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The value of a tasting note

November 20, 2009 in marketing with 11 Comments

: Image via Wikipedia

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!]

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! A book review

November 10, 2009 in marketing with 4 Comments

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.

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 devilishly good day

September 30, 2009 in marketing with 1 Comment

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!

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)

Social media challenges

August 25, 2009 in marketing with 0 Comments

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 – friend or foe?

August 4, 2009 in marketing with 2 Comments

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.