Wine Conversation | Reaching out from within the wine bubble

Are you Drinking or Thinking?

March 17, 2008 in wine culture with 10 Comments

I have read a number of posts recently concerning the link between the enjoyment of wine & “thinking”, for example here and here.

I believe that really enjoying wine does require the consumer to exercise not only their senses, but also their imagination, and so has to involve “thinking” to some extent.

Unfortunately, most people already have “too much on their mind” and therefore filter out what they see as “unnecessary” or complex information.

Philosophers and Social Psychologists can debate the finer points of this and either disagree or provide more details, but, stated simply, I believe that the average person’s ability to consciously understand and process information is limited, and for simplicity’s sake, let’s call this process their “mind”.

Two people quoting point scores at each other is not a conversation, it is a game of Top Trumps

This is important for the wine business because if it is true, getting busy consumers to think about your wine or brand means competing not only with what is already “on their mind”, but with every other product, brand and person trying to get in on the action too. This concept is called “Share of Mind” or “Mindshare“.

But who cares?

Well, there are many related issues that this touches upon.

1. A recent study in the US by Constellation, apparently showed that a large number of US wine consumers were “overwhelmed” by the choice of brands available. In theory, if you convert them to consumers of your ‘easy solution’, then you’ve got a hit wine brand. Unfortunately, it isn’t as easy as saying “here is a new wine to make your life easier”, you have to get their attention before they’ll hear the message. To get a share of mind from this audience, you have to fight VERY hard, and that means a lot of money in advertising. More on this topic soon, but it is also worth reading Dr. Debs’ view first.

2. Why are point scores for wine reviews so popular? Well, a score summarises all those tiresome descriptions, positive feelings, negative complications, and vinous complexities into a neat comparison tool.

“87 is greater than 86, so that wine is better!”

Points help to avoid any need to research, compare and analyse, and summarise it all into something that allows for simple calculations. Why fight for a share of mind when you can supply them with a easy reference tool? Unfortunately, it does nothing for the Wine Conversation. Two people quoting point scores to each other is not a conversation, it is a game of Top Trumps.

I’m not really saying that scoring itself is a bad idea. When well used, points can play a positive role as additional bits of information, but generally speaking they are taken out of context and misused – somewhat like the ‘dark side of the force’.

3. There are many discussions about wine culture around the world. Does the UK have a wine culture or just a drinking culture? Does the US have a wine culture? What is the European wine culture today? I’d suggest that the difference between a drinking culture and a wine (or beer) culture, is whether there is a conscious involvement in the choice of consumption.

The person who rolls up to the bar and orders “a lager”, or ” glass of house wine” (or even arguably those used to ordering well established “brands” like Pinot Grigio) are in the former. The choice figures only in their mind as an alternative path to inebriation and no more. However, even a cursory glance at a wine list, and a choice of a variety or region they have some association with, forms part of a wine culture, however shallow.

I could go on, but most of these points deserve a post in their own right.

Much of this was kicked off by the posts I mentioned above. For some of us, even “comfort wines” are wines that evoke feelings, memories or our imagination.

And this brings me to my final thought. The more we bother to THINK about wine, its history, its agricultural roots and its role in our culture, the less we are likely to abuse it as a mere alcoholic drink. If this helps to reduce the harm to individuals and society stuck in a drinking culture, then we are doing our job well.

Late night post (updated)

March 12, 2008 in blogs with 3 Comments

It is already late, but I thought I’d keep the site ticking along with a quick post to thank Bodegas Tintoralba for hosting a very nice evening with their wines and some good food.

Many may imagine that working in the wine trade is an endless series of wine & cheese parties, or raucous Bacchanalian soirees, but it isn’t the case (not really anyway). It is both much better and not nearly as exciting as that.

I have often been to events in a professional capacity (either hosting events to promote wines I am working on, or being targeted by those who might hope for me to sell their wines). However, I can’t recall any event before this where I was invited because I was a wine blogger.

I do not review wines, and I am not about to start on this occasion, but I would like to thank this winery for having the open-mindedness and confidence to organise an event almost exclusively for food and wine bloggers. I met lots of people this evening whose sites I have read or have come across in the various social networks I have mentioned before. That alone was worth trekking around Barcelona for, and good wine on top made it even better.

It has certainly made me want to explore the interesting world of “tintorera” (teinturier) grapes in a bit more detail. I must say that the name Alicante Bouschet comes up regularly (for WSET Advanced and Diploma students anyway) on this subject and I had not realised that it was the same as the variety used for some of the more interesting wines from this winery, but here called “Garnacha Tintorera”.

More information on the evening including some of the other bloggers who attended, and on Alimentaria itself too, in the near future.

[UPDATE: One great thing about blogging is if you find interesting and relevant content you can just link to it. Rather than me researching the list of attendees to the event I can send you to Catavino's post instead. Thanks Gabriella!]

[more photos from the evening here]

When online friends get real

March 7, 2008 in wine culture with 9 Comments

We’ve been here before, about 6 months ago, when Facebook rather exploded onto the scene (for me) and there seemed to be a collective & feverish drive to make new friends and contacts, discuss big ideas and make grand plans. It got so busy I spent ages on Facebook joining groups for Wine Bloggers, Wine 2.0, Sherry Lovers, Beards of the World United (that was just for me) and more.

The result was that I got to know a lot of new people and link up with some really interesting friends. We talked and talked and emailed and posted and … nothing really came of it.

The problem with Facebook is that it is a virtual “freshers fair”. It is like that first week at school/college/university, where all new arrivals feel equal and can shake off the social shackles accumulated over years at their previous school. These fresh faces desperately try to make a new circle of friends and create a new persona, meeting as many others as possible and “becoming friends”. Unfortunately it never stays that way, and by week 2 you will probably never see half those people again and you discover that the creepy guy who seemed seemed so mysterious is actually just creepy.

Facebook is good for showing your face (!) and getting snippets of information, even gathering into groups, but it does not offer the tools for in-depth discussions and planning. The serious business of making proper friendships doesn’t happen at the Freshers Fair, it happens later.

And that is what is happening right now.

At one time is seemed that all that time & effort seemed destined to be wasted, but thankfully I continued to have email conversations with Ryan and Gabriella Opaz at Catavino.net, and through them also began discussions with Joel Vincent of Wine Life Today.

This group is much more driven, and instead of just talking, we’ve started projects on the European Wine Bloggers Conference, the Open Wine Consortium and a few more things in the pipeline too exciting and confidential to mention just yet. These are some great tools for exploring and developing the Wine Conversation.

I have also met or am planning to meet up with several of these virtual friends, including Steve De Long, Emilio Saez, Jacob Gaffney as well as Ryan and Gabriella.

So, thanks Facebook for the party, I’ll be back again, but the place to hang out with friends is elsewhere.

* Photo Courtesy of Richard.H

Shopping for wine in supermarkets

March 2, 2008 in wine culture with 7 Comments

Imagine the scene:

Tesco. Saturday morning. Shopping trolley already half-full. Bored kids. Lots more things to get done today but … you want to get a bottle of wine as a treat for yourself at dinner.

You turn into the wine aisle having resisted the siren call of the latest 2-for-1 deals everywhere else in the store – and all you can see is a wall of 600+ different wines never mind spirits, fortified wines, beers and ciders.

“Hell! OK, 2-for-1 it is. Maybe next time I’ll get something nice.”

Well, at last I have found someone working on a solution! I’ve always thought that something like this ought to have been done before now, but I had not yet found it.

Supermarket Wine is a site dedicated to bringing together EXPERT reviews of wines that can be found in the UK supermarkets so that you can improve your shopping there.

Strangely (for me) this site seems to have been around since 2006, but I must admit I had not heard about it. However, I saw it on a list of must-see wine sites (on a US blog) and thought I’d give it a go.

As I have mentioned before on this site, there are others looking at this area; including Love That Wine and Quaffers Offers (amongst others). The issue was that one had the consumer input, the other the expert view. The ideal, of course, was to combine them. This is what the new site strives to do.

The key has always been finding how to communicate the value of a wine relative to its price. A low priced wine might be great value if the wine is good enough, but how much better is a more expensive bottle? The risk of getting it wrong increases greatly as the cost of the bottle goes up, so consumers are naturally wary.

The solution for supermarketwine.com is to republish the ‘expert’ reviews of the wine columnists of the various British newspapers, already trusted sources of reviews, and link them to the wines with each retailer. Easy!

If you see a review you like, go to this site and link through to any of the retailers who stock it. In addition, once on the site you can read, and contribute, to the ratings from other consumers. You can filter reviews by retailer, price, grape variety, taste characteristic and even reviewer. How many more options would you like?

In practice, the site seems rather short of consumer input (I have yet to find one to be honest) but in true Wine 2.0 fashion the option is there.

Maybe if we give it a go we could build up the kind of traffic that would make this site a worthy reference site for consumers, the developer has certainly put lots of time and effort into building it.

And there is one last thing. I don’t like sites that give me no information on who is behind the business. This site is totally anonymous. No contact details, no name, nothing personal at all. I’m sure the person, or persons, will have the best of reasons for this, but one of the best ways sites can generate customer loyalty is to create a relationship with consumers. Anonymous sites do not do this.

So, Mr/Ms SupermarketWine.com, who are you? Fancy a relationship?

ABC1 Women – Look Out for Monty!

February 28, 2008 in wine conversation with 0 Comments

No, this is not about educated women suddenly taking an interest in golf and a certain Scottish exponent, but rather a Mr Monty Waldin – wine writer and organic (and biodynamic) cheerleader.

Channel 4 Sales (presumably their sponsorship and ad sales arm) says:

CHATEAU MONTY
ABC1 Women [presumably this is the target audience]

“Top wine critic and author Monty Waldin has decided to put his money where his mouth is and pack it all in to make wine bio-dynamically in rural south west France. He has just over a year to achieve his dream to turn a few hectares into top selling organic wine. Once ensconced, his only company will be a donkey, visiting friends from the UK, incredulous local peasantry and occasionally, Monty’s high maintenance girlfriend, Silvana who jets in from Italy.”

Other than the gratuitous insertion of the term “high maintenance” (is that really necessary?) this sounds interesting. It does raise a few questions … like who did all the hard work to actually grow the vines in the first place as you cannot simply say “Oh, I think I’ll make this wine biodynamically this year”.

Also, if he only has a few hectares, what does “top selling” mean? He sells more than a few bottles to his mates? Wouldn’t the continued presence of C4 cameras & crew rather help that, irrespective of the quality of the wine?

Anyway, this is one I shall be on the look out for. It will be interesting to see how well they can explain the concept of biodynamic wine to the general public considering how little understood it is even by wine enthusiasts. It will hopefully make France a more attractive wine buying destination for people as well.

I have met Monty in passing and I know he will have the right sort of charm for such a series (and I think those ABC1 women will agree), so I expect this will be a fun addition to the Wine Conversation.

Thanks to Decanter for alerting me to this programme