I should first point out that I have never read any other Robert Parker book, magazine or web forum (beyond a few glimpses). I will readily admit that the part of the wine business that he normally focuses on, and they way he does it, have little allure for me.

Much as I love wine, and much as I’d love to drink mature quality wines from Bordeaux, Burgundy, Rhone, Napa, and so on, I am not a collector of wine ‘experiences’ or points, and I have a limited budget I would rather spend on my family than on such wines. My interest in wine is much more cultural and prosaic.

So, when I was offered a copy of a new Robert Parker wine guide to review by the publishers, I almost automatically said “No!” However, I was intrigued by the title (and flattered to be asked), so I accepted on the basis that I wouldn’t guarantee to publish anything, … and I almost didn’t.

The guide arrived very quickly and I immediately started to leaf through it. Robert Parker’s “Great Value Wines” (seriously good wine at remarkably fair prices) does seem to be my sort of book in theory. Imagine having such a resource?! Great wines at reasonable prices (which means under £20). Superb shopping list ideas and a list of wines to recommend to friends looking for advice.

The country introductions are OK (short and generic), details about regions is limited or non-existent, but it immediately became obvious something BIG was wrong.

This book has a major flaw. It is a book.

Robert Parker has made a career, and considerable riches I’m sure, from minute assessment of wines that need to be tasted and retasted for every vintage and at different stages of their development, mainly so a certain part of the market, the investor, can decide on the ‘value’ of the wines without ‘wasting’ them by actually drinking them. Imagine!?

So, how can he possibly publish a book about specific wines that does not contain any vintage information? Each wine, listed by producer by country, sounds great, but has only one tasting note which apparently relates to any year it might have been made.

[update: don't get me wrong, I think vintage differences in modern and larger volume wines are overstated, but Mr Parker makes his living from this]

The problem, of course, is that this is a book.

It takes months to take a finished manuscript and complete the printing and distribution of a book so as to get it in the hands of consumers. If you are writing a novel that is not much of a problem, but if you are writing about wines that are available now, then it is. Today most wine available is ‘current vintage’ only. Unfortunately for book publishers, this has a tendency to move faster than they do.

Robert Parker is not alone in this as Matt Skinner admitted in November. Skinner was accused of having ‘recommended’ specific wines from vintages he could not possibly have tasted, for the same reason – they would be available when the book was published, not when it was written.

The ‘Great Value Wines’ solution was to include some generic sort of tasting note or description and remove mentions of any vintage, although the results are a little artificial (and peppered with evidence that these were, at one time, notes on specific wines).

If only … this were a website!

This book has the feel of someone’s tasting database, extracted, filtered, with the vintage field removed, and then printed. It lacks cohesion.

Unfortunately it was probably more useful and easier to navigate in a database format.

However, the same data, posted online, could be a great introduction to these wine. What the web could do is link thirsty consumers to pages that offer greater details and differences of each vintage tasted by Mr Parker and his colleagues, updated regularly, and from there to retailers, producers, bloggers, consumer reactions, etc. No need to reprint, just update.

Now THAT would be worth paying for.

Unfortunately I don’t think the paper version is. Sorry!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Jane Anson on Bordoverview (bordoverview.blogspot.com)
• Book Review: Robert Parker’s Great Value Wines (spittoon.biz)
• A Hint of Hype, A Taste of Illusion (online.wsj.com)
• A World Without Robert Parker (cellarblog.org)

As you would imagine, being a wine lover and living in the UK is great because we have access to great wines from all over the world. The UK is still one of the biggest, and most cosmopolitan, importers of wine in the world.

This situation arose, in part, because we didn’t have the climate to make the range and volumes of wines we wanted to drink. We simply HAD to go abroad to find it.

However, wine has actually been made in Britain for centuries, mainly thanks to the Romans I believe. What is more relevant, however, is that England today is becoming a great centre for the production of unusual whites (like Bacchus wines) and Champagne-like sparkling wines. Who nows what further warming of the climate will allow in future!

I don’t say Champagne-like lightly, because English vineyards are actually similar in many key ways to those of Champagne, they also grow the same main grapes (Chardonnay & Pinot Noir) and make the wines in the same ‘traditional’ way.

In fact many, including Nyetimber, regularly come above many famous French counterparts in blind tastings (as they just did again)

Now Stephen Skelton MW, a leading expert, consultant and educator on anything to do with English wines, has published his latest book on English Wines and Vineyards: UK Vineyards Guide 2010

What is doubly interesting is that it is only available via Lulu.com a self-publishing and on-demand printing site. It means copies are printed only for those interested in buying the book, so none are wasted just to be eventually pulped. It also cuts out certain intermediaries, allowing the author to have a bigger stake in the books success.

I like this business model a lot and hope it is successful because it provides opportunities for other specialist or creative writers to get their writing published. This is not an easy time to try and get a publisher to take on a book about wine.

Two or more very good reasons to check it out, I hope you agree.

The UK Vineyards Guide 2010
(ISBN 978-0-9514703-4-3)
Price £22.95 + postage and packing.
Available ONLY from: http://www.lulu.com (Ref: 7848482) or http://www.englishwine.com

I have written a little bit about the idea of ‘Natural Wine‘ in the past after a visit and tasting at Artisan & Vine. The concept is intriguing, but not without its complications and controversies (argued with his usual passion by my good friend Ricard).

There is, however, something quite distinctive and ‘alive’ about these wines which marks them out as quite different, and in truth you often have no idea what you are going to get. There can also be something unusually ‘rustic’ about them too!

The point of an adventure is not to have guaranteed ‘fun’ at every turn, .. but … that each discovery makes the journey more worthwhile and memorable.

Following my recent post about FindWine, I met up with Mike Howes at Terroirs (I was late, so missed lunch but took some lovely photos** of what he had ordered) to talk about their future plans*.

However, what I wanted to write about was Mike’s choice of wine. Like many in the wine business, we are doing this because we have a passion for wine. Not usually A wine, but the idea of wine and all the many ways that it can be created. I was very happy to see that he had ordered this wine:

Le Cousin, Rouge, (2007, we think) Grolleau Vieilles Vignes, VdT, Domaine Cousin-Leduc
“That rustic character that marks out ‘natural’ wines with low/no sulphur. Dark brambles, earthy, dark fruit not overripe and kept under wraps by … something else (vegetal? herbal? not sure). There is even a slight effervesence in the mouth, odd for an older wine. Interesting wine though not something I’ll race to try again.”

I forgot to take a picture of the back label, but this was a biodynamic, ‘natural’ wine. It probably broke all the local appellation rules as to how wine is supposed to be made, so it was designated a “Vin de Table” – not usually a mark of great quality.

Except that in truth, in this case, it demonstrates that the winemaker was more concerned about how the wine was MADE than how it was labelled. It goes to show that packaging alone is not a fail-safe guide! Sometimes, the motto should be the reverse – the worse the label & information, the better the wine has to be to be on this list!

I can’t speak for Mike, but I found the wine more intriguing than amazing, but by the same token, I am very happy to have had the chance to try it. The point of an adventure is not to have guaranteed ‘fun’ at every turn, this is not Disneyland, but rather that each discovery makes the journey more worthwhile and memorable.

That’s what I like about wine. What about you?

Thank you Terroirs for making these wines available to us in London.

————

For those who are interested, this is the description of the wine from Terroir’s great, and extensive, wine list:

Dne Cousin-Leduc, Olivier Cousin
Who’s the Daddy long legs? Olivier Cousin is – aka the wild man of Anjou. If you only drink one biodynamic old vines Grolleau then we heartily recommend this . Striking aromas of violets, cherries and earth. Lively and refreshing on the palate with extraordinary flavours of apples and medlars and return of the earthy notes. Serve cool or chilled for maximum deliciousness.

*If you read that post, I suggest you get in touch with them through their site and let them know what  you think and what else you’d like to learn from them. They are working on a blog where they hope to share some of their knowledge and ideas on wine, so if you have suggestions or questions, I’m sure they’d love to hear from you.

** Here are those photos:

At the recent The Wine Gang Christmas Fair I had the chance to taste lots of wines and meet importers and wineries from around the world. One of the ones that stood out for me was a small online retailer looking to sell wines in a novel way: FindWine.co.uk

Most wines in this country, whether in the supermarkets or independent merchants, are sold mainly by country. They might then be divided by region, price or even style, but the first arrangement is almost ALWAYS by country. Most (surviving) online merchants have therefore taken this format as well, and although you can usually filter by many different criteria, country still dominates the thinking.

The other thing most retailers have in common is that they generally list a larger range of wines that may then be categorised or tagged with tasting or buying information to help consumers decide between them. The thinking is, if you give consumers a broader range of choices, they’ll find something they’ll like … and buy.

The truth is, many consumers are not looking for anything too specific, and in fact are often put off by too much choice. They want a good deal, and a recommendation of a ‘good’ wine, so may well leave without buying anything.

FindWine decided, instead, to create a list with only 54 ’slots’ that represent 6 different price categories across 9 different ’styles’, and find just 1 wine that is a good example for each. The prices vary from under £5 to £15+ and the list of categories includes “zippy” whites as well as “soft-isticated” reds, so should appeal to lots of consumers.

I think what these guys are up to is very interesting, especially as their model allows them to buy good quality wines in small parcels so they can keep things fresh and change regularly. All we need now is a bit more interaction and visibility from the faces behind the business to demonstrate their passion for the wines and give us confidence they are choosing interesting wines for these ’slots’.

On that note, watch this short interview I recorded at the show with John Critchley, one of the guys behind FindWine:

If you have used them, or tried their wines, do let me know what you think of their model and their wines. Is anyone else doing something similar?

(Update: I apologise to Mike Howes as this is in fact John Critchley, Mike’s partner at FindWine who I identified incorrectly in the video)

I am extremely privileged to do the job I do. I work with some great wineries, travel to beautiful places and meet all sorts of interesting wine trade people; winemakers, marketers, writers, travel experts, art aficionados and more. Some of these I meet because of the paid work I do, others I meet for the stuff I do which is not paid for (like this blog). Either way, it makes me want to share the experiences, hopefully in a way that inspires people (rather than in a sort of nah-na-na-NAA-na sort of way!)

I say this because amongst these people are reasonably well-known individuals that many wine drinkers will have heard of and would actually love to meet and get to know. What often amazes me (as I’m quite new to this game, to be honest) is how lovely, genuine and fun they can be, yet how seriously I expected them to be before I met them. Many of these ‘celebrities’ (for the lack of a better term for well-known individuals whose names are recognisable) meet each other for interviews, at tastings and even informally, but the chances for regular wine drinkers to meet them are rare – and usually involve travelling to the winery, expensive wine dinners or really busy wine shows.

Today I met someone who is not only is responsible for much of the Australian wine we buy from supermarkets and specialists such as Majestic, but was also recently voted the 2009 IWC White Winemaker of the Year for some cracking prestige wines too.

Neil McGuigan was on hand, along with Peter Hall, to talk about his wines, his philosophy and generally get us excited about the quality of today’s Australian wines – they are no longer just simple, fruity wines (“sunshine in a glass“), but competing at the highest prestige levels as well.

To make his point, a lunch was organised to match Michelin starred FRENCH (!) cuisine from the lovely Roussillon, with the wines of the McGuigan stable. The wine and food were both excellent, and were a surprisingly decent match for each other (the best match being the unusual sesame seed biscuit on the dessert with the Botrytised Semillon). The foodies present will tell you more details about the food (I will include links below as they post), but the wines were very good and very different from the popular image of “Australian” wines (I’ve recorded some brief thoughts below – unusually for this blog, but couldn’t really not include this here). If you haven’t done so recently, check out premium (£15+ per bottle) wines from Australia’s cooler regions and see what you think.

It struck me what a fun, relaxed, knowledgable and entertaining guy Neil was, and it seems a shame that he does not have a way (at the moment) of sharing his views and personality directly with consumers. As I said after meeting Rod Eastman, winemaker at Craggy Range, at a similar event, these are guys that could teach us so much and I’d love to learn more about their wines, their country and their philosophy DIRECTLY from them, via social media if necessary, as I’m sure would many others.

I seem to be a stuck record on this, but it is becoming my “mission” to get winemakers and wine writers to embrace social media channels and give a boost to the range of voices and content about wine outside of the US. I remain hopeful! Look out for McGuigan TV coming soon (I hope)

======

Other posts about the lunch:

Mathildecuisine’s photos

Mathilde Cuisine post – France – Australia: A well-balanced match
Laissez Fare post – McGuigan goes Walkabout to Roussillon
The Wine Sleuth post: Neil McGuigan and his Handmade Shiraz at Roussillon
Spiltwine post: Find your perfect match without online dating

The stars were the wines we had with the food, namely:

• Earth’s Portrait Eden Valley Riesling 2004: an evolved, kerosene nose and elegant Riesling, great body and honey edge too; worthy multiple-award winner
• Bin 9000 Semillon 2003: crisp, fresh and zesty style, despite some age. Great food wine!
• The Shortlist Coonawara Cabernet Sauvignon 2008: a touch herbal (leafy, sage) on the nose now, but still very young. Elegant tannins, very good
• Handmade Langhorne Creek Shiraz 2008: amazingly soft, luscious forest fruit and balanced oak ageing – still a baby, but great wine
• Personal Reserves Botrytis Semillon 2005: nice to taste a quality botrytis wine from Australia, made only in a few ‘lucky’ years. I love dessert/sweet wines and need to learn more about Australian offerings

I’ve been meaning to write about this for some time, I even drafted a post, but recent events have prompted me to complete it.

What is a single tasting note worth?

Ryan Opaz of Catavino recently asked this question on twitter after a discussion we had, and it still has me thinking.

I suppose one could argue that tasting notes are worth exactly what you pay for them. In most cases, such as blogs, wine social networks and twitter, the answer is NOTHING. They are free! They are given away as they are shared by those tasting wines mainly for their own enjoyment.

But this is only part of the story. There are those sites that do charge to give you access to information such as tasting notes. In addition, even if consumers are not paying for tasting notes, that is not to say they are not “worth” something to someone.

Subscription Sites

There are sites where some of the key ‘value’ are the tasting notes on offer – not because they are tasting notes as such, but because they are buying advice (e.g. The Wine Gang) or “insider information” on the potential future value of premium wines (e.g. JancisRobinson.com on En Primeur)

There will always be a small number of people willing to pay for these sites to get this information rather than searching through multiple sites or waiting to personally taste wines they mean to buy – which may not even be possible. The question is whether there are enough of them to make a site profitable.

Social Networks

On the other hand, there are many social networks out there (e.g. Snooth, Adegga, etc.) where the tasting notes themselves are free content. They still represent value for people, but this is exchanged for attracting more friends & followers or becoming known as a reliable expert. The value is in social recognition, something some might call Whuffie or ‘Social Capital‘

And then there is the law …

What prompted me to write this today was the Decanter story that a journalist, Martin Isark, is suing Majestic for using his tasting note to promote a wine called “Cuvée de Richard Vin de Pays de l’Aude”. He wrote a note which apparently included the words “incredible value” in a newspaper in 2001 – and apparently Majestic have been using those words, attached to his name, ever since to promote subsequent vintages. So now, he is claiming £50,000 in damages for “‘false endorsements’ and ‘infringement of copyright’” to get them to stop according to the story (NB. I’m no lawyer, I’m only reporting information available on other sites).

Whilst I agree that the note is [arguably] false endorsement if they do not clearly show it was for a (much) older vintage, it makes you wonder how much Martin Isark thinks that endorsement is worth if the “damage” is £50,000 (as far as I know the UK law does not allow for punitive damages). I’m sure that Majestic will have sold some additional bottles of the back of the note, but that would be a LOT of bottles. And what about the benefits to Mr Isark (who, I must admit, I had not heard of before this incident)? He has had his name promoted to thousands of Majestic customers over the years – could he not have made something positive of this, offering to review (accurately and honestly) future vintages or more wines?

So, the question remains, how much is a tasting note worth?

Like any content, tasting notes have value and with the right ‘context’ there are ways to make them generate money for someone – let’s just hope it isn’t all for the lawyers, but for wine writers and drinkers instead!

[full disclosure: I am married to a lawyer, and benefit greatly from the good work that lawyers do ]

[UPDATE 20/11/09 14:23: On closer examination, Martin Isark answers the question on his website. The answer, at least for Martin Isark is: £15,000 PLUS 2% of sales as a royalty payment. This is astronomically high, and also makes one wonder about the potential ethical issues of journalists receiving royalties on related sales. Of course, he can name whatever price he wants, but I wonder whether anyone would really accept this value as realistic? If so, I need to start writing more tasting notes ]

[UPDATE 20/11/09 14:27: inserted the word "arguably" in para 9 erroneously missed off original post!]

Related articles by Zemanta

• André Ribeirinho: Adegga Wine Market (delaranja.com)
• English doctor wins French wine medal: pas mal pour un anglais (telegraph.co.uk)
• In It to Wine It (winewhoreblog.com)
• Top 5 Tips for Drinking Wine at Sea: Expect the Unexpected (catavino.net)

Crush It

Well, I ‘crushed it‘ in one sitting on the plane on the way to Lisbon for the EWBC.

Gary Vaynerchuck’s Crush It! is a book intended for an audience of entrepreneurs ready to take advantage of the opportunities offered by social media. These opportunities are easier to capitalise on in an age of ready-made blog platforms, template fan pages on facebook and free plug-ins to carry out necessary tasks, so I use the term entrepreneur to mean all those interested in starting their own money-making business, even those with minimal investment or risk.

That’s all of us!

The style of the book is very readable, and very “Gary”. You can hear him dictating the book, pacing back and forth in the room, stopping to make a friendly quip, probably about American Football, then launching back into his well-honed routine as if he had not left off. In fact, it is so much in the “Gary Vay-Ner-Chuck” voice that I had to read it at the speed he speaks, so I got through the book in an hour and a half!

As someone who has been following Gary, on and off, from fairly early on in his Wine Library career, including some of his keynote videos and his business site, much of this book is already familiar @garyvee stuff. It is interesting to have the presentation in one place for reference and in a form I can lend to others (even if video is more entertaining, it is harder to use to research and/or prove a specific point of your own).

The point of this book is not to give his existing followers something new, but to bring his message to those that have not yet committed themselves to social media but who think they want to know more. It is for Gary’s “posse” to give to others to explain their addiction, and for some of us, a useful basic checklist to refer back to.

One thing it is not, for the record, is a wine book, but the messages are still relevant to wine businesses.

If you want a highly readable, passionate and credible book on how to approach building your personal brand in, and through, social media, it is worthwhile reading. However, the world is moving apace and even some of this book is already outdated, so read it quick to get you up to speed on yesterday so you can get on with building your own brand today.

Related articles by Zemanta

• GaryVee Gets Set To Launch a Prissy, Cinderella Wine Club And Gourmet Library (techcrunch.com)
• Gary Vaynerchuk reveals how to Crush It! (socialmedia.biz)

A quick post to point you to the results of the fun wine and food experiment I helped to organise yesterday for Casillero del Diablo, the well known Chilean wine brand.

I’m always looking for interesting new ways brands can promote wine and reach out to new audiences, and when I had the opportunity to create an event for a wine brand like this I knew it could be amazing. The team at Cube put on a great event at The Kitchen run by Michelin-starred chef Thierry Laborde, and my role was to document, host and share some of that event with the wider world.

The event itself was really made a success by the three bloggers who were invited to taste the Casillero del Diablo wines and come up with dishes to match them – then cook them in time for a taste-off with the judges: winemaker Marcelo Papa, chef Thierry Laborde and Carol Emmas from Harpers. The three bloggers were Signe Johansen (@scandilicious), Linda Williams (@goodshoeday) and Louis Villard (@spiltwine).

I managed to use a whole range of ’social’ tools on the day, but the star was really Posterous – an amazing tool for combining your event content. Check it out! Visit the site to see the videos (using Qik from my mobile), audio interview (using AudioBoo), photos (using Flickr) and the twitter stream (using ScribbleLive) – all toold you should definitely consider using too.

Enjoy!

Related articles by Zemanta

• Lunch with Marcelo Papa, and a very sexy Syrah (wineanorak.com)
• Hosting a social media conference in your community (slideshare.net)
• Tasting with Wines of Chile (wannabewino.com)

Despite the lack of updates on this blog, I have actually been working feverishly on interesting wine-blog-related projects over the last few weeks, so much so that I have rather neglected this place. Here are just a few of those projects – they are a lot of fun, but I also think that the participants, including myself, and the wine business, are learning a lot from them too.

L’Anima wine challenge

I’ve been working with this amazing Italian restaurant to help shed a little light on Italian wines, grape varieties and also into the process of adding wines to a wine list. For more details, check out the wine social media site I put together for the #lanima project with Gal Zohar, sommelier at L’Anima and Dan Coward from Bibendum.

Tesco Wine Fair

Working with video is fun and useful, but this is a very different medium and experience makes a big difference – both in front of and behind the camera. I am working with a friend of mine at double-barrelled.tv to learn more about this. This week we made our first attempt on behalf of Castillo San Lorenzo for a Tesco Wine Fair promotion.

European Wine Bloggers Conference & #ddmsummit (Drinks and Digital Marketing Summit)

Lots of developments in the planning of the EWBC, a project I am VERY excited about this year, but in part because of this, I have now also been invited to share my thoughts on the influence and potential of social media (or Digital Marketing) for the WHOLE drinks industry, not just wine, at the #ddmsummit being put together by Cube and The Drinks Business. More on this soon.

The Wine Gang

[Update: it has been pointed out that my title, written in haste, is a bit unfair. I'm not going to change it, but please treat it lightly. I was intending to jokingly refer to fear of 'gangs' not to suggest one might actually fear these lovely people ]

What if you were a well respected wine industry journalist or commentator and you tasted literally hundreds of wines a month, but your main paying gig (newspaper, magazine, TV show) only gave you time and space for a handful? What would you do with all the rest of those notes, impressions, events and connections?

Well, one answer is to blog about it … but I would say that! That’s a story for another post.

Another is to put them together in handy newsletter and sell it to wine lovers around the UK and the rest of the world. The problem is that the Paid Subscription model is either dead or on critical life support.

However, The Wine Gang are attempting just that. The ‘Gang’ consists of well known names such as Tom Cannavan, Olly Smith, Anthony Rose, Joanna Simon and Tim Atkin. Each month they publish a newsletter with around 200 tasting notes for an annual subscription for consumers of £20.

What marks this out for me?

It is presented in a way that is actually useful to the average consumer.

Instead of being a collection of hundreds of tasting notes of wines by some sort of ‘theme’ like region or style, these tasting notes are arranged by retailer or importer. They are grouped so that you can reasonably put together a shopping list of wines to try and have some chance of actually getting them easily, and they also recognise this by making the report printable so you can take it to the shops with you.

Ultimately, unless you are a real wine fanatic, you want what you read about on the internet to educate and inform your own drinking, so it really ought to be focused on what you can buy – or at least let you know where you can source it.

The Wine Gang newsletter also includes a few handy summaries in their different “Bunches of 5” lists from each newsletter, which not only has the usual ‘best’ groups, it rather unusually also includes “This month’s shockers” – always a favourite read of mine.

I do have a few issues with the site;

• It brings together some of the top wine communicators in the UK and all we get is one article and the tasting notes. Where is the personality?
• There is little interaction with readers. In this era of ’social media’ it feels old-fashioned and aloof
• In a market like the UK that is very price-driven, it needs to communicate better how the “investment” in a subscription can be repaid
• It would benefit from a broader range of content such as audio, video and images to bring the content to life
• The site, and its contents, are not well publicised enough and are hidden from the main ways that consumers will find it – search engines

The question is whether consumers will be prepared to part with their cash for a newsletter when so much similar content is available free?

That remains to be seen, but I think that if the personalities behind the site could step forward a bit more, it would have a reasonable chance.

It does, once again, raise the interesting question: What is a Tasting Note worth?

I will try to address that question shortly.

Disclaimer: Several of the members of The Wine Gang are personal friends as well as colleagues. I have worked in collaboration with The Wine Gang in a professional capacity, and will be sponsoring an upcoming promotion, but these are my personal views and I have been a paid subscriber of the newsletter since the first edition.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Credibility versus Saleability – Wine Report (winklorch.blogspot.com)
• Inside Word: In Praise Of The Financial Times’ Online Pay Model (paidcontent.org)
• “Comprehensive, excellent and fascinating book” (pinotageclub.blogspot.com)
• Wine Blogger Press Pass (wineblogger.info)