loudest voices in the Australian wine firmament are to be believed, the only Japanese comparison to be made is with Toyota, the company that has had to recall nearly 10m of its vehicles and stands accused of causing well over 30 deaths. Before anyone accuses me of hyperbole here, listen to the speech made earlier this year by Brian Croser, founder of Petaluma to the American Association of Wine Economists. In it he talked of the “highly visible current tragedies” of the “fewer than 10 very large, multi-region operators” who were apparently solely responsible “for Australia’s global wine demise and grape and wine surplus…”
Of course, there’s no denying that the Australian wine industry is in trouble, especially when compared to the glory days of just a few years ago when its ascendency seemed to be unstoppable. But it hasn't actually injured or killed anyone and no major company has gone bust, so to my mind, terms like “tragedies” and “demise” do seem to be a little over the top.
Let’s consider the facts. During the 1980s and 1990s, Australia built an export-driven industry from an almost standing start. Like many another successful business, it invested in increased production facilities. Then, as has happened all too frequently in other industries, rivals raised their game, market conditions toughened and the Australian winemakers lost their competitive edge. This was exacerbated by water shortages which raised production costs and then by a global economic crisis. There’s nothing very extraordinary about this story. Last year, Starbucks had to close hundreds of the outlets it had opened over the previous five years; an expanded Christian Lacroix sought protection from bankruptcy and then, of course, there were the US car giants... Examples like this fill the news pages every day.
According the Australia’s doom-mongers, Britain is where everything has gone most wrong – where discounting by the big companies has killed the goose that was laying such tasty golden eggs. So how badly are Australia’s winemakers doing there? Well, according to Stewart Blunt of Nielsen, over the last year, Australia has lost market share, dropping from 21.2% of the market to 20.4%. It’s still the biggest player, but California, South Africa and Italy are all snapping at its heels. And, just as importantly, when you take into account a weakening UK currency and a hike in duty rates, the average price of Australian wine has fallen in real terms. Today, a bottle would set you back £4.51; 12 months ago, it would have been just £0.04 cheaper. France, by comparison has seen the price of its wine climb from £4.64 to £4.97 – which is more or less accounted for by the duty and exchange rates which have had to be absorbed by the Australians.
France’s higher prices came at a significant cost, however: a fall to fifth position on the list of UK imports and a drop in market share from 14.1% to 12.3%. South Africa, one of the countries that has stolen customers from Australia is doing brilliantly – largely on the back of one discounted brand – First Cape – and at an average price of just £3.87. Italy is scoring a lot of runs – with own-label Pinot Grigio, and an average price of £4.10. The US, another winner – thanks to sweet rosé gets a few more pence per bottle – at £4.30, but is still under the market average of £4.35.
Australia remains the biggest player in the UK market, and still commands a higher price per bottle than any of its three biggest competitors. Contrast this with the loss of market share of France, the country, many Australian winemakers would seemingly most like to emulate, with its focus on cool climate regions, small producers and regionality.
Australia has to get its house in order, but its problems are far smaller than those of, say, Spain which last year yet again faced the question of how to dispose of nearly a third of its crop.
Which brings me back to Japanese cars. In March, Toyota sales in the US were 40% higher than in 2008 against a market that generally rose by 23%. My unfashionable guess is that, like the motor manufacturer, Australia may be able to call on a lot more consumer trust and affection than it currently likes to imagine.
Today, if some of the loudest voices in the Australian wine firmament are to be believed, the only Japanese comparison to be made is with Toyota, the company that has had to recall nearly 10m of its vehicles and stands accused of causing well over 30 deaths. Before anyone accuses me of hyperbole here, listen to the speech made earlier this year by Brian Croser, founder of Petaluma to the American Association of Wine Economists. In it he talked of the “highly visible current tragedies” of the “fewer than 10 very large, multi-region operators” who were apparently solely responsible “for Australia’s global wine demise and grape and wine surplus…”
Of course, there’s no denying that the Australian wine industry is in trouble, especially when compared to the glory days of just a few years ago when its ascendency seemed to be unstoppable. But it hasn't actually injured or killed anyone and no major company has gone bust, so to my mind, terms like “tragedies” and “demise” do seem to be a little over the top.
Let’s consider the facts. During the 1980s and 1990s, Australia built an export-driven industry from an almost standing start. Like many another successful business, it invested in increased production facilities. Then, as has happened all too frequently in other industries, rivals raised their game, market conditions toughened and the Australian winemakers lost their competitive edge. This was exacerbated by water shortages which raised production costs and then by a global economic crisis. There’s nothing very extraordinary about this story. Last year, Starbucks had to close hundreds of the outlets it had opened over the previous five years; an expanded Christian Lacroix sought protection from bankruptcy and then, of course, there were the US car giants... Examples like this fill the news pages every day.
According the Australia’s doom-mongers, Britain is where everything has gone most wrong – where discounting by the big companies has killed the goose that was laying such tasty golden eggs. So how badly are Australia’s winemakers doing there? Well, according to Stewart Blunt of Nielsen, over the last year, Australia has lost market share, dropping from 21.2% of the market to 20.4%. It’s still the biggest player, but California, South Africa and Italy are all snapping at its heels. And, just as importantly, when you take into account a weakening UK currency and a hike in duty rates, the average price of Australian wine has fallen in real terms. Today, a bottle would set you back £4.51; 12 months ago, it would have been just £0.04 cheaper. France, by comparison has seen the price of its wine climb from £4.64 to £4.97 – which is more or less accounted for by the duty and exchange rates which have had to be absorbed by the Australians.
France’s higher prices came at a significant cost, however: a fall to fifth position on the list of UK imports and a drop in market share from 14.1% to 12.3%. South Africa, one of the countries that has stolen customers from Australia is doing brilliantly – largely on the back of one discounted brand – First Cape – and at an average price of just £3.87. Italy is scoring a lot of runs – with own-label Pinot Grigio, and an average price of £4.10. The US, another winner – thanks to sweet rosé gets a few more pence per bottle – at £4.30, but is still under the market average of £4.35.
Australia remains the biggest player in the UK market, and still commands a higher price per bottle than any of its three biggest competitors. Contrast this with the loss of market share of France, the country, many Australian winemakers would seemingly most like to emulate, with its focus on cool climate regions, small producers and regionality.
Australia has to get its house in order, but its problems are far smaller than those of, say, Spain which last year yet again faced the question of how to dispose of nearly a third of its crop.
Which brings me back to Japanese cars. In March, Toyota sales in the US were 40% higher than in 2008 against a market that generally rose by 23%. My unfashionable guess is that, like the motor manufacturer, Australia may be able to call on a lot more consumer trust and affection than it currently likes to imagine.
Monday, March 08, 2010
Adapt or die
Adapt or die… A harsh choice, I admit, but the reality is there for anyone with eyes that are open to see it. Times will be hard for anyone who imagines that they can get through this decade using a 20th century roadmap. Many other industries have understood this clearly; the world of wine still has to remove its head from the sand.
We all love reading traditionally printed books and newspapers, and many still enjoy listening to a whole album of music by the same musician – and handwriting Christmas cards. But these activities are beginning to look as “quaint” as smoking a pipeful of tobacco and wheeling a baby around in a pram. Last year, the US publisher Random House sold 100,000 copies of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol as electronic "e-books" in the seven days after its release - an impressive 5% of the total sale, considering that "e-readers" like Amazon’s Kindle were only launched in 2007, cost over $250 and have no other use.
This year, sees the arrival of Apple's and other electronic “tablets” that can be used as computers and allow users to watch movies as well as read books and newspapers. These new products and their successors will change the way we read words as much as the arrival of the mobile phone changed the way we communicate. Random House is not alone in exploiting the new technology: the giant magazine publisher, Conde Nast is busily redesigning its magazines to make them work in digital form. Meanwhile, Hallmark, the huge US greeting card manufacturer has introduced emailable greetings cards, and major record companies are scrambling to find ways of serving an audience that now prefers to buy its music online, one track at a time.
The European wine industry has historically treated change like the bubonic plague: just consider the ructions over switching from corks to screwcaps and the printing of grape variety names on French wine labels. More often than not, evolution has been imposed by circumstances and competition rather than generated from within.
Setting aside the issue of the changes that might be made to the liquid product (Justin Howard Sneyd of the dynamic UK retail chain Waitrose raised many eyebrows and hackles at the Wine Future conference when he talked about drinks that combine wine with other ingredients), the industry can and must consider other forms of evolution. Among these, packaging is the most obvious. The coffee industry has been transformed by the the Nespresso single-serve “pod” which seeks to bring instant coffee simplicity to the process of preparing an espresso or cappuccino. Makers of dark beers were similarly boosted by the “widget” that facilitates the creation of a creamy head of fine bubbles when poured from a can. The wine industry has much to learn.
Changes in distribution are, however, arguably even more important. 350 years ago, a clever Frenchman called François-Auguste de Pontac opened an inn called the Pontac’s Head in London from which he sold his family’s Bordeaux. At a stroke, he created the first branded wine (Ho Bryan is the earliest to be referred to by name rather than region) and created a novel form of distribution for it. Today, wine producers across the globe are complaining at the power of the retailers. They should learn from de Pontac – and from Nestle who sell $2bn of Nespresso pods exclusively online, by phone – or through over 120 Nespresso Boutique shops and bars across the globe.
Torres and Antinori – two unusual innovators in the European wine world – have both opened on-trade outlets, but neither is big enough to match Nespresso. But how long will it be before Constellation or a set of like-minded firms collectively addresses the on-trade distribution of its wines?
Within the off trade, this taking-back of power is already beginning to happen… In the UK, where the supermarket stranglehold is at its strongest, Matthew Clarke, which is partly owned by Constellation, has recently begun to offer its on-trade wines directly to retail customers through an online service called thepurveyor.com. The Symington Group (Dows, Grahams port etc) is similarly launching a direct-to-the-public operation alongside JE Fells, its UK wholesaler.
Seth Godin, the American thinker, recently described how the Marx Brothers began as Vaudeville stars in 1910, and shifted to silent, then sound movies and radio before finally appearing on television. They adapted themselves (and their act) to new forms of distribution as they arrived. The choice confronting many wine producers today lies in embracing change and going into the history books as enduring stars like Groucho Marx, or becoming historical footnotes like all those performers who decided that moving pictures were not for them….
We all love reading traditionally printed books and newspapers, and many still enjoy listening to a whole album of music by the same musician – and handwriting Christmas cards. But these activities are beginning to look as “quaint” as smoking a pipeful of tobacco and wheeling a baby around in a pram. Last year, the US publisher Random House sold 100,000 copies of Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol as electronic "e-books" in the seven days after its release - an impressive 5% of the total sale, considering that "e-readers" like Amazon’s Kindle were only launched in 2007, cost over $250 and have no other use.
This year, sees the arrival of Apple's and other electronic “tablets” that can be used as computers and allow users to watch movies as well as read books and newspapers. These new products and their successors will change the way we read words as much as the arrival of the mobile phone changed the way we communicate. Random House is not alone in exploiting the new technology: the giant magazine publisher, Conde Nast is busily redesigning its magazines to make them work in digital form. Meanwhile, Hallmark, the huge US greeting card manufacturer has introduced emailable greetings cards, and major record companies are scrambling to find ways of serving an audience that now prefers to buy its music online, one track at a time.
The European wine industry has historically treated change like the bubonic plague: just consider the ructions over switching from corks to screwcaps and the printing of grape variety names on French wine labels. More often than not, evolution has been imposed by circumstances and competition rather than generated from within.
Setting aside the issue of the changes that might be made to the liquid product (Justin Howard Sneyd of the dynamic UK retail chain Waitrose raised many eyebrows and hackles at the Wine Future conference when he talked about drinks that combine wine with other ingredients), the industry can and must consider other forms of evolution. Among these, packaging is the most obvious. The coffee industry has been transformed by the the Nespresso single-serve “pod” which seeks to bring instant coffee simplicity to the process of preparing an espresso or cappuccino. Makers of dark beers were similarly boosted by the “widget” that facilitates the creation of a creamy head of fine bubbles when poured from a can. The wine industry has much to learn.
Changes in distribution are, however, arguably even more important. 350 years ago, a clever Frenchman called François-Auguste de Pontac opened an inn called the Pontac’s Head in London from which he sold his family’s Bordeaux. At a stroke, he created the first branded wine (Ho Bryan is the earliest to be referred to by name rather than region) and created a novel form of distribution for it. Today, wine producers across the globe are complaining at the power of the retailers. They should learn from de Pontac – and from Nestle who sell $2bn of Nespresso pods exclusively online, by phone – or through over 120 Nespresso Boutique shops and bars across the globe.
Torres and Antinori – two unusual innovators in the European wine world – have both opened on-trade outlets, but neither is big enough to match Nespresso. But how long will it be before Constellation or a set of like-minded firms collectively addresses the on-trade distribution of its wines?
Within the off trade, this taking-back of power is already beginning to happen… In the UK, where the supermarket stranglehold is at its strongest, Matthew Clarke, which is partly owned by Constellation, has recently begun to offer its on-trade wines directly to retail customers through an online service called thepurveyor.com. The Symington Group (Dows, Grahams port etc) is similarly launching a direct-to-the-public operation alongside JE Fells, its UK wholesaler.
Seth Godin, the American thinker, recently described how the Marx Brothers began as Vaudeville stars in 1910, and shifted to silent, then sound movies and radio before finally appearing on television. They adapted themselves (and their act) to new forms of distribution as they arrived. The choice confronting many wine producers today lies in embracing change and going into the history books as enduring stars like Groucho Marx, or becoming historical footnotes like all those performers who decided that moving pictures were not for them….
Saturday, September 26, 2009
Premiumization: a dead parrot? Or merely sleeping?
The American economist Paul Krugman’s comment was one of the best I’ve come across recently: “We've got a problem with terminology because we usually say either the economy is in recession or the economy is recovering. Either you're in hell or you're in heaven. And the trouble is we're actually in purgatory.” My own frustration with the binary, black-or-white way of viewing the world has developed over the last few weeks as I have tried to juggle with a number of very contradictory pieces of news. On one side of the ledger, there’s the “fact” that Germany, France and Japan are no longer in a recession and that Britain and the US are, for their part, on the road to recovery. On the other, there’s the “fact” that French and German unemployment figures are still growing. Most estimates suggest that during the course of 2009, the jobless rate in these two countries alone will have risen by over a million. People are tightening their belts across the globe. Apart from the bankers who will be celebrating a fresh crop of generous bonuses at the end of the year. In 2007, you could have paid £525 for a Just-Drinks report entitled Emerging Markets and Premiumisation to Drive Global Spirits Market. Just two years later, the analysts at Deutsche Bank are questioning whether “The era of premiumisation is over..?” and backing the drinks giant Diageo for its perceived ability to achieve “volume growth to drive earnings”.
The problem is that premiumisation is not only an ugly word; it’s also a term whose meaning depends on the person using it. For some, it applies to super-luxury products like the $10,000 Loewe Calle handbag photographed on Victoria Beckham’s arm in February when the credit crunch was arguably at its worst. Or the Armand de Brignac non-vintage Champagne that relies on its blingy packaging and link with the rapper Jay-Z to justify a price tag of $500 a time. Neither of these, interestingly, complies to the definition of “New Luxury” in from Michael J Silverstein and Neil Fiske’s excellent 2005 book Trading Up”. The focus for these authors is “products and services that possess higher levels of quality, taste and aspiration than other goods in the category but are not so expensive as to be out of reach”.
Of course, buried within this definition are several subjective issues. Who is to say whether one product is of higher quality and taste than another? What one consumer may aspire to might leave another completely cold. And how far can any consumer actually reach? Silverstein and Fiske acknowledge this last point by pointing out that “a consumer’s buying habits do not always confirm to her income level”. There may be a “disharmony of consumption” whereby she will purchase own-label dishwashing liquid but drink premium Samuel Adams beer.
A good illustration of the lack of connection between the amount of money in a consumer’s pocket and the way in which he will spend is offered in the UK by the current performance of two beverages: coffee and wine. It was recently reported that Tesco’s “Finest” wine range had been removed from some 200 of the chain’s 300 stores and its place taken by a “Value” range including Spanish Tetra Paks of wine at £3.15 per litre, a price which would allow for a wine cost of €30c per litre. Tesco's strenuously denies the first part of these reports, but most retailers acknowledge that "premium" wines are proving harder to sell. Meanwhile, however, Whitbread, the UK hotel, pub and coffee bar group which once brewed beer and retailed wine, has just announced first half figures for 2009 which revealed an 18.4% increase in sales at its Costa coffee outlets, where a cappuccino would cost around £2.00.
My own simple take on the relative success of the coffee vendors is that successful premiumisation is all to do with the way the product or service makes the consumer feel - irrespective of price. The ability to spend more than you need to on a cup of coffee, or on a pair of socks - or shoes - may actually be part of the appeal. And I doubt that this is a human emotion that is going to disappear simply because the world is going through a financial crisis.
What may well change for many people, is unconsidered spending. It’s not surprising that Nielsen and Datamonitor data show own-label purchasing as being on the rise in the US and UK. But that trend does not contradict the declaration by the up-market UK supermarket chain Waitrose that many of its consumers are returning to its aisles after an unsatisfactory flirtation with the discounters Aldi and Lidl.
The challenge confronting wine producers and marketers lies in ensuring that their product has that feel-good factor. And no brand exemplifies that better than Oyster Bay. Despite oversupply of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and the recession, Delegat’s its makers have just announced a 37% rise in annual revenue and 57% jump in net profits. Interestingly, Oyster Bay seems to be maintaining its premium price in the UK despite Tesco’s sale of an ocean of three-for-£10 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. It has also joined the ranks of the ten best-selling over $10 wines in the US, despite the general downward trend of wine prices there. The Costa and Oyster Bay factor is not easily defined - if it were, everyone would be applying it - but my guess is that it lies in maintaining quality that is at least at the higher end of its class, a premium image and a price that’s just high enough to make the buyer aware that he is treating himself without actually feeling any pain.
The problem is that premiumisation is not only an ugly word; it’s also a term whose meaning depends on the person using it. For some, it applies to super-luxury products like the $10,000 Loewe Calle handbag photographed on Victoria Beckham’s arm in February when the credit crunch was arguably at its worst. Or the Armand de Brignac non-vintage Champagne that relies on its blingy packaging and link with the rapper Jay-Z to justify a price tag of $500 a time. Neither of these, interestingly, complies to the definition of “New Luxury” in from Michael J Silverstein and Neil Fiske’s excellent 2005 book Trading Up”. The focus for these authors is “products and services that possess higher levels of quality, taste and aspiration than other goods in the category but are not so expensive as to be out of reach”.
Of course, buried within this definition are several subjective issues. Who is to say whether one product is of higher quality and taste than another? What one consumer may aspire to might leave another completely cold. And how far can any consumer actually reach? Silverstein and Fiske acknowledge this last point by pointing out that “a consumer’s buying habits do not always confirm to her income level”. There may be a “disharmony of consumption” whereby she will purchase own-label dishwashing liquid but drink premium Samuel Adams beer.
A good illustration of the lack of connection between the amount of money in a consumer’s pocket and the way in which he will spend is offered in the UK by the current performance of two beverages: coffee and wine. It was recently reported that Tesco’s “Finest” wine range had been removed from some 200 of the chain’s 300 stores and its place taken by a “Value” range including Spanish Tetra Paks of wine at £3.15 per litre, a price which would allow for a wine cost of €30c per litre. Tesco's strenuously denies the first part of these reports, but most retailers acknowledge that "premium" wines are proving harder to sell. Meanwhile, however, Whitbread, the UK hotel, pub and coffee bar group which once brewed beer and retailed wine, has just announced first half figures for 2009 which revealed an 18.4% increase in sales at its Costa coffee outlets, where a cappuccino would cost around £2.00.
My own simple take on the relative success of the coffee vendors is that successful premiumisation is all to do with the way the product or service makes the consumer feel - irrespective of price. The ability to spend more than you need to on a cup of coffee, or on a pair of socks - or shoes - may actually be part of the appeal. And I doubt that this is a human emotion that is going to disappear simply because the world is going through a financial crisis.
What may well change for many people, is unconsidered spending. It’s not surprising that Nielsen and Datamonitor data show own-label purchasing as being on the rise in the US and UK. But that trend does not contradict the declaration by the up-market UK supermarket chain Waitrose that many of its consumers are returning to its aisles after an unsatisfactory flirtation with the discounters Aldi and Lidl.
The challenge confronting wine producers and marketers lies in ensuring that their product has that feel-good factor. And no brand exemplifies that better than Oyster Bay. Despite oversupply of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc and the recession, Delegat’s its makers have just announced a 37% rise in annual revenue and 57% jump in net profits. Interestingly, Oyster Bay seems to be maintaining its premium price in the UK despite Tesco’s sale of an ocean of three-for-£10 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. It has also joined the ranks of the ten best-selling over $10 wines in the US, despite the general downward trend of wine prices there. The Costa and Oyster Bay factor is not easily defined - if it were, everyone would be applying it - but my guess is that it lies in maintaining quality that is at least at the higher end of its class, a premium image and a price that’s just high enough to make the buyer aware that he is treating himself without actually feeling any pain.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Feeling low, down under
A piece that appeared in Meininger's Wine Business International
Once upon a time a little bird with a broken wing became lost in the frozen tundra of Siberia. Cold and hungry, he was close to death. Just then an old peasant came along, took pity on the bird and gave him a few crusts of his bread. But how could he warm up the shivering little creature? He looked around and noticed a steaming yak pat that had just been deposited by one of his herd. After a moment’s hesitation, he picked up the bird and inserted it gently into the pat. The smell was fairly unpleasant of course but, quite soon, the poor creature stopped shivering, began to feel considerably better and fell asleep. Having accomplished this small act of charity, the peasant went on his way, the yak pat began to cool down and as it did so, it became increasingly solid. When the bird woke up, it found that it was trapped and began to call for help. Soon, a fox happened by and heard the frantic cheeps. Almost immediately the fox picked up the yak pat with his mouth and gently tapped it against a rock until it broke and allowed the bird to break free from its prison. Thank you, thank you, thank you said the bird, to which the fox replied "my pleasure" and promptly popped the little creature in his mouth and swallowed it whole. And the moral of the story is: when you’re up to your neck in dung, it isn’t always your enemies who put you there. And it isn’t always your friends you get you out.
This little story sprang to mind when I began to think about the state of the Australian wine industry and its history over the last 25 years. Back in 1985, when I first visited Australia, its wine exports were almost insignificant. In those dim distant days, British wine drinkers were used to a diet of illustrious French classics – if they could afford them – and Liebfraumilch, Muscadet, , Rioja, Chianti, Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon and Hungarian Bulls Blood if they couldn’t. Californian wine was a new arrival on the scene and, then as today, seemed, when viewed on the eastern banks of the Atlantic, to be a musician with a very limited repertoire. There was bargain basement wine in Paul Masson carafes and ultra-ambitious Napa efforts modelled on the best of Burgundy and Bordeaux – in style, quality and price. And not a lot in between. The international head of sales at Mondavi famously never left home without a bottle of Lafite to set against his winery’s Reserve in the smartest possible restaurant. He and his fellow Californians must have imagined that a nation whose wine drinking classes were brought up on Bordelais formality would embrace their own west coast version. But, as they gradually discovered, they could not have got it more wrong.
The British wine buyers, critics and adventurous wine drinkers of the late 1980s and the 1990s sought something very different. What they – or perhaps for the sake of honesty, I should say we - admitted to looking for was unpretentiousness, and wines that combined deliciousness with affordability. We really did not care if the Australian wines did not taste like Bordeaux or Burgundy. Indeed we revelled in their difference. And we positively loved the fact that the winemakers were blokes we could go to the pub with and drink beer and discuss cricket and rugby – subjects on which most Americans have little to offer.
The honeymoon between the Australian producers and the British market lasted for the better part of 20 years during which the Australians saw their slice of the market grow ever larger until it overtook even the previously unassailable champions, the French. But outsiders might have noticed a dangerously incompatible note. Even Australian wine drinkers with moderate incomes aspire to occasional indulgences in the priciest jewels of their country’s vineyards. Well-heeled Brits, by contrast, can never quite keep their eyes off the price tag. When Australian winemakers arrived proudly bearing bottles from the cool climate vineyards they had been encouraged to develop by UK critics, they were politely received – and told that their wines were, like those Napa reds, simply too expensive. Worse still, we proved to be fickle in our affections: we were just as happy to drink a Shiraz from Chile or South Africa. For a while, like a wife wearing ever-more revealing clothes in a desperate attempt to keep her husband’s interest, the Australians indulged in an orgy of discounting before coming to the inevitable conclusion that We-Really-Can’t-Go-On-Like-This.
But what’s the alternative? The obvious answer is the US, still the most profitable major wine market on earth. The trouble is that few Australian winemakers ever learned how to play by American rules. They hadn’t modelled their wineries or their marketing on Medoc and Pomerol chateaux. They never established a globally-acknowledged super-premium category like Italy’s raft of $100+ Barolos and Super-Tuscans and Spain’s Priorats, all of which readily found USbuyers before the crunch. There’s no Australian equivalent of the Napa Valley Auction at which Versace-clad bidders buy bottles for thousands of dollars, and the only Barossa counterparts of Napa efforts like Harlan Estate and Screaming Eagle are wines that were made specifically for the US market. And treated with derision for their pretentiousness by Australian and British critics. Most observers of the US wine scene now acknowledge that Australia occupies much the same role there as it does in the UK: as supplier of large amounts of reliable moderately priced wine. Stuff you might drink with a pizza on a Wednesday evening, but not if you want to make any kind of impression. The American fox may not be precisely devouring the little bird, but it’s not doing it much good. And who should we blame for its fate? The fox, the bird, or the well-meaning British peasant ..?
Once upon a time a little bird with a broken wing became lost in the frozen tundra of Siberia. Cold and hungry, he was close to death. Just then an old peasant came along, took pity on the bird and gave him a few crusts of his bread. But how could he warm up the shivering little creature? He looked around and noticed a steaming yak pat that had just been deposited by one of his herd. After a moment’s hesitation, he picked up the bird and inserted it gently into the pat. The smell was fairly unpleasant of course but, quite soon, the poor creature stopped shivering, began to feel considerably better and fell asleep. Having accomplished this small act of charity, the peasant went on his way, the yak pat began to cool down and as it did so, it became increasingly solid. When the bird woke up, it found that it was trapped and began to call for help. Soon, a fox happened by and heard the frantic cheeps. Almost immediately the fox picked up the yak pat with his mouth and gently tapped it against a rock until it broke and allowed the bird to break free from its prison. Thank you, thank you, thank you said the bird, to which the fox replied "my pleasure" and promptly popped the little creature in his mouth and swallowed it whole. And the moral of the story is: when you’re up to your neck in dung, it isn’t always your enemies who put you there. And it isn’t always your friends you get you out.
This little story sprang to mind when I began to think about the state of the Australian wine industry and its history over the last 25 years. Back in 1985, when I first visited Australia, its wine exports were almost insignificant. In those dim distant days, British wine drinkers were used to a diet of illustrious French classics – if they could afford them – and Liebfraumilch, Muscadet, , Rioja, Chianti, Bulgarian Cabernet Sauvignon and Hungarian Bulls Blood if they couldn’t. Californian wine was a new arrival on the scene and, then as today, seemed, when viewed on the eastern banks of the Atlantic, to be a musician with a very limited repertoire. There was bargain basement wine in Paul Masson carafes and ultra-ambitious Napa efforts modelled on the best of Burgundy and Bordeaux – in style, quality and price. And not a lot in between. The international head of sales at Mondavi famously never left home without a bottle of Lafite to set against his winery’s Reserve in the smartest possible restaurant. He and his fellow Californians must have imagined that a nation whose wine drinking classes were brought up on Bordelais formality would embrace their own west coast version. But, as they gradually discovered, they could not have got it more wrong.
The British wine buyers, critics and adventurous wine drinkers of the late 1980s and the 1990s sought something very different. What they – or perhaps for the sake of honesty, I should say we - admitted to looking for was unpretentiousness, and wines that combined deliciousness with affordability. We really did not care if the Australian wines did not taste like Bordeaux or Burgundy. Indeed we revelled in their difference. And we positively loved the fact that the winemakers were blokes we could go to the pub with and drink beer and discuss cricket and rugby – subjects on which most Americans have little to offer.
The honeymoon between the Australian producers and the British market lasted for the better part of 20 years during which the Australians saw their slice of the market grow ever larger until it overtook even the previously unassailable champions, the French. But outsiders might have noticed a dangerously incompatible note. Even Australian wine drinkers with moderate incomes aspire to occasional indulgences in the priciest jewels of their country’s vineyards. Well-heeled Brits, by contrast, can never quite keep their eyes off the price tag. When Australian winemakers arrived proudly bearing bottles from the cool climate vineyards they had been encouraged to develop by UK critics, they were politely received – and told that their wines were, like those Napa reds, simply too expensive. Worse still, we proved to be fickle in our affections: we were just as happy to drink a Shiraz from Chile or South Africa. For a while, like a wife wearing ever-more revealing clothes in a desperate attempt to keep her husband’s interest, the Australians indulged in an orgy of discounting before coming to the inevitable conclusion that We-Really-Can’t-Go-On-Like-
But what’s the alternative? The obvious answer is the US, still the most profitable major wine market on earth. The trouble is that few Australian winemakers ever learned how to play by American rules. They hadn’t modelled their wineries or their marketing on Medoc and Pomerol chateaux. They never established a globally-acknowledged super-premium category like Italy’s raft of $100+ Barolos and Super-Tuscans and Spain’s Priorats, all of which readily found USbuyers before the crunch. There’s no Australian equivalent of the Napa Valley Auction at which Versace-clad bidders buy bottles for thousands of dollars, and the only Barossa counterparts of Napa efforts like Harlan Estate and Screaming Eagle are wines that were made specifically for the US market. And treated with derision for their pretentiousness by Australian and British critics. Most observers of the US wine scene now acknowledge that Australia occupies much the same role there as it does in the UK: as supplier of large amounts of reliable moderately priced wine. Stuff you might drink with a pizza on a Wednesday evening, but not if you want to make any kind of impression. The American fox may not be precisely devouring the little bird, but it’s not doing it much good. And who should we blame for its fate? The fox, the bird, or the well-meaning British peasant ..?
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Buy the glass
For reasons that are beyond by comprehension, UK authorities are decidedly hazy about the legality of selling wine in quantities other than 125ml, 175ml and 250ml glasses. Some regions allow it; others forbid it, citing the 1988 Weights and Measures (Intoxicating Liquor) Order. So, in theory at least, British wine drinkers can't experience the delights of exploring ranges of small samples of different wines.
Despite this madness, brave places like The Sampler, Selfridges Wonder Bar and now the Kensington Wine Rooms are braving the ire of the bureaucrats by utilising clever Enomatic machines to offer 40-80 wines in measures as small as 25ml. At a time when binge drinking (quite possibly involving Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio) is an undeniable problem, what could make more sense than a setting like the Kensington Wine Rooms where customers compare small servings of Chablis and Meursault; New Zealand Sauvignon and Sancerre and enjoy them to the accompaniment of a plate of good Spanish ham and/or English cheese and/or stuffed peppers? The Sampler is set to spawn a series of new outlets and the Kensington Wine Rooms was set up by the founder of a successful set of Paris pubs called Le Frog & Rosbif, so it's reasonable to expect it to multiply as well.
According to officials last week, the law is set to be liberalised, opening the way to tasting-flights of wines in wine bars across the nation. But don't hold your breath...
Despite this madness, brave places like The Sampler, Selfridges Wonder Bar and now the Kensington Wine Rooms are braving the ire of the bureaucrats by utilising clever Enomatic machines to offer 40-80 wines in measures as small as 25ml. At a time when binge drinking (quite possibly involving Chardonnay and Pinot Grigio) is an undeniable problem, what could make more sense than a setting like the Kensington Wine Rooms where customers compare small servings of Chablis and Meursault; New Zealand Sauvignon and Sancerre and enjoy them to the accompaniment of a plate of good Spanish ham and/or English cheese and/or stuffed peppers? The Sampler is set to spawn a series of new outlets and the Kensington Wine Rooms was set up by the founder of a successful set of Paris pubs called Le Frog & Rosbif, so it's reasonable to expect it to multiply as well.
According to officials last week, the law is set to be liberalised, opening the way to tasting-flights of wines in wine bars across the nation. But don't hold your breath...
Two cheers for the revolution
So, European winemakers have now - since August 1st - been freed to print on their labels the names of the grape varieties from which their wines are produced. My first curmudgeonly reaction to this particular bit of Euro wine reform was to greet it with a yawn.
Let's be clear. All that's happening is a long-overdue tidying-up of an untidy mess. Prior to the new rules, producers in some regions happily declared their varieties with impunity (think of all that Sauvignon Blanc de Bordeaux) while their neighbours down the road were banned from doing so. Worse still, winemakers who steadfastly supported the law in Europe, hypocritically ignored it completely when they came to sell their wine in countries where European laws did not apply. So American wine drinkers were offered Mouton Cadet Bordeaux Merlot, but their UK counterparts were not.
The one valuable aspect of this part of the reform is that it serves as a reminder to producers that their customers are people with whom it is sometimes worth communicating. No one is forcing anyone to change a single label. All that is happening is that a winemaker is now free to help a wine buyer make a more informed choice.
Which, now I come to think of it, is worth rather more than a yawn. Actually a small glass of Champagne (with a small label reference to the fact that it's a Blanc de Noirs, Pinot Noir perhaps), might be more appropriate.
Let's be clear. All that's happening is a long-overdue tidying-up of an untidy mess. Prior to the new rules, producers in some regions happily declared their varieties with impunity (think of all that Sauvignon Blanc de Bordeaux) while their neighbours down the road were banned from doing so. Worse still, winemakers who steadfastly supported the law in Europe, hypocritically ignored it completely when they came to sell their wine in countries where European laws did not apply. So American wine drinkers were offered Mouton Cadet Bordeaux Merlot, but their UK counterparts were not.
The one valuable aspect of this part of the reform is that it serves as a reminder to producers that their customers are people with whom it is sometimes worth communicating. No one is forcing anyone to change a single label. All that is happening is that a winemaker is now free to help a wine buyer make a more informed choice.
Which, now I come to think of it, is worth rather more than a yawn. Actually a small glass of Champagne (with a small label reference to the fact that it's a Blanc de Noirs, Pinot Noir perhaps), might be more appropriate.
Saturday, August 01, 2009
Pornagraphic wine labels (at least that's what they think in Alabama)
Only in America...
The Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board (ABC) has confirmed in a letter to restaurants and shops that Cycles Gladiator, a Californian wine from Hahn Family Wines may not legally be sold in Alabama. At least not if the bottle bears its label which depicts an 1895 French poster for the Gladiator bicycle brand. According to Bob Martin, attorney for the ABC Board, who presumably makes these kinds of statements with a straight face, the label contravened laws against the depiction of "a person posed in an immoral or sensuous manner."
The ban will not have caused much loss of sleep at Hahn Family Wines. Sales in Alabama were apparently around 500 cases per year and this figure is being easily made up - and exceeded - by Californians and others who are flocking to get their hands on bottles that are "Banned in Bama."
(For other labels that have upset the Alabama censors, and an interesting insight into Alabama official thinking. take a look at this site)
********
While Alabama protects its citizens from the shocking sight of a 19th century nude, it fortunately takes a relatively liberal attitude towards gun-ownership. Anyone over 18 may buy and own a rifle, shotgun, or handgun without the need for any kind of permit or registration (the minimum age at which one can legally drink alcohol is 21, as elsewhere in the US). The only official permit that is required is for the carrying of a concealed weapon. According to an informative site, I had not previously visited called learnaboutguns.com, a recent survey reveals that two thirds of Alabama's residents own guns and half have permits to carry concealed weapons.
Learnaboutguns.com proudly states that "This is one of the highest gun ownership and concealed carry permits in the country and corresponds with a relatively low crime rate."
Hmmmm, In 2006, 412 people were apparently murdered in Alabama, compared with 759 in the UK where gun ownership is effectively outlawed. Alabama has a population of 4,627,851. The UK has nearly 15 times as many people: 60,975,000.
Alabama has 7.4 murders per 100,000 people; the 6th highest rate in the US for murder.
Alabama legislators have a fine record of drawing up unusual laws - as you can find on the Dumblaws site. Here are just a few prime examples.
The Alabama Alcoholic Beverage Control Board (ABC) has confirmed in a letter to restaurants and shops that Cycles Gladiator, a Californian wine from Hahn Family Wines may not legally be sold in Alabama. At least not if the bottle bears its label which depicts an 1895 French poster for the Gladiator bicycle brand. According to Bob Martin, attorney for the ABC Board, who presumably makes these kinds of statements with a straight face, the label contravened laws against the depiction of "a person posed in an immoral or sensuous manner."
The ban will not have caused much loss of sleep at Hahn Family Wines. Sales in Alabama were apparently around 500 cases per year and this figure is being easily made up - and exceeded - by Californians and others who are flocking to get their hands on bottles that are "Banned in Bama."
(For other labels that have upset the Alabama censors, and an interesting insight into Alabama official thinking. take a look at this site)
********
While Alabama protects its citizens from the shocking sight of a 19th century nude, it fortunately takes a relatively liberal attitude towards gun-ownership. Anyone over 18 may buy and own a rifle, shotgun, or handgun without the need for any kind of permit or registration (the minimum age at which one can legally drink alcohol is 21, as elsewhere in the US). The only official permit that is required is for the carrying of a concealed weapon. According to an informative site, I had not previously visited called learnaboutguns.com, a recent survey reveals that two thirds of Alabama's residents own guns and half have permits to carry concealed weapons.
Learnaboutguns.com proudly states that "This is one of the highest gun ownership and concealed carry permits in the country and corresponds with a relatively low crime rate."
Hmmmm, In 2006, 412 people were apparently murdered in Alabama, compared with 759 in the UK where gun ownership is effectively outlawed. Alabama has a population of 4,627,851. The UK has nearly 15 times as many people: 60,975,000.
Alabama has 7.4 murders per 100,000 people; the 6th highest rate in the US for murder.
Alabama legislators have a fine record of drawing up unusual laws - as you can find on the Dumblaws site. Here are just a few prime examples.
- Bear wrestling matches are prohibited.
- Incestuous marriages are legal.
- It is illegal to impersonate a person of the clergy.
- You may not drive barefooted.
- It is considered an offense to open an umbrella on a street, for fear of spooking horses.
- Dominoes may not be played on Sunday.
- It is illegal to wear a fake moustache that causes laughter in church.
- Putting salt on a railroad track may be punishable by death.
- You may not have an ice cream cone in your back pocket at any time.
- It is illegal for a driver to be blindfolded while operating a vehicle.
City Laws in Alabama
- You may not wear blue jeans down Noble Street.
Auburn - Men who deflower virgins, regardless of age or marital status, may face up to five years in jail.
Huntsville - If an animal control officer is in uniform, it signifies to the public that he is an animal control officer.
Lee County - It is illegal to sell peanuts in Lee County after sundown on Wednesday.
Mobile - No person within the city may possess confetti.
- It is unlawful to wear women’s pumps with sharp, high heels.
- Montgomery
It is considered an offense to open an umbrella on a street, for fear of spooking horses.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
US turns to wine. Or does it?
Publish Post
July brings the publication of Gallup's annual survey into American drinking habits. And as the French site Winealley.com pointed out (in French), the big question was whether hard times would turn people to drink. Or away from it - for want of dollars with which to buy the bottles. In fact, Gallup's research suggests that 64% of Americans drink alcohol at least occasionally - a figure that is in line with the 62-66% figures recorded over the last decade.
Drinkers are actually knocking back an average of 4.8 alcoholic beverages per week, slightly more than in 2008 but, again, in line with recent findings. This figure reflects the 14% of the survey participants who admitted having drunk eight drinks in the previous week, and the 65% who had limited themselves to just one.
The wine industry will rejoice in the news that their product was the favourite drink of 34% of the respondents - up from 31% in 2008 - compared with 40% who voted for spirits - down from 42% - and the 21% who chose beer - a drop from 23%. Closer analysis, however, reveals that, while wine has seen its popularity rise from 29% in 1992, it had already attained its current figure in late 1999 and in mid 2005 actually hit 39% - overtaking spirits for the one and only time in the survey's history.
Sunday, July 19, 2009
Shocking wine, (Can electrical shocks cure brettanomyces?)
For those of us who are sensitive to the complex bouquet of stable floors and would rather not find it in their glass of red, brettanomyces - or brett as it more familiarly known - has competed head-to-head with cork to be seen as one of the biggest wine problems in recent years. There is plenty of controversy over why brett has become so much of a headache, but the recent trend towards producing ultra-ripe wines with higher pH levels and not filtering them before bottling almost certainly has a role to play.
According to a piece (in French) in the French site vitisphere.com, research in cellars in Burgundy, the Loire and the Rhône has found brett in 50% of pre-bottled wines; other studies have found even greater prevalance. The picture is further complicated by several factors: there is more than one strain of brett; brett can be stable or can grow and render a wine increasingly undrinkable; tasters vary in their ability to notice its presence; and finally that some professionals believe that a little brett can add welcome complexity. (This last notion which will strike many New World winemakers as heresy, would incidentally make sense to brewers of traditional Belgian ales).
In any case, for those winemakers who'd rather be rid of this hitherto untreatable ailment, there may be some good news on the horizon. Researchers at the Institut Francais de la Vigne et du Vin (IFV) in Bordeaux have found that electrical shocks may finally be the way to rid the industry of this nightmare. Between two and 50 brief, intense shocks of 1-10 micro-seconds are applied, using highly sophisticated equipment specially developed for the experiment by the French firm Thomson. It seems that the shocks work by rupturing the brettanomyces cell walls.
According to a piece (in French) in the French site vitisphere.com, research in cellars in Burgundy, the Loire and the Rhône has found brett in 50% of pre-bottled wines; other studies have found even greater prevalance. The picture is further complicated by several factors: there is more than one strain of brett; brett can be stable or can grow and render a wine increasingly undrinkable; tasters vary in their ability to notice its presence; and finally that some professionals believe that a little brett can add welcome complexity. (This last notion which will strike many New World winemakers as heresy, would incidentally make sense to brewers of traditional Belgian ales).
In any case, for those winemakers who'd rather be rid of this hitherto untreatable ailment, there may be some good news on the horizon. Researchers at the Institut Francais de la Vigne et du Vin (IFV) in Bordeaux have found that electrical shocks may finally be the way to rid the industry of this nightmare. Between two and 50 brief, intense shocks of 1-10 micro-seconds are applied, using highly sophisticated equipment specially developed for the experiment by the French firm Thomson. It seems that the shocks work by rupturing the brettanomyces cell walls.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Transcendental Meditation
What is a Pringle? According to Procter & Gamble, its makers, a Pringle is a kind of food, to be categorised alongside cakes and biscuits. The UK tax authorities beg to differ. They reckon that its 42% potato content makes a Pringle a potato crisp (or “chip” if you prefer), an edible savoury luxury that’s subject to the 15% Value Added Tax from which other kinds of food in the UK are exempt. Sadly for P&G, the UK Appeals Court recently agreed with the taxman, but, and this is my point, the vast majority of people who eat these distinctively shaped savoury snacks really couldn’t care less what category they fall into. They simply enjoy them – and pay a relatively high price to do so.
Pringles, like iPods, Gilette Razors, Starbucks, Nike, Campari, Krispy Kremes, Baileys Irish Cream and Coca Cola, are in the happy state of transcending their class. People buy them for what they are rather than, or certainly more than, the category into which they fall. Stated simply, the buyers would rather have them than an alternative. Few Coke fans happily accept Pepsi – and far fewer would drink any other kind of Cola. How many Campari drinkers outside Italy are even aware of the vast range of Italian bitters most of whose colours and flavours would be hard to distinguish from the global brand leader? How many Guinness drinkers would be as happy to accept an alternative dark beer?
The wine world has a few players with this kind of strength. A top-of-my-head list – excluding Champagne - would include Cloudy Bay, Penfolds Grange, Vega Sicilia, Romanée-Conti, Screaming Eagle, Mas de Daumas Gassac, anything by Gaja, Guigal’s single vineyard wines, and the top super Tuscans. But these are the exceptions to the rule. Most wine producers – unlike their counterparts in the worlds of beers and spirits – have traditionally been far keener to shelter under the umbrella of their region, style or country. Even the most illustrious Médoc chateau is a lot more bothered about being classed as a Bordeaux than Bacardi is to be seen as as a rum or Baileys as a cream liqueur.
For those lucky enough to be in a region that carries a premium, the umbrella can, of course, work well. Exploiting the fact that it is situated in Margaux or Napa can be as useful to a minor wine estate as a St Paris address might be to a modest perfumier. When Tequila is in fashion, there can be a lot to be said for a small brand hitching a free ride on a bandwagon driven by the people with the deeper pockets. But some categories rings no quality bells with the potential audience. There is little international value in being Bulgaria’s best –selling cheese? Few New Yorkers set out specifically to buy wine from Cabardes, or Castilla la Mancha.
Of course, there can be a lot to be said for pioneering and championing a category or region, as Mondavi did with the Napa Valley, Rosemount did with the Hunter Valley and Cloudy Bay did with Marlborough. If your fellow pioneers share your quality aspirations your critical mass could build an international reputation for your collective brand that few individuals could ever dream of.
But what happens when others within your region intentionally or inadvertently damage its image? Sometimes, as happened in Austria in 1984, a few cheats can temporarily bring down an entire industry. The Californian firm Bronco threatened the premium character of the Napa Valley when it marketed a cheap brand called Napa Ridge that was not made from that region’s grapes. Legal action eventually restored Napa Ridge’s authenticity, but there are plenty of Australians who fear the impact on their industry of Bronco’s imminent launch in the US of a $3 Aussie brand called Down Under to stand alongside its Californian Two Buck Chuck. The New Zealanders who sold Dan Jago of Tesco two million bottles of surplus Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc at a fire-sale price may be interested to hear what he Tesco had to say about the deal. If they cared about the long term value of their wine, Jago said, the producers should have poured every drop down the drain.
If you have already created a genuinely strong brand like Cloudy Bay, you should be able to survive some very hefty dents to your category or region. But if you haven’t, these are the times to focus your effort on building an identity sets your brand apart from its peers. Take a look at the label of a bottle of Bonterra, unarguably the world’s biggest and best organic brand. The reference to its organic credentials has shrunk over the years, for the simple reason that consumer’ unhappy experiences with organic wines has deterred many from buying them. So, Bonterra’s image is as a good, reliable wine that just happens to be organic.
Somebody once gave me a brutal but useful bit of advice: “Know where you are going. And who you are going with. And in that order”. Or to put it another way, when in doubt, emulate the Pringle.
Pringles, like iPods, Gilette Razors, Starbucks, Nike, Campari, Krispy Kremes, Baileys Irish Cream and Coca Cola, are in the happy state of transcending their class. People buy them for what they are rather than, or certainly more than, the category into which they fall. Stated simply, the buyers would rather have them than an alternative. Few Coke fans happily accept Pepsi – and far fewer would drink any other kind of Cola. How many Campari drinkers outside Italy are even aware of the vast range of Italian bitters most of whose colours and flavours would be hard to distinguish from the global brand leader? How many Guinness drinkers would be as happy to accept an alternative dark beer?
The wine world has a few players with this kind of strength. A top-of-my-head list – excluding Champagne - would include Cloudy Bay, Penfolds Grange, Vega Sicilia, Romanée-Conti, Screaming Eagle, Mas de Daumas Gassac, anything by Gaja, Guigal’s single vineyard wines, and the top super Tuscans. But these are the exceptions to the rule. Most wine producers – unlike their counterparts in the worlds of beers and spirits – have traditionally been far keener to shelter under the umbrella of their region, style or country. Even the most illustrious Médoc chateau is a lot more bothered about being classed as a Bordeaux than Bacardi is to be seen as as a rum or Baileys as a cream liqueur.
For those lucky enough to be in a region that carries a premium, the umbrella can, of course, work well. Exploiting the fact that it is situated in Margaux or Napa can be as useful to a minor wine estate as a St Paris address might be to a modest perfumier. When Tequila is in fashion, there can be a lot to be said for a small brand hitching a free ride on a bandwagon driven by the people with the deeper pockets. But some categories rings no quality bells with the potential audience. There is little international value in being Bulgaria’s best –selling cheese? Few New Yorkers set out specifically to buy wine from Cabardes, or Castilla la Mancha.
Of course, there can be a lot to be said for pioneering and championing a category or region, as Mondavi did with the Napa Valley, Rosemount did with the Hunter Valley and Cloudy Bay did with Marlborough. If your fellow pioneers share your quality aspirations your critical mass could build an international reputation for your collective brand that few individuals could ever dream of.
But what happens when others within your region intentionally or inadvertently damage its image? Sometimes, as happened in Austria in 1984, a few cheats can temporarily bring down an entire industry. The Californian firm Bronco threatened the premium character of the Napa Valley when it marketed a cheap brand called Napa Ridge that was not made from that region’s grapes. Legal action eventually restored Napa Ridge’s authenticity, but there are plenty of Australians who fear the impact on their industry of Bronco’s imminent launch in the US of a $3 Aussie brand called Down Under to stand alongside its Californian Two Buck Chuck. The New Zealanders who sold Dan Jago of Tesco two million bottles of surplus Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc at a fire-sale price may be interested to hear what he Tesco had to say about the deal. If they cared about the long term value of their wine, Jago said, the producers should have poured every drop down the drain.
If you have already created a genuinely strong brand like Cloudy Bay, you should be able to survive some very hefty dents to your category or region. But if you haven’t, these are the times to focus your effort on building an identity sets your brand apart from its peers. Take a look at the label of a bottle of Bonterra, unarguably the world’s biggest and best organic brand. The reference to its organic credentials has shrunk over the years, for the simple reason that consumer’ unhappy experiences with organic wines has deterred many from buying them. So, Bonterra’s image is as a good, reliable wine that just happens to be organic.
Somebody once gave me a brutal but useful bit of advice: “Know where you are going. And who you are going with. And in that order”. Or to put it another way, when in doubt, emulate the Pringle.
Friday, May 29, 2009
The Hydra Critics
Over the last few weeks, the vinous chattering classes, or at least some of them, have been obsessing about the fact that Jay Miller and Mark Squires, contributors to Robert Parker's Wine Advocate have both accepted hospitality from organisations representing wine regions and/or wines. The story which was first aired by Dr Vino, aka Tyler Colman has now received much wider airplay with the publication of a piece in the Wall Street Journal, a lengthy and useful contribution by Jancis Robinson and a response to the WSJ by Robert Parker himself. I'll write more about the general business of wine writing ethics in a separate post, but I thought it worth taking this opportunity to ponder an aspect of the story - and of the Parker/Advocate phenomenon that, apart from a good post by winezag is rarely discussed. When Parker started out, he was an individual wine enthusiast (no reference intended) with an unusually fine and above all consistent palate who wanted to share his opinions with others. The same could be said of Jancis Robinson, and of countless wine-focused bloggers who daily offer their opinions to anyone who cares to hear them.
The problem for wine opinions like Parker and Robinson is one of scale. As their success grows, so too will the range of wines they are expected to cover. Every day, a deluge of bottles arrives, as well as a flood of invitations to taste or visit. (I know, because in my previous life as a consumer wine critic I swam in this torrent, though never to the extent of Parker and Robinson).
At some point, the critic has to decide whether he or she is to continue to do everything themselves - and necessarily to place limits on that "everything" - or if they are to admit collaborators or, as Parker calls them "contractors" who can carry some of the additional load.
Parker's growing team is now quite well known, and Jancis Robinson frankly talks about her helpers - full-timer - Julia Harding MW - and occasionals, Richard Hemming, Walter Speller, Michael Schmidt, Mel Jones and Victoria Daskal. I am sure that both Parker and Robinson choose their running mates with care, both with regard to their personality and skills but, and this is my point, none of these people will ever share the famous critics' DNA, tastebuds and still-evolving experience. This is all too clear when Parker and Neal Martin his UK-based contractor disagree over Bordeaux.
These disagreements are fascinating to some but, I suspect, frustrating to a far greater number who are simply looking for a single consistent beacon by which to navigate the vinous ocean. I say this after years at Wine International of including occasional diverse Bordeaux en-primeur opinions from Charles Metcalfe, Derek Smedley and myself. Stated bluntly, no one really wanted to know that we couldn't agree over the long term potential of Chateau This or That. All they desired was a verdict they could use when deciding what to buy.
As Parker and Robinson - and others - evolve from individual human beings into multi-headed brands - as John Platter did a long time ago in South Africa, the consistency of what they offer will inevitably change. Do many of the consumers and retailers who glibly talk about "Parker" recommendations of Burgundies, Australian and German wines actually mind that the great man may never have tasted them? Does it matter?
The problem for wine opinions like Parker and Robinson is one of scale. As their success grows, so too will the range of wines they are expected to cover. Every day, a deluge of bottles arrives, as well as a flood of invitations to taste or visit. (I know, because in my previous life as a consumer wine critic I swam in this torrent, though never to the extent of Parker and Robinson).
At some point, the critic has to decide whether he or she is to continue to do everything themselves - and necessarily to place limits on that "everything" - or if they are to admit collaborators or, as Parker calls them "contractors" who can carry some of the additional load.
Parker's growing team is now quite well known, and Jancis Robinson frankly talks about her helpers - full-timer - Julia Harding MW - and occasionals, Richard Hemming, Walter Speller, Michael Schmidt, Mel Jones and Victoria Daskal. I am sure that both Parker and Robinson choose their running mates with care, both with regard to their personality and skills but, and this is my point, none of these people will ever share the famous critics' DNA, tastebuds and still-evolving experience. This is all too clear when Parker and Neal Martin his UK-based contractor disagree over Bordeaux.
These disagreements are fascinating to some but, I suspect, frustrating to a far greater number who are simply looking for a single consistent beacon by which to navigate the vinous ocean. I say this after years at Wine International of including occasional diverse Bordeaux en-primeur opinions from Charles Metcalfe, Derek Smedley and myself. Stated bluntly, no one really wanted to know that we couldn't agree over the long term potential of Chateau This or That. All they desired was a verdict they could use when deciding what to buy.
As Parker and Robinson - and others - evolve from individual human beings into multi-headed brands - as John Platter did a long time ago in South Africa, the consistency of what they offer will inevitably change. Do many of the consumers and retailers who glibly talk about "Parker" recommendations of Burgundies, Australian and German wines actually mind that the great man may never have tasted them? Does it matter?
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Giant(s) Exodus from the UK?
Nothing ever stays the same. The wine scene in Britain - and, to a lesser extent the world - was radically altered with the arrival/development of multinational vinous giants like E&J Gallo, Fosters, Pernod Ricard and Constellation. Companies like these, with their portfolios of brands entered into initially happy relationships with the bigger UK retailers who gave them the shelf space they needed to sell their wares. Naturally, those shelves were the setting for a certain amount of robust competition, but essentially, the system worked. It all began to go wrong when, with the encouragement of the supermarkets, the wine companies descended into an orgy of discounting with BOGOFs - Buy One Get One Frees- Three-for-Twos and most recently Three-for-Ten (pound) offers. The blame for these usually goes to the supermarkets who are portrayed as evil torturers squeezing the lifeblood out of their suppliers. Those closer to the picture, however, recall plenty of occasions when the wine companies almost pleaded with the chains to let them offer their wines at rock bottom discounts.
But, as I say, nothing remains the same. Now that the great British public has become thoroughly used to getting its Lindemans and Hardys wines for unrealistically low prices, the companies that produce these wines have - reportedly - finally become fed up with the game of supplying them. So, the big companies are laying off staff, refusing to agree to the deals the supermarkets are proposing and taking steps to largely withdraw from the UK market. As one exec said to me, Poland may be a much smaller market, but it's actually looking a lot more attractive to us in profit terms at the moment... Some people will be sorry to see them go; others less so. But like the western troops that will one day have moved out of the Gulf, no-one can ever say that the giant wine companies won't have left their mark.
But, as I say, nothing remains the same. Now that the great British public has become thoroughly used to getting its Lindemans and Hardys wines for unrealistically low prices, the companies that produce these wines have - reportedly - finally become fed up with the game of supplying them. So, the big companies are laying off staff, refusing to agree to the deals the supermarkets are proposing and taking steps to largely withdraw from the UK market. As one exec said to me, Poland may be a much smaller market, but it's actually looking a lot more attractive to us in profit terms at the moment... Some people will be sorry to see them go; others less so. But like the western troops that will one day have moved out of the Gulf, no-one can ever say that the giant wine companies won't have left their mark.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Glass warfare
There are so many differences between the European and the US wine markets, but I'm beginning to think that one of the most significant is the popularity of serving wine by the glass in American cafes and restaurants. Around three quarters of wine drunk outside the home is sold in this way. Now, the figure in the UK is probably pretty high too, but on the east of the Atlantic those glasses are more likely to contain basic sweet pink wine or generic Pinot Gigio, Chardonnay or Merlot and to be consumed in bars as an alternative to Bacardi Breezers or beer. In the US, since the 1980s, the "wine-by-the-glass" programme has enabled countless people in restaurants to explore and discover wines they might never have dared to buy by the bottle. Sadly when they sit down to eat, Europeans remain far too committed to the 75cl bottle...
Wine and movies - and clever ways to sample wine
Lunch with very clever Jonathan Evans who has the tricky task of trying to promote Bordeaux - at every level - in the UK. He's just launched a brilliant scheme with Lovefilm. You buy a bottle of Bordeaux and you get a free Lovefilm movie and introductory membership - and another bottle of the same value Bordeaux. A win-win for everyone involved... I wish others were as clever. Evans also showed me a great idea in the form of 30ml wine tasting sachets. Watch out for their appearance on a bottle neck or being handed out at a railway station somewhere soon. Though probably not containing Bordeaux...
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Virtually interesting
Tesco's announcement that its new "Virtual Wine Adviser" was proving an instant success (as reported in Just-Drinks) made me smile. At least six years ago I was invited to give a talk to the wine department of the Spar supermarket chain in Vienna. Visiting one of the chain's bigger stores (an immeasurably smarter effort than its UK counterpart) I was struck by a brilliant gadget in the wine aisle. Essentially it consisted of a bar-code reader and a computer screen. All you had to do was scan the code on any bottle, and up popped a page or two of information about its contents, ranging from where it came from to the dish it would best complement. I haven't seen Tesco's version yet. It may well be a lot more sophisticated than what I saw in Austria, but it probably doesn't need to be. The last tine I was in the Australian wine retailer, Vintage Cellars, it had its own clever low-tech way of providing information about its wines. Between the bottles, there were neatly printed narrow fact sheets to be torn off and carried home. Maybe that idea will be noticed and adopted elsewhere too. As Paul Theroux, the travel writer once wrote, to move between countries is to travel in time...
The Complexity Complex
Mindmesser, Benmummy, Humongosaur, Stinkfly, Toepick, Rubix-Dude... Do any of these ring any bells with you? If not, you obviously haven't spent any time with a child who's been watching the TV series Ben Ten. I owe my knowledge of Ben Ten to my four year old son Noah, who is obsessed by the eponymous hero and the 60 alien forms, such as the ones listed above, into which he can transform himself. At a time when producers of television shows are accused of playing down to the intellectually lowest common denominator, the creators of this show have done the opposite. As you discover when you go digging around on the net for answers to four year old questions such as "What can Stinkfly do?". According to one helpful wikia
"Stinkfly is... a Lepidopterran from the swamp planet Lepidopterra (a play on lepidoptera, the scientific name for butterflies and moths)... [and is] meant to be a combination of various Earth insects (dragonflies, crickets, and praying mantises specifically). His primary ability is flight facilitated by the four thin wings on his back, which grant Stinkfly high mobility and speed. Stinkfly also possesses disproportionate strength, enough to carry people and objects heavier than himself. In "Don't Drink the Water", the child form of Stinkfly (Stinkyfly) was able to unleash a powerful herbicide gas by farting. Stinkfly's four eye stalks give him a wide range of vision from the sky, including the ability to look directly behind himself. Pollen ducts in his eyes and mouth allow Stinkfly to excrete high-pressure streams of liquids. The type of liquid can range from a flammable toxin to an immobilizing jelly. His razor-sharp tail and pincer-like legs can also be used in melee combat. Stinkfly's primary weakness is water, which can negate his flight if it gets on his wings. In addition, while his body is fairly strong, his wings are not. A more minor inconvenience is Stinkfly's intense body odor (hence the name), which is a result of the oils he secretes to keep his joints moving."
Similarly detailed descriptions are provided for all of the aliens in Ben Ten - which will come in handy if you find yourself having a conversation with a five year old fan. Unless of course, the five year old in question has switched his allegiance to fooball. In which case, you might have to remember the names of every member of the Manchester United or Arsenal squads - and the details of every goal, misjudged foul and penalty.
So what's my point? Well, most people who deal with wine on a daily basis have discovered that, as a subject, it is generally thought to be too complicated. It is replete with just too many appellations, designations and grapes. Okay, there are anoraks and buffs who delight in the differences between Chassagne Montrachet and Puligny Montrachet, and between the wines of the domaines of Alain Chavy, Philippe Chavy and Hubert Chavy-Chouet but they are the rare exceptions. And, being a wine buff is somehow more nerdy, less socially acceptable for many, than knowing the arcane details of sport or music.
The great English wine writer Andrew Jefford apparently addressed the issue of getting people to embrace or at least accept complexity. "If you're having difficulty teaching your kid chess, don't simply trade down to draughts. Look instead for a better way to get him excited by chess..."
"Stinkfly is... a Lepidopterran from the swamp planet Lepidopterra (a play on lepidoptera, the scientific name for butterflies and moths)... [and is] meant to be a combination of various Earth insects (dragonflies, crickets, and praying mantises specifically). His primary ability is flight facilitated by the four thin wings on his back, which grant Stinkfly high mobility and speed. Stinkfly also possesses disproportionate strength, enough to carry people and objects heavier than himself. In "Don't Drink the Water", the child form of Stinkfly (Stinkyfly) was able to unleash a powerful herbicide gas by farting. Stinkfly's four eye stalks give him a wide range of vision from the sky, including the ability to look directly behind himself. Pollen ducts in his eyes and mouth allow Stinkfly to excrete high-pressure streams of liquids. The type of liquid can range from a flammable toxin to an immobilizing jelly. His razor-sharp tail and pincer-like legs can also be used in melee combat. Stinkfly's primary weakness is water, which can negate his flight if it gets on his wings. In addition, while his body is fairly strong, his wings are not. A more minor inconvenience is Stinkfly's intense body odor (hence the name), which is a result of the oils he secretes to keep his joints moving."
Similarly detailed descriptions are provided for all of the aliens in Ben Ten - which will come in handy if you find yourself having a conversation with a five year old fan. Unless of course, the five year old in question has switched his allegiance to fooball. In which case, you might have to remember the names of every member of the Manchester United or Arsenal squads - and the details of every goal, misjudged foul and penalty.
So what's my point? Well, most people who deal with wine on a daily basis have discovered that, as a subject, it is generally thought to be too complicated. It is replete with just too many appellations, designations and grapes. Okay, there are anoraks and buffs who delight in the differences between Chassagne Montrachet and Puligny Montrachet, and between the wines of the domaines of Alain Chavy, Philippe Chavy and Hubert Chavy-Chouet but they are the rare exceptions. And, being a wine buff is somehow more nerdy, less socially acceptable for many, than knowing the arcane details of sport or music.
The great English wine writer Andrew Jefford apparently addressed the issue of getting people to embrace or at least accept complexity. "If you're having difficulty teaching your kid chess, don't simply trade down to draughts. Look instead for a better way to get him excited by chess..."
Sunday, May 17, 2009
The Luxury of Ignorance?
"Why pay more?" Suddenly, it's nagging at almost all of us: the line used in a million uninspired advertisements for products and services claiming to be as good as the ones carrying a bigger price tag. In straitened times, as money flows more slowly, there's more reason than ever to examine the rationale behind paying more for something than you need to. In this vein, I was interested to read Seth Godin's take on this in his most recent blog (kindly passed on to me by Catherine Monahan, creator of a wine and website called le beast)
Luxury vs Premium
Luxury goods are needlessly expensive. By needlessly, I mean that the price is not related to performance. The price is related to scarcity, brand and storytelling. Luxury goods are organized waste. They say, "I can afford to spend money without regard for intrinsic value."
That doesn't mean they are senseless expenditures. Sending a signal is valuable if that signal is important to you.
Premium goods, on the other hand, are expensive variants of commodity goods. Pay more, get more. Figure skates made from kangaroo hide, for example, are premium. The spectators don't know what they're made out of, but some skaters get better performance. They're happy to pay more because they believe they get more.
A $20,000 gown is not a premium product. It's not better made, it won't hold up longer, it's not waterproof or foldable. It's just artificially scarce. A custom-made suit, on the other hand, might be worth the money, especially if you're Wilt Chamberlain.
Plenty of brands are in trouble right now because they're not sure which one they represent.
When you apply Godin's theory to wine, it's interesting to consider which wines really enjoy premium status, and which are luxuries. Traditional European wines applied the premium system assiduously: you paid more for a Reserva or a Premier Cru, and still more for a Gran Reserva or a Grand Cru. All of these were supposedly from better vineyards and/or more expensively made and aged. Then a pesky little boy called Robert Parker came along and impudently - but accurately - pointed out that some of the emperors were more shabbily dressed than their supposedly humbler subjects. And that some of the smartest players carried no quality credentials at all - apart from the score Parker himself had given them out of 100.
Today, I'd say that top Burgundies and Bordeaux probably fit into Godin's classification of "premium" in much the same way as a custom-made suit. And the same might have been said for Penfolds' tiers of Bin numbers. But what about Cloudy Bay, which is now produced in prodigious quantities but maintains an extraordinary image of rarity. No longer the best wine in its region, it still carries a quality image that presumably satisfies those who pay twice as much for a bottle as they would for something from a neighbouring vineyard.
The cult California Cabernets and Australian Shirazes can at least usually stake a claim to genuine rarity and to - relatively - higher cost production, but are they premium or luxury products. Or are they uncomfortable mixtures of both? Premium in the extra perceived quality they deliver but luxury in the distance between their astronomic price and the price at which they could be profitably sold.
Luxury vs Premium
Luxury goods are needlessly expensive. By needlessly, I mean that the price is not related to performance. The price is related to scarcity, brand and storytelling. Luxury goods are organized waste. They say, "I can afford to spend money without regard for intrinsic value."
That doesn't mean they are senseless expenditures. Sending a signal is valuable if that signal is important to you.
Premium goods, on the other hand, are expensive variants of commodity goods. Pay more, get more. Figure skates made from kangaroo hide, for example, are premium. The spectators don't know what they're made out of, but some skaters get better performance. They're happy to pay more because they believe they get more.
A $20,000 gown is not a premium product. It's not better made, it won't hold up longer, it's not waterproof or foldable. It's just artificially scarce. A custom-made suit, on the other hand, might be worth the money, especially if you're Wilt Chamberlain.
Plenty of brands are in trouble right now because they're not sure which one they represent.
When you apply Godin's theory to wine, it's interesting to consider which wines really enjoy premium status, and which are luxuries. Traditional European wines applied the premium system assiduously: you paid more for a Reserva or a Premier Cru, and still more for a Gran Reserva or a Grand Cru. All of these were supposedly from better vineyards and/or more expensively made and aged. Then a pesky little boy called Robert Parker came along and impudently - but accurately - pointed out that some of the emperors were more shabbily dressed than their supposedly humbler subjects. And that some of the smartest players carried no quality credentials at all - apart from the score Parker himself had given them out of 100.
Today, I'd say that top Burgundies and Bordeaux probably fit into Godin's classification of "premium" in much the same way as a custom-made suit. And the same might have been said for Penfolds' tiers of Bin numbers. But what about Cloudy Bay, which is now produced in prodigious quantities but maintains an extraordinary image of rarity. No longer the best wine in its region, it still carries a quality image that presumably satisfies those who pay twice as much for a bottle as they would for something from a neighbouring vineyard.
The cult California Cabernets and Australian Shirazes can at least usually stake a claim to genuine rarity and to - relatively - higher cost production, but are they premium or luxury products. Or are they uncomfortable mixtures of both? Premium in the extra perceived quality they deliver but luxury in the distance between their astronomic price and the price at which they could be profitably sold.
Friday, May 15, 2009
Languedoc Pinot Noir - the silent scandal
If two out of every three cartons of Tropicana Orange Juice were made from something other than oranges, I guess there would be some kind of fuss made about it. When the same kind of thing appears to apply to wine, the noise seems to be far more subdued. In February of this year, the regional Les Depeches newspaper revealed that French authorities were investigating a major fraud. Or, to be precise, the gap between the 167m bottles of Pinot Noir the Aude Region exported every year between 2005-2008 and the 60m bottles that were actually produced by the entire Languedoc region, of which the Aude is a part. 100m bottles of fake Pinot is a sizeable number and the story was picked up by Decanter, Wine Spectator and winecurmudgeon among others. It also featured on the inner pages of US newspapers such as the New York Times. Since then, the silence has been deafening.
Now, I can understand the average US Pinot Noir buyer not having been affected by, or even noticing, this story, but I'd have imagined that a few wine store managers and a few wine enthusiasts might have been aware of it. I was personally rather more than curious about the impact of the fraud because - to declare an interest - I helped to create and have a third share of a French Pinot Noir - Le Grand Noir - that is on sale in the US. Its sales are brisk, and I wondered how much this success might owe to the fact that it's genuinely made from Pinot Noir. But apparently not. It seems that the booming US market for French Pinot Noir has not even been slightly bruised by the news that most of it is not what it claims to be.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Back from the front #2 turn(ing down of) the screw
More rumours. While most people seem to believe that the US is finally following the UK in embracing screwcaps, Tesco's US operation Fresh n'Easy is reported to be switching back to Diam technical corks.
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Back from the front #1
Gossip at the London wine fair suggests that insurance giant AXA may finally had enough of its wine investments and is seeking to be rid of them. If this were true, the list of estates on offer would include Quinta da Noval, Château Pichon-Longueville, Château Pibran, Château Petit-Village, Château Suduiraut, Domaine de l’Arlot in Burgundy, Disznóko in Tokaj and Mas Belles Eaux in Languedoc-Roussillon. Also rumoured is the sale of Michel Laroche in Chablis...
70:70 vision from Jean-Charles Boisset
I spent a fascinating few hours chatting to Jean-Charles Boisset, yesterday for an interview to appear in Meininger's Wine Business International. Among the many subjects on which the man the man behind some 35 wine brands such as Bouchard Ainé, Boisset, Domaine de Vougeraie ad De Loach in California was eloquent was his take on wine packaging. He calls this his 70% rule, and I thought it reprinting it here:
THE BOISSET 70% RULE
More than 31.2 billion bottles of wine are consumed on earth each year. 70% of that wine retails for less than $10 per bottle. Within that 70%, at least 70% is consumed between 28 minutes and 3 hours of purchase. 70% of the cost of that wine is the packaging (bottles, corks, capsules, and all other dry goods), shipping, and other related supply chain costs. The vast majority of the environmental impact of wine comes from the production and disposal of the packaging and from shipping the heavy merchandise around the world. We know that wine meant to be enjoyed young can be kept fresh and flavorful in a variety of packaging formats. Why then not offer this wine in lighter, more environmentally-friendly packaging that will reduce its carbon footprint and cost less to ship, yet still provide the high quality that customers demand? By lightening the packaging and reducing its carbon footprint, the wine world can make a dramatic difference in the health of our environment…and invest in better quality wines!”
THE BOISSET 70% RULE
More than 31.2 billion bottles of wine are consumed on earth each year. 70% of that wine retails for less than $10 per bottle. Within that 70%, at least 70% is consumed between 28 minutes and 3 hours of purchase. 70% of the cost of that wine is the packaging (bottles, corks, capsules, and all other dry goods), shipping, and other related supply chain costs. The vast majority of the environmental impact of wine comes from the production and disposal of the packaging and from shipping the heavy merchandise around the world. We know that wine meant to be enjoyed young can be kept fresh and flavorful in a variety of packaging formats. Why then not offer this wine in lighter, more environmentally-friendly packaging that will reduce its carbon footprint and cost less to ship, yet still provide the high quality that customers demand? By lightening the packaging and reducing its carbon footprint, the wine world can make a dramatic difference in the health of our environment…and invest in better quality wines!”
Jean-Charles Boisset
To which I would add a question of my own. Could someone please tell me why rosé, any rosé, is ever put into a glass bottle with a cork?
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
All the Fun of the Fair... And more about Three Dollar Bill
The first day of the London International Wine Trade Fair was horribly revealing of the state of the wine world in Britain. The exhibition hall was smaller than in previous years, and there were convenient seating areas where exhibitors had pulled out at the last minute. Despite the more limited space, however, numbers of visitors felt decidedly light. Even so, the fair remains a good place to pick up gossip. Among the stories that were going around was the news that New Zealand has once again had a bumper harvest (though not quite as excessive as last year) so cheap Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc will make another appearance in UK supermarkets. (Readers may recall that Tesco recentky sold 1.8 million bottles at under £3.50 within the space of a week. A well-informed Australian also explained how Fred Franzia, inventor of Two Buck Chuck Californian wine is going to be able to sell Australian wine in the US at $3. Apparently Franzia will buy the wine in bulk from bankrupt companies and bottle it in America. For those - like me - who admire well-constructed machines, it is hard not to admire the devilishly clever mechanism that lies behind Franzia's scheme. Wine producers go bust because their wine is to expensive for the US market. Franzia buys their wine from the liquidators at fire sale prices. The arrival of Franzia's cheap Aussie wine (which I've nicknamed Three Dollar Bill) drives the perception of Australia down still further, and helps to drive more Aussie producers out of business. Which will, of course, serve to ensure that Franzia has another flood of give-away wine. Repeat ad-infinitum. Or until sufficient bankruptcies have taken place for no wine to be left...
Saturday, May 09, 2009
Clever Ideas #2: keeping wine fresh
As an alternative to the squeezing-a-plastic-bottle method (see below), I can offer another efficient way to keep wine fresh once it has been opened. All you have to do is keep a bag full of marbles in your kitchen and add them to the bottle of half-full wine until the surface level rises to meet the screwcap or synthetic cork. Ironically, this tip came from Jim Ledwith who makes part of his living selling equipment to achieve this objective
Going Down: Welcoming the arrival of Three Dollar Bill
First it was New Zealand. With a lake of excess 2008 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc on their hands, producers decided to dump a lot of it in Britain, the country where they had cleverly built a market for their unusually - for the Brits - highly priced wine. Last year, the going rate for this style was £6-8 nearly twice the national average price for white wine. The picture for 2009 will almost certainly look rather different
The Tesco customers who reportedly bought nearly 2,000,000 bottles at 3-for-£10 over the space of a few weeks may wonder why they should shell out £6 for what they might perceive to be the same stuff. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Fred Franzia of Bronco Wine Co, has announced that he is about to launch a $3 Australian range (which, in his shoes, I might well call Three-Dollar-Bill) to sell at half the price of the US's biggest-selling import, Yellow Tail.
Franzia. it should be remembered, is the the man who invented "Two Buck Chuck" and, until he was legally prevented from doing so, sold vast quantities of cheap Central Valley wine as Napa Ridge. Tesco has been criticised for the damage it has done to the image of New Zealand and Franzia will face a similar charge. Especially given the difficukties Australia has had in building a premium image for its wines in the US. But, as Dan Jago of Tesco frankly says, "we were offered the wine. If we hadn't taken it, one of our competitors surely would have done. ". Franzia takes a similar line: "Bronco fishes where the fish are!". If the Kiwis and Aussies don't want to be seen as purveyors of bargain basement wine, maybe they should stop selling large quantities of bargain basement wine. As a major UK retailer wrily said, if they'd had any sense, the Kiwis would have poured every drop of their excess down the drain...
My bet is that the New Zealanders may just get this message. Their surplus in 2009 was apparently far smaller than in 2008, and if they have any sense, they'll dump it in China out of sight of their regular customers. The picture for Australia is more worrying. Mr Franzia plays a longer game than many people expect. When he launched Charles Shaw - aka Two Buck Chuck - most observers thought it a clever short-term way to help dispose of a temporary Californian glut. But the brand is now seven years old and still going strong. Three Dollar Bill is likely to be here to stay too. And, if I were a winemaker trying to make a living in the Barossa Valley, that would hardly be good news.
The Tesco customers who reportedly bought nearly 2,000,000 bottles at 3-for-£10 over the space of a few weeks may wonder why they should shell out £6 for what they might perceive to be the same stuff. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, Fred Franzia of Bronco Wine Co, has announced that he is about to launch a $3 Australian range (which, in his shoes, I might well call Three-Dollar-Bill) to sell at half the price of the US's biggest-selling import, Yellow Tail.
Franzia. it should be remembered, is the the man who invented "Two Buck Chuck" and, until he was legally prevented from doing so, sold vast quantities of cheap Central Valley wine as Napa Ridge. Tesco has been criticised for the damage it has done to the image of New Zealand and Franzia will face a similar charge. Especially given the difficukties Australia has had in building a premium image for its wines in the US. But, as Dan Jago of Tesco frankly says, "we were offered the wine. If we hadn't taken it, one of our competitors surely would have done. ". Franzia takes a similar line: "Bronco fishes where the fish are!". If the Kiwis and Aussies don't want to be seen as purveyors of bargain basement wine, maybe they should stop selling large quantities of bargain basement wine. As a major UK retailer wrily said, if they'd had any sense, the Kiwis would have poured every drop of their excess down the drain...
My bet is that the New Zealanders may just get this message. Their surplus in 2009 was apparently far smaller than in 2008, and if they have any sense, they'll dump it in China out of sight of their regular customers. The picture for Australia is more worrying. Mr Franzia plays a longer game than many people expect. When he launched Charles Shaw - aka Two Buck Chuck - most observers thought it a clever short-term way to help dispose of a temporary Californian glut. But the brand is now seven years old and still going strong. Three Dollar Bill is likely to be here to stay too. And, if I were a winemaker trying to make a living in the Barossa Valley, that would hardly be good news.
Clever idea #1 (how to keep wine fresh)
Great simple ideas are all too rare, but they're always the best. Tonight, an Italian winemaker friend called Luigi Mancini just gave me a great way to keep wine fresh for a few days after opening. All you have to do is pour the wine into a plastic water bottle (probably 50cl or smaller) and then squeeze until all the air has been expelled. Luigi, who makes a great white Pinot Noir says he even does this before dinner on occasions when he knows he wants to serve several wines but knows that the bottles won't all be emptied. That way, he says, the wine in the plastic bottle keeps even better because it has had so little exposure to air.
Saturday, May 02, 2009
Squealing eagle?
Interestingly thoughtful comment by Morton Leslie in response to a blog posting by Steve Heimoff about recent happenings at Screaming Eagle. Heimoff's point is that the sale of his shares by one co-owner of the cult winery to the other, because the former is "no longer needed", supports a view that Screaming Eagle's price is not sustainable.
For Heimoff "The wine biz today is more like show biz than a consumable industry... But in this troubled world of wine, the narrative is shifting away from exclusivity and exorbitant prices and more toward pleasure and affordability, which is where the narrative should be". Leslie responds that:
For Heimoff "The wine biz today is more like show biz than a consumable industry... But in this troubled world of wine, the narrative is shifting away from exclusivity and exorbitant prices and more toward pleasure and affordability, which is where the narrative should be". Leslie responds that:
"[Screaming Eagle] is all about its customer. The wine itself has no intrinsic value above any other good tasting wine except that the buyer has evidence that many people are dying to have it, and only certain special people are able to buy it, and that owning the wine says something special about the customer and their status. The wine's value is in what it does for the ego of the SE customer.
Now, what happens when you tamper with that perceived ego-enhancing value?…a different winemaker…customer sees evidence that the wine’s price is arbitrarily set …perhaps by a greedy owner unrelated to actual demand…owners publicly split…America (and the world) has had its fill of greedy self-indulgent people…
What if instead of making you look special, buying the wine makes you look like a fool? I’d say that it isn’t that there is evidence there is trouble, there is trouble because there is evidence."
I agree with both Heimoff and Leslie, and reckon that Warren Buffett's much quoted assertion that it's when the sea goes out that you see who's not wearing a swimming costume could be applied to wine. Over the next few years we may well see which currently astronomically-priced bottles manage to maintain their prices...
Wine bottle sizes: a 400 year old hangover
Further to my last posting, this is just a thought about the unquestioned ubiquitousness of the 75cl bottle. Loaves of bread vary in size, as do books of poetry and bottles of beer, and indeed wine glasses. Wine of any quality however comes in 75cl - or very rarely 37.5, 150 or rarest of all 50cl bottles. No-one ever asks why? The reason, for anybody who cares, is that 70-75cl was the lung capacity of a French glass blower in the 17th century. When molds were introduced, they naturally followed the size of the hand-blown efforts and 350 or so years later we're still still stuck with the 1600s model. Which is even more ridiculous when one considers that the 17th century wine would probably have had a strength of 10% or so while its modern equivalent might weigh in at 14.5%
Friday, May 01, 2009
Glasses half full... or half empty?
According to a report in yesterday's Guardian, a study by Dr Marinette Streppel of the Division of Human Nutrition at Wageningen University, suggests that moderate wine drinkers live significantly longer than teetotalers. Hardly surprisingly, a UK Wine and Spirit Trade Association spokesman greeted the news with glee: "This study reinforces the view taken by a government committee some years ago that moderate consumption of alcohol can have a positive impact on people's health, particularly in relation to heart disease". Reading the report in greater detail, however, raises some issues with which the Association and its members might be rather less happy. Moderate drinkers who consumed less than 20 grams of wine per day may have lived for two extra years but it was their super-moderate contemporaries - the ones who called a halt after just half a glass - who got to remain on this mortal coil for nearly five years longer. Now 20 grams equates to around half a bottle between two, provided both drinkers are male (the study only involved men). Were one of the pair female, the amount would presumably be smaller. I suppose that some wine professionals might concede that, for a couple to take 48 hours to get through a bottle of wine might amount to moderate consumption, but I don't know many who'd limit their own intake to this level. And I certainly know of almost no-one who would be happy to drink just half a glass per day.
If the Wine & Spirit Association really wants to become involved with findings like these, and to embrace the notion of wine as an aid to longevity, it has one logical route to take: a call for a reduction in the size of wine bottles.
If the Wine & Spirit Association really wants to become involved with findings like these, and to embrace the notion of wine as an aid to longevity, it has one logical route to take: a call for a reduction in the size of wine bottles.
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