As my Riesling gently weeps

May 4, 2012 in Comment with 10 Comments

 
Wine glass and guitar

Ready for musical accompaniment

Riesling. It’s like the wine world in microcosm.

Wine experts love it but cannot understand why consumers don’t go gaga over it, but ultimately this is our fault.

Consumers have heard about it, and when it is poured in their glasses really do enjoy it, but feel confused by its many styles, provenances and the ways it is presented. However, it ends up with a depressingly familiar tale, with an elegantly circular argument:

1. Wine experts wax lyrical over the amazing complexities and variety (of Riesling) …

2. Consumers hear too many conflicting messages, get confused about the overall concept and cannot internalise the information, so ignore it …

3. Wine experts decide that their favourite grape is underappreciated and decide to promote it, so … [Go To 1.]

The BIG problem is that saying “Riesling is great” is that it is a bit like saying “Guitar music is great”. Of course there is great guitar music, no-one would disagree, but if I pick some at random am I going to get Rock, Classical, Jazz, Blues, Rock & Roll, Folk, Heavy Metal, …

When complexity in wine is bad

The wine industry ignores this complication because they have lived in the world of wine for so long that they (we) see the myriad of styles as a positive feature, but for regular consumers it is a complication, a confusion, and ultimately a negative feature.

It means that the wine world sees the success of Australian Rieslings as a sign that consumers are rediscovering the grape, but they are left wondering why Germany and Alsace are still not benefitting.

The point is that the buyers of “Rock Guitar” Aussie, lime-citrus, steely, dry, crisp Riesling are not at all interested in the “Jazz Guitar” Alsatian honey-and-nuts Riesling, nor the “Classical Guitar” of German floral, citrus, mineral and high acid Riesling.

They buy Australian Riesling because Australia Rocks! and “Australia” in many cases trumps “Riesling”.

I obviously exaggerate and oversimplify, there are many styles of wine in each of these regions, but consumers don’t know this detail, so most work from limited experience and “common knowledge” models.

Common knowledge tells you that Riesling is sweet, cloying and stuff that is best left to the 1970′s.

Common knowledge may very well be wrong.

Common knowledge is VERY hard to change.

Let’s face it, for Riesling (and Chenin Blanc, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and many more, if not most, varieties) “varietal labelling” is a misleading simplification anyway. It doesn’t say anything really useful, or relevant, about what the consumer will experience from this bottle.

You cannot convince an audience that is not listening. Until the message we send resonates with the ultimate consumer, it will continue to be ignored. Wine writers need to find a way to write about Jazz Guitar for Jazz lovers, not sell the instrument to all. It means we have to understand the consumer much better, and speak to them directly, not shout and hope to be heard.

Some varieties are guitars, let’s play accordingly.

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About Robert: Robert McIntosh is a wine blogger and online communicator on WineConversation.com, a prolific twitterer (@thirstforwine) and an occasional contributor to wine magazines as well as speaking at wine events. Robert is co-organiser of the annual European Wine Bloggers Conference and Born Digital Wine Awards, promotes international online wine communication, and advises companies about how to engage through social media. Robert also has some trouble communicating in the third person.

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  • http://arnoldwaldstein.com/ awaldstein

    Hi Robert..

    Nicely phrased.

    The more I read your blog and the blogs of friends from EWBC the more they seem to be speaking to the market and writers in Europe, not that of the states.

    In NYC the partnership between enthusiasts, bloggers, retail and wine bars is just different.

    Last summer and this summer as well, was ‘Summer of Riesling” with massive offerings of great, mostly ‘natural’ wines across the city. Lot’s got tasted at bars and shops, lots got sold, many were offered to me to taste and blog about.

    The longer I’m involved and the more I become connected to the NYC scene, the more key this partnership becomes.

    • http://thirstforwine.co.uk thirstforwine

      Thanks Arnold. Yes, I agree that our perspective is very European, and in my case, British. We go to great lengths to remind everyone that wine might be a global product, but everything about communication is local. Where you are changes a lot about what you have access to, what you care about, what you hear about, and the context of your experience.

      There is a lot that we can learn from activities elsewhere. There will be a Riesling Summit in London in June I believe, so maybe we can get the conversation between us all going here too. 
      The general point here is my issue with varietal marketing or labelling. It ultimately confuses the customer even though the consumer themselves have been made to believe it helps.

      • http://arnoldwaldstein.com/ awaldstein

        Robert…I was not quibbling with your message or intent. I agree completely as you would expect. And I enjoy your posts. 

        I believe more and more that the broader community for wine conversations online start with touch points at the street level with shops and bars and people. 

        Online solutions, be they Lot 18 or others will not affect the mainstream regardless of whether they succeed or fail.They are not breaking new ground.

        The process of Discover, Taste, Share, Buy is my belief in the formula to bring in a broader public. And to do that they need touch points on the ground, at the sip level.

        Nice chatting. See you later in the month most likely. 

  • J Roberts

    Edit/replace Riesling for Sherry and your post would read just as well!

    • http://thirstforwine.co.uk thirstforwine

      Sadly true Joe – sherry, chardonnay, sparkling wine… that’s why it felt like Riesling was the whole wine trade in microcosm – we (experts) see the world through different eyes.

      • J Roberts

        Different J Roberts. This one is the Jerez version…

        • http://thirstforwine.co.uk thirstforwine

          ha! sorry Justin. Should have guessed from the sherry reference, but then again Joe likes sherry too :)

          • J Roberts

            And I should change my avatar to something more specific!

  • http://sozzld.wordpress.com/ Jack Cunningham

    Robert – I loved this piece, admire the way you draw parallels to other subjects; Big Fan. Riesling is without doubt my favourite grape I think, and I recognise the challenge that is faced by the industry (whilst not working in it myself). It took me a while to get my wife to come round to the idea, and unfortunately where I live (far east) the offerings are excrutiatingly poor – either scrape the barrel, or pay top whack for average wines because the taxes here are so enormous. I am doing my bit to write about the differences, but as you’ll see from my own, more amateur writing, I have also been caught out by different styles (that may have been affected by storage, lets face it), too and I imagine for the less adventurous one failure would be enough to put them off for life. I imagine same must be said for other grape varieties or wines? Muscadet? Picpoul? Austrian wine? to name a few. I’ve had conversations with older folk who scoff at the mention of some of these because of the common knowledge you talk about.

    sozzld.wordpress.com

  • http://twitter.com/GrapedCrusader Richard Saxton

    Good piece Robert, really hit the nail on the head in my view. I tend to find people get on board with New World Riesling fairly quickly but even when they love this they’re still reluctant to venture into Old World styles. As you say, it’s an entirely different beast in terms of complexity (both of labelling and taste). Still, Riesling does of course rock….