Fermentation: The Daily Wine Blog

Another Napa Valley Blogger

In my haste to bemoan the fact that there are too few blogs maintained by wineries (I tend to be a hasty bemoaner) I neglected to mention another Napa Valley winemaker who has taken to the blogwaves to share his experience.

Randy Sloan and Sasha Match of Match Vineyards maintain a vintners journal as they start out  on their wine industry endeavor. As you might expect, the Journal is a bit of an insider's ( a new insider's) look into the process of starting up a winery in Napa, getting your name out there and selling the wine. As for selling the wine, it's hard to imagine that quality will be an issue. Though I've never tasted the wines I noticed they have Cary Gott on board as the winemaker and Jim Barbour as their vineyard manager...two of the best in their field.

The entire website for Match Vineyards is quite well done. And, it includes something interesting. The "Downloads" page has a number of items you'd expect to see: labels, order form, wine fact sheet. Now, I've written hundreds of Fact Sheets in my day and put them up on websites. But one thing I've never put on a client website is a Lab Report. You send your wine to a lab to get an accurate reading of things like pH, acidities, alcohol, etc. It's included on the Match Vineyards download page. Kinda interesting.

Finally, Match Vineyards seems clearly to be the kind of wired winery that pays attention to those on the Net who first noticed them. In a kind and smart move, the Randy and Sasha gave preference to those people registered over at VinoCellar.com, an online wine forum, where they have  been active participants. This kind of nod of the hat to online wine addicts has been done before...but not often. It's a nice idea.

Best Wine Review of the Year

I'm pretty convinced that the award for BEST WINE REVIEW OF THE YEAR should go to Beau over at Basic Juice for his review of the Lustau “Los Arcos Dry Amontillado Sherry.

It's a must read....go on....click on the link....Go read it...and take your time.

Evolution of a Wine Ad

Creating an ad meant to be placed in the consumer wine magazines means you are creating an ad for two audiences: the dedicated wine consumer and the wine trade. It's different than creating an ad for, say, Vanity Fair or People or Time Magazine. In fact, when you use Wine Spectator, Wine & Spirits Magazine, Wine Enthusiast, Wine News, etc. you really want an ad that will create an impression among retailers, restaurateurs and distributor sales people as much as the consumer.

That was a very important consideration behind the recent ad whose creation was chronicled here at Fermentations.

In that past post I asked Fermentations readers to comment on the picture to be used for the ad. The picture of the winery's owner and his granddaughter was picked apart by a number of readers. Many of the comments were quite astute and many pointed out what we saw at Wark Communications as we went through the many shots at our disposal: 1) The granddaughter would get people's attention but the owner was too set back, too "out of the picture". We fixed that.

Below is the final ad. We've all congratulated ourselves because we think it works. We think it introduces a new brand well by being attractive enough to stop the reader, quickly tells the story of experience and generations, and easily delivers money shots (brand and bottle).

The first job of an ad is to get the reader to stop for a moment in time and suspend their ongoing search though the medium for something of interest. After that, the ad is required to tell a story in moments. If the image of the ad alone can do this, you win big. But it rarely does. This is why ads have copy, particularly a headline. If the headline is provocative or interesting enough, it will do the job of drawing the reader into the body copy to flesh out he message and tell the entire tale.

We had a lot we wanted to say in this ad: "Experience, continuity, new brand, quality, Russian River Valley" We wanted to say this with the images and the headline. If the readers got down into the body copy they would learn even more.

We don't do a lot of ads here at Wark Communications because our specialty is public relations. However, working as we choose to do with the small and medium sized wineries we do have our share of opportunities for this kind of work. I enjoy it.

This ad has been particularly enjoyable to do because I've worked with some really wonderful graphic designers and photographers and also because the clients were easy to work with, engaged and smart. But also, the input by Fermentations' readers were an added dimension I didn't originally expect to have that turned out to be of great value. Thank you one and all.

Where are the Winery Blogs?

I continue to be astonished at the near total lack of U.S. wineries maintaining blogs. I've looked around and I can't find more than three:

Anomaly Vineyards (Napa Valley) maintain a blog that chronicles the goings on in the vineyards, in the cellar and in the market place of an ultra premium brand. (disclosure: client)

Atelier Winery (Healdsburg) maintains an occasionally updated blog that appears to be aimed at wine club members but has some interesting information nonetheless.

Bradley Cooper's Wine & Vine BC (British Columbia) is not so much a winery blog as it is a winemaker's blog, and he does a really great job.

I'm reminded of the time it takes to maintain and continually update a blog when I consider why there are so few winery-relate blogs. But even an ongoing diary of daily events I think would appeal to a substantial number of wine lovers.

Many wine drinkers have a pretty romantic idea of what happens at a winery. Many think it's a matter of blowing fairy dust upon the vines, getting together a happy clan of pickers to sing and bring in the grapes, then cheerfully stomp the grapes into wine. Meanwhile, in between there's just a string of fine dinners and tastings to enjoy.

It's kinda different than that. Maybe the illusion is something best kept in place. Still, this is one PR fella who is convinced that a regularly maintained winery blog would not only be a service but a boost to business.

Wine: Evil and We Like It!

There is  great deal of discussion lately of the alcohol levels in wines, with many suggesting the higher alcohols we are seeing just aren't attractive. But there is one thing about the alcohol in wine that doesn't often get mentioned:

We like alcohol. It makes us feel good.

I was reminded of the obvious as I read a story by Michael Chatfield in the Hollister Freelance. In the story he poses a good question: If it doesn't have alcohol, is it wine?

The answer is no. If it doesn't have alcohol it is just a beverage.

The focus of the story my Chatfield was non-alcoholic wines such as "Fre" by Sutter Home and "Ariel" by J. Lohr Winery. He tasted both and concluded that if he had to refrain from alcohol he'd rather just  drink Welches.

I agree. Alcohol is at the very center of the allure of wine. Were there no "Buzz" that came after that third glass of Cabernet or Chardonnay I seriously doubt we would still drink it and learn about it with the gusto that many of us do. There is the slightest bit of "evil" in alcohol that draws us to it, and this diabolical nature that is part of wine makes the beverage just slightly unsafe, somewhat in need of careful handling.

I'm not Saying that wine is evil. Just that the element of wine that is evil is a large part of what attracts us to it.

The Economist Is Right About Wine

"The more this happens, the more devalued it becomes, and the less consumers want to pay for it"

The "This" Monsieur Patrick Aigrain, a wine economist, is referring to is the use of geographic appellations on wines. He's talking about reference on wine bottles to the source of the grapes that went into the making of the wine. "Bordeaux", Russian River Valley", "Macon, "Rioja", "Anderson Valley."

He's absolutely right.
(Alder at Vinography has taken on this issue himself and has an interesting perspective.)

To quote M. Aigrain completely from the Decanter.com article:

"Three quarters of all wine produced in Europe now bears a specific geographic reference. The more this happens, the more devalued it becomes, and the less consumers want to pay for it....We wanted to use AOC to help differentiate our offering in the New World, but now they have it too."

Aigrain is an economist. A wine economist in particular. What he is saying is that wines that carry a specific AOC (Appellation d'origine Controle---a place name) no longer garner that  much higher a price than the average wine because a far higher percentage of wines carry such a designation on the label. But there is something else going on here too that he is not talking about.

The most famous appellations such as Bordeaux and Burgundy now have stiff competition for the title of "Great Wine". There was a time when Bordeaux and Burgundy was the best you could get. If you bought a bottle that had either of these words on it you had the expectation that you'd get something better than average. That still may be true. The problem is that wines every bit as good come from a number of appellations in Australia, South Africa, Argentina, California, Oregon and numerous other winegrowing areas. This is what the good economist was really alluding to.

There is a lot of talk these days about what the French in particular must do to combat this competition that is leading to falling prices and falling sales. And all this talk is going to lead to a significant philosophical crisis within the French winemaking community.

It appears that the rather stringent laws that govern what a winemaker must do to put an appellation on their label in France are going to come under question. Every time this questioning arises and someone suggests that the restrictive laws are loosened, you will hear someone lament the fact that terroir is being devalued. And they will be right. Terroir—the notion that the land is the source of wines' quality and character—is at the heart of the French labeling laws. It's why a wine is labeled Bordeaux or Burgundy, rather than Merlot or Pinot Noir. If you move away from that concept by allowing, for instance, the varietal to take center stage on the varietal instead of the appellation, you are in fact devaluing the idea of terroir.

Will French vintners allow this to occur? Probably. Particularly if the sales crisis that is affecting the French wine industry isn't corrected. I'm going to enjoy the philosophical debates that take place as the French talk this over because these conversations go to the heart of what wine is and should be.

Wonderful Wine Blog: "Wine Waves"

And then you come across a wine blog you haven't seen before but that is really doing it right.

Wine Waves is a wonderful blog focused on tasting notes. It's easy on the eyes too with great shots of labels and bottles to go along with the astute reviews.

I really love coming across new sources like this; blogs that you happily had to your blog roll. Jerry Hall is the culprit, a part wine wine consultant in a retail outlet in Nashville and a member of the sign making guild on the side.

Jerry does something interesting with each review. He(?) tells us what kind of closure the wine uses. He's partial to screwcaps...particularly for whites, and doesn't like the composite cork closures.

Go see this wine blog. Well worth your time.

These Wine Bloggers Need Encouragement

It's not comprehensive, but it is interesting.

Alfredo, Angelique, Florencia, Michael and David have opened up a blog devoted to Argentina wine and their adventures making wine in Argentina. This is one of those blogs that seems to have wonderful potential if the authors would just take it a bit more seriously.

Vino Tourism Argentina offers quick snippets of adventures at the winery and wine related economic news from Argentina. It needs word. But I think with some encouragement we can spur them to give us more daily details of what's happening in their world.

Go check it out.

Best Books on California Wine

Corktease.com has published my first article for them:

Canon of California Wine."

This article puts forth those indispensable books for anyone wanting to learn more about California from the best volumes on the subject.

What are the best books on the subject of California wine? Check it out.

Read The Wine Media Survey Results

The results of the Fermentations Survey "How Do We Consume Wine Information" are in.

The results can be found here.

A few things you need to remind yourself as you look at these survey results. First, it's a fairly small sample of Fermentations Wine Blog readers only. Also, it is important to not extrapolate to far out toward the general wine consumer. It is best to think of these results as "How do WINE BLOG READERS consume wine information?"

That said, what  do we know?

1. Getting information about our hobby is a daily ritual

2. The Internet is our "go to" medium for this information

3. We read The Wine Spectator far more regularly than any other print wine publication

4. We have  respect for the quality of information found in wine blogs, newsletters, magazines and wine forums

5. Newspaper wine columns and radio/TV wine information is low on our list of quality info sources.

6. It's wine reviews that are generally sought out

7. This was a survey of predominantly middle aged males who drink far more often than the average person.

Anyone else's take on these survey results would be  very interesting to read.

I think I'm Turning European...I really think so

Wall Street Journal wine writers Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, in writing about the loosening of state laws that make access to wine easier, made note that what we need to develop in this country is a "Culture of Wine."

You hear a lot about different "Cultures" these days: "Culture of Death", "Culture of Life", "gay sub-cultures"....All these cultures are pretty hard to define.  They usually mean something different depending on what the user of the phrase believes. But, it makes you wonder exactly what a "Culture of Wine" implies.

One thing it implies, that not everyone would like, is that America would have to become more like Europe...or at least adopt more European sensibilities. Surely the "Culture of Wine" the Journal writers refer to means, simply, drinking wine more often. This in turn implies that more emphasis be placed on pleasure...an idea that is too often associated in American with sloth, "liberalism", and secularism. Can we get there?

A "Culture of Wine" also implies the diminution of the current "Fast Food Culture" that we most assuredly live within. Fast Food is the enemy of wine. You don't drink wine in your car. You don't wolf down wine. There is nothing about wine that is associated with "fast".

Finally, the "Wine Culture" as it exists in Europe is decidedly associated with earthly views of what is right and wrong. Very little of European culture has been affected by the notion that drinking is sinful. The very idea that alcohol and its consumption is sinful would be the most foreign view you could bring to the table in most European circles. Yet here in America it is a mainstay of our culture represented in our laws, customs and constitution.

There is a great deal that conspires against Americans adopting a "culture of wine". But don't count us out. Brecher and Gaiter are right. We are slowly moving toward a loosening of our anti-drinking laws. It's a natural movement that takes into account the slow evolution of a faith-based society into a society based on rationality, law and fairness. I'm confident that the natural movement of our society and culture will lead Americans to embrace wine more fully. That movement can be sped up or slowed down by things like a media phenomena (The Movie Sideways) or by anomalies (tragic accidents with alcohol at their center.) But the march toward America embracing a "culture of wine" is inevitable.

SURVEY: It's All About The Wine Spectator

Most niche industries or publishing categories have a dominant publication, a publication that has a readership substantially higher than the others in the category. I'm sure there is a good reason for this but I can't tell you exactly what it is. In the world of consumer wine publishing that publication is the Wine Spectator.

The third question in the FERMENTATIONS Survey on how you consume wine media asked:

What wine print publications do you make a point of reading as often as possible?

While a very small sample, it is no surprise that that Wine Spectator dominated the responses. of the 47 who answered this question 26 identified the Wine Spectator. More than half of the respondents.

No other wine publication broke out of single digits. The Wine Advocate was cited by 8 respondents, the Wine Enthusiast by 6 respondents, Decanter Magazine by 8 respondents.

Besides the Wine Spectator, there are three other publications in America that focus on wine and publish on a regular basis: Wine & Spirits, The Wine Enthusiast and The Wine News. There is also the Quarterly Review of Wine, a fabulous wine magazine that comes out quarterly and focuses not on scores but stories. Yet, the Wine Spectator has about 4 times the circulation of the largest of these three. Why has it succeeded in this way?

I think the answer is clear: Its reviews carry the most weight outside the wine geek community. And the wine geek community and wine industry are well aware of this. Even if it is only subscribed to by about 400,000 people, a great many more have heard of the Wine Spectator and its 100 point rating scale and have no reason to believe it is anything other than a reputable, authoritative wine rating organization.

I've written about the power of the Wine Spectator in this Blog before. I've warned it should not be underestimated. Of course few people do underestimate that power. However, far too many people speculate on what it takes to get a good score in the Wine Spectator. Some have and will suggest it takes advertising. This is hogwash. It's the kind of accusation that comes from those whose wines didn't get the score they believed they should or by consumers who have some sort of emotional stake in a wine that didn't score as well as they believed it should.

Over the years the Wine Spectator has migrated from a purely wine-centric publication to one that has the wine lifestyle (food, travel, good living) at its core. It has been an astute move by the publishers. it has attracted a larger readership without sacrificing its status as the reference for wine quality.

There is no indication that the Wine Spectator will be dethroned any time soon as the top dog of wine publications. However, if you want to go elsewhere for your wine info, you have a great number of choices from newsletters, to magazines to the Internet. However, if you want to know what is helping to drive sales in the U.S., you need to read the Wine Spectator's reviews.

It's all about "FERMENTATIONS"

The Question Was...

Where are you most likely to get your wine information?

Blogs 67.2% 39

Elsewhere on the Internet 53.4% 31

Wine Magazines 46.6% 27

Television 0% 0

Radio 1.7% 1

Newspapers 17.2% 10

Wine Newsletters 15.5% 9

Other (please specify) 10.3% 6

So what does this mean. It means exactly what you think. The 58 people who answered this question get their wine news predominantly on the Internet. We knew that. Did we know how irrelevant Television and radio was? Oddly, there are some pretty good wine related radio shows out there that can and do appeal to the hard core wine lover like you. Of course most of what's on TV is geared to the novice. And it should be for obvious reasons.

I am surprised that Wine Newsletters was not more often the pick in this survey. For my money the most in depth wine information you can currently get is in the various newsletters on wine. And I'm not even thinking of Robert Parker's wine advocate here, though among those who chose "Wine Newsletters," I'd bet they did have the Wine Advocate on their mind.

Stats and surveys are fun. But it's important not to confuse the results with anything other than what they are, a snapshot of the respondents. In this case, a snap shot of a small sample of Fermentation's readers.

SURVEY RESULTS: We Are Strange People

What do we know about those special people who read wine blogs?

Call it unscientific. Call it a "fairly small sample" if you like. I'm going to call it "The results"

To this point 56 readers of this blog have taken the first-ever FERMENTATIONS SURVEY. The general subject: "How do you consume your wine media?" I wanted to share results from the first question of the survey. It says something interesting.

1. How often do you read about, listen to or view information on wine?

Eighty-four (84) Percent responded "DAILY".

Aren't we the obsessed ones. I figure this is about the same stat you'd get from the same survey at any wine blog. The message is we aren't like most other people, but we are typical of Internet-savvy media consumers.

There just aren't many people in America who read about wine daily. Those that do are either connected to the wine business or semi-connected by virtue of the way wine has captured their interest and piqued their imagination. The vast majority of people don't even think about wine, let alone read about it. Wine is for most a pleasant part of their meal from time to time or a pleasant part of the daily self-medicating routine. Those of us who seek out information on wine, and on the Internet in particular, on a daily basis account for a percentage of the population so small we'd have to take quite a hike just to get near single digits.

Why we have taken up wine is another question all together and one better suited to a book than a blog post.

But, it strikes me also that we are perfectly typical of that modern breed of media consumer who has incorporated the ability to seek out in a near professional way information on the Internet related to our obsession. There are blogs like ours for  every hobby. Poker, mystery writers, civil war history, civil war reenactments, civil war era currency...  This ability to find information and lots of it has become one of our skill sets. I'd bet that at least half the peole wh read FERMENTATIONS use this talent on a daily basis in their work life.

That this skill is even masterable tells us something about how the nature of information has changed and how wine information is disseminated today and how it is radically different it is than when I first started in the wine business in 1990. If you look out another 15 years you have to conclude that the wave of change is not nearly ready to retreat or even slow down.

My head starts to hurt when I even try to think how the wine media business and the delivery systems for this information will change in 15 years. I know this much. The way we choose to receive professionally written and legitimate wine information will be completely malleable by the consumers. If our interest is German Riesling then "German Riesling Today" will show up in our email or our FERC (Flexible Electronic Reading Scroll) weekly. And it will be beautiful in appearance. It will be printable and quickly archived. And we will probably do this through voice commands.

So I guess one of my daily conversation in 2020 will sound something like this:

"Open FERC Journal...California Pinot Noir Journal Today...Brighten screen....Volume off....Open article 1...Close article 1....Find Dehlinger Vineyards.com....Email Open...sales@dehlingervineyard.com....Close browser...Show All Wine Journal ratings...2015 Russain River Valley Pinot Noir...Open article 2....Close article 2...Archive Journal....Quit FERC Journal!

12.5% of those who responded to the survey said they read about wine 2 to 3 times per week.

Survey Closing: Voice your opinion NOW!

I'm getting ready to close down the first-ever Fermentations Survey in just a couple of days. So, if you haven't voiced your opinion, please do so now.

The topic under consideration: "How you consume wine media".

How, why, when, where?

TAKE THE SURVEY HERE!

Arrogance and French Whine

“The government has promised more money, but this will not solve the problems in the long-term. There must be more protection for French wine producers on the domestic market,”

"Wine is not the same as other commercial products like milk for example, wine changes from vineyard to vineyard, it reflects the field and the vine and the individual producer. It is not like that for some of these Australian firms,”

And so, the French winemakers in the South riot.

There is a lot of blame fermenting within the French wine industry. Some of it is focused on foreign competition. Some of the blame is aimed at the producers of Bordeaux who have been planting while those in the south of France have been removing vines. Some of the blame is focused on the government, which the rioting growers believe is simply not giving growers enough support (read: free Euros)

It is impossible to understand the rioting winemakers of France by looking at them through an American lens. Do this and you must come to the conclusion that "the whiners aren't willing to compete and just want government handouts".

The French long ago chose the welfare state as their way of organizing societal needs. This extends to industry. So to hear the French cry out for more state aid to overcome their own stupid business decisions and the fact that other country's have caught up in quality and market share is really just par for for the French course.

However, what de Gaulles me is this notion expressed by so many french vintners and Frenchmen that while the french have some inner, cultural, spiritual connection to the vineyards and the wine they produce, those from other countries, like Australia and the United States, are incapable of such connection and therefore illegitimate.

Look at that quote at the top. How patronizing can you get? Yet, it's this very argument that the French vintners slime the media and government with in their demand that there be protection for the French domestic wine market.

By the way, what does that mean? What would "more protection for French wine producers on the domestic market" actually look like? Tariffs? I say more power to them. Go ahead and protect the antiquated, anti-consumer sloth-inspiring industry the rioting whiners feel needs protecting. In the mean time the rest of the world will continue to make better and better wine, find ways to make it attractive or consumers (including the French variety), and take over more and more of the world wine market.

Help Me Build a Wine Ad!

Which Shot would you choose? That's the question at the bottom of this post I'm hoping you will work with me on. But first, a little insight into creating an ad for wine publications that needs photography as part of the ad...

The work that goes into shooting a photo for an advertisement is not so simple. It's one of the creative services we offer at Wark Communications. Today, following creative process to come up with the ad, following the process of writing the copy, presenting to the client, then scouting for locations with the photographer and graphic designer, we finally went on location to shoot an ad that will show up in all the major wine magazines as well as elsewhere.

The day started around 4:30am with my alarm. Get everything together. Pick up food, and get to the location by 5:45. The photographer and their assistant had already arrived at the location by the time I got there. The location is at the top of a knoll on the clients property where they farm about 150 acres of vines. The subjects of the shoot would not arrive for another hour and fifteen minutes. It's set up time.

After doing this for a number of years I'm still taken aback at the time and effort it takes to set up a shot. Add to this that we were racing the sun. We knew exactly what kind of early morning light we wanted. We needed to start shooting between 7am and 7:15am.

Once the subjects arrive, they need to be fed. And we all need a bit more coffee. I've been at shoots where a far more impressive spread than this is offered. But we are stingy at Wark Communications. Nevertheless, bagels, muffins, strawberries, grapes, coffee and orange juice hit the spot.

When everyone is feeling good, when the light is just right, and when Alan the photographer and his assistant are ready, the shooting begins. We are still racing the sun. We want those longer shadows combined with the softness that the early morning atmosphere gives us. This turns out to be a pretty easy shoot for a number of reasons. The photographer is great. His assistant is on the ball. And, the subjects area very easy to work with. They are grandfather and granddaughter, so they comfortable. Me? I try to keep out the way, get the subjects to provide that "look" I'm trying to get, and occasionally ask the photographer to try something different.

The actually shooting only takes about 40 minutes and it's all over. We've got shots. We've got the copy written and we have an outstanding graphic designer ready to put it all together. The question is, which shot do we choose.

WANNA HELP???  Below are 4 shots: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th.

TELL ME WHICH ONE YOU'D CHOOSE. I can't give you more than the headline to work with:

"The Next Generation of Russian River Valley Wine"

 

WHICH ONE WOULD YOU CHOOSE???

A New Kind of Tasting Room?

Innovation. It's synonymous with technology.And like any other industry, wine has latched on to new technologies to bring innovated change to nearly every aspect of the business. The internet has had an impact on just about  ever aspect of the business from sales and marketing to data collation to winemaking and cellar management. Innovation has come to the vineyard through biotechnology.

Yet one place where innovation, or even new ideas, has pretty much been lacking is in the tasting room.

Granted there isn't much that can be improved in the way wine is poured into a glass, the glass is tipped and the way liquid washes down a throat. Still, I've been thinking about the tasting room experience while working with a client on a tasting room experience that, while not new, is certainly the next generation.

Toward the beginning of next month a winery will open a tasting room in Sonoma Valley that has tables, chairs, menus and an executive chef. Each guest, for $20, will taste seven wines paired with seven different food pairings prepared to match the wine. Reservations will be encouraged.

While not revolutionary, this idea has really never been carried out to this extent to our knowledge. Yet it is the logical conclusion of the wine tasting room if we are to believe what all of us in the industry say, that wine is properly understood in the context of food.

This particular client is no newcomer to the Tasting Room experience. This will be the fifth tasting room they have opened in a 15 mile radius over the past 8 years. Four others are still open. The idea is simple: get your wine in front of as many consumers as possible. Sell direct. Constantly increase the size of the wine club. I has and does work quite nicely.

Still, it's rather difficult to figure why this approach to the tasting room has not been tried. I've mentioned before that wine is a conservative industry borne of it's connection to farming. But that isn't the right explanation. Neither is the cost of doing this the explanation. There are numerous tasting rooms that could easily create a room next to the bar where a special experience could be produced.

I think the reason we've not seen something like this is due to the wine industry's view of the Tasting Room customer and what they want. Most wineries hold firm to the belief that the tasting room traveler wants to come in, taste something special, then move on. And most do. I've not seen the research but I'm sure I would not be too far off in thinking that the average wine tasting visitor to Napa, Sonoma, Mendocino visit an average of 4-5 wineries in a day. When they visit this new concept tasting room they will cut down on the number of wineries they can visit. This will be a much longer experience.

Yet, this approach will work because it is something very unique (of course this assumes their marketing and PR is competent). Perhaps the tasting room is ripe for innovation.

Great Wine Values...All Six

Is there anything better than a GREAT wine value. Doesn't matter how you find it. But when you come across that wine that is really wonderful and can be paid for with the cash in your pocket wine lovers tend to get excited.

The problem is that it is hard to try all those lower cost wines out there in search of great value. And this is of course why we rely on wine critics and wine magazines.

Well, I like a good value too. So I thought I'd go looking for those GREAT values likely to still be in the stores that had been identified by wine critics. I went to Robert Parker and The Wine Spectator and looked for GREAT VALUE wines that had been reviewed in the past 12 months. I was looking for wines that were $10 or less and given 90 points or more.

To put things in perspective, in those 12 months Robert Parker reviewed 130 wines of $10 or less. The Wine Spectator reviewed a whopping 997 wines over the past 12 months that cost $10 or less.

I FOUND A GRAND TOTAL OF 6 WINES THAT FIT MY "VALUE CRITERIA"

SIX WINES!:

2002 Castano
Hecula-Spain
90 Points, $10

2001 Terragens Romio
Terragens—Emilia Romagna, Italy
90 Points, $10

2002 Capcanes Mas Donis Barrica
Capcanes-Tarragona, Spain
90 Points, $10

2003 Panarroz
Panarroz-Jumilla, Spain
90 Points, $8

2003 Yalumba Riesling Y Series
Yalumba-South Australia, Australia
90 Points, $10

2001 Columbia Crest Two Vines Shiraz
Columbia Valley, Washington
90 Points, $9

What's wrong with this picture? Is it simple economics? Is it simply impossible to make great wine when the producer's price for the wine leaves them little room for profit? Are the Wine Spectator critics and Robert Parker just too stingy with their accolades?

It's Survey Time

Tell me what you think.

I love surveys. I love taking them. I love reading the results. I love analyzing the results. Why? I  find I learn a lot from aggregating information.

So, welcome to the first in an ongoing series of FERMSURVEYS.

TAKE THE SURVEY HERE.

This first survey will look at the wine information consumption habits of Fermentations' readers. It's short, painless and simple.

Quote The Godfather, Get Points

Any wine and food blogger who can quote Peter Clemenza is good by me.

Barbara is the wine and food lover who reports on her Godfather Marathon in a post for Wine Blogging Wednesday's Sicilian installment. Her blog, Winos & Foodies, seems a more personal blog than most. I like it. She's a native Australian living in New Zealand.

My only complaint is...that she doesn't post often enough.

Still, take some time and check out Winos & Foodies.

Another Fermentations Find

With so much schlock floating around winery tasting rooms in the form of trinkets, tee shirts, butter trays and tacky table cloths, it's nice to come across a wine accessory that is unique, useful and beautiful.

WineTrays.com produces serving trays from wine barrels that have a very elegant and handcrafted look to them. I couldn't quite figure out what I was going to use it for. But I know I liked having it stiting on top of the wine rack we keep in the kitchen. It sat there for a week or so.  The longer it sat, the more I liked it there. It sort of finished the top of the rack that had been the landing place for mail. It's still the landing place for mail but now the mail goes in my "100 Acre" tray. The mail looks much better.

Given the quality of the trays ($60 for the small tray and $70 for the big one) the price is pretty good. But what I like is that they are unique. You don't see them around much. There are about 20 different winery barrel bottoms to choose from.

One more great wine accessory find from Fermentations.

The Perfect Storm for Cork Arrives

Imagine planting a crop and knowing it will be 40 years before you can harvest its bounty. You’d have to put it in the ground while attending pre-school in order to see a return during your most productive years. It’s just this situation that has led the Portuguese to become fond of the saying, “Plant cork if you love your grandchildren.”

Talk about patience. It does take a cork tree in Portugal about 40 years before it is ready to offer its bark for use. This is pretty precarious stuff. Imagine if a natural disaster comes along and wipes out 10 years of future productivity. What does the cork farmer tell his kids? “Sorry, there’s going to be a decade or so in there where you’ll just have to become a plumber or cable installer.”

For reasons of weather, as well as a general lack of patience among most of the world’s people, cork is grown in very few places. Portugal happens to be the worlds largest cork producer. Eighty-two percent of the world’s cork trees grow in Portugal. Half the world’s supply comes from this ancient country that sits on the tip of Europe, both culturally and physically. The economy of Portugal benefits from $1 Billion of cork exports per year.

Unfortunately for Portugal, there could be brewing a “Perfect Storm” of destruction heading the cork industry’s way.

Currently, Portugal is in one the worst drought’s it has suffered in 300 years. Read this: 3-0-0  y-e-a-r-s. Look at this before and after picture:

Farmers are appealing to the EU for help and subsidizing. Crops are less than half their normal size in places. Reservoirs are at 32% of normal. $1.3 to $2 Billion in crop revenues have disappeared. Prices of fruits and vegetables have skyrocketed. The hydraulic energy industry is in shambles. Oil prices have risen to account for higher use to produce energy in making up for the loss of hydraulics. And, there’s no let up in sight.

Cork forests are being humbled by the dry weather. Already fires have ravaged cork forests and the fire season has not yet begun. Add to this the international movement toward using synthetic closures. From synthetic corks to screw caps to boxes, the number of alternatives to cork has never been greater. And the rate at which wineries are switching to alternatives makes it seem like there is an international conspiracy to screw Portugal and it’s economy.

Every week it seems you read about another winery switching over to screwcaps. Some are low budget wines. Others switching are true super premium wines costing over $20 a bottle. Then you have countries like New Zealand that makes it a point of pride to use screwcaps. And why wouldn't’t you.

There is no good technical reason to not use screwcaps. The only real reason to stay with cork is to assuage the tender egos of the customer. And we are working at a pretty quick clip to help the customer over that little deficit of understanding too. To this point, Portugal has lost about 8% of its market share to alternative closures. It’s going to keep growing too.

So while you have the world of wine happily moving away from Portugal’s vital national interest, you have Mother Nature moving in over Portugal like a Berserker with a toothache. Now here is the ugly part. As Portugal continues to lose market share either ether via crop damage or technological development, you get a fairly logical result: Fewer Portuguese want to farm cork forests, further limiting the future viability of one of the country’s most important economic sectors.

My advice is start collecting corks. Twenty years from now they will be a rare commodity. Sure, some wineries will still use them. But how many? I can imagine being in my final years in the wine PR business and writing a background sheet on a Napa Valley Cabernet. Shooting for an image that pushes tradition, I’ll describe this wine thusly, “…and this luscious Napa Cabernet is closed with authentic 2 inch Portuguese cork, because we spare no expense to bring you an authentic wine."

Mondovino: A Dry Whine

Here is one more review of the film Mondovino that properly points out that Jonathon Nossiter's Documentary on...well...on something...is really just a long, dry whine.

And here's one from the Boston Globe declaring it, "Juicy but Cloudy".  Cloudy on the concept?

Here's one from the Santa Cruz Sentinel calling the film, "overlong and rather confusing tour of various aspects of the modern wine industry." To say the least.

 

The Boston Herald says Mondovino is "A Bit Too Full"...Yes, indeed it is a film full of...well, full, indeed.

Over at Bay Area Inside we have a review that accurately notes the really absurd claims in the film such as, "Old Worlders also blame international wine consultant Michel Rolland and renown wine critic Robert Parker for stripping wine of its depth, personality and history."

The Ultimate Wine News Web Site?

Rupert Murdoch, the very walking, breathing definition of Mogul" recently offered a challenge to he news media. His message: Get with the digital program or be left behind. In a  rambling talk on the future of newspapers, their presentation on the Internet, the power of news portals, editors' lack of understanding of what its readers want and the necessity to accommodate the younger readers, Murdoch essentially laid out a  future of the newspaper.

In one interesting comment that affects speaks to the rise of blogging, Murdoch suggested that bloggers should be included on newspaper sites. This got me thinking of the state of wine news and information as presented on the Net.

If you wanted a single source of wine news to go to on the net, where would you head? Is there any one site that is presenting all wine news, all the time? The answer is no. Should there be such a site? The answer is yes. Will there be such a site soon? The answer is probably not.

There was once a site on the net that attempted this heroic feat. Winetoday.com, owned by the New York Times Company, made a good stab at it during the height of the Internet book in the late 1990s. it has a full staff or reporters across the globe, directories of wineries, a rating panel, news feeds, bulletin boards. But it failed to be profitable. It simply couldn't bring enough eyeballs to the site to garner the advertising dollars to support it. And one has to ask if there are enough wine loving eyeballs out there to achieve this status with any kind of ambitious wine news website.

Today there are  a couple sites that try to be the king of wine news sites. The Wine Spectator's Online edition is one. Everything on this site is produced by the M. Shanken Company, the umbrella company that owns the Wine Spectator as well as other food and industry related publications. It also is home to a moderately active bulletin board of contentious wine lovers.

It is a good website, but it really doesn't offer enough updated content to make it the powerhouse wine news site that is possible.

Popping Corks is a recently created wine news aggregator site that is full of potential. It, very simply, lists links to wine news and wine reviews found across the Internet. If it could create a more comprehensive listing of wine related news items on the site drawn from newspapers, blogs, wine forums, podcasts and other wine sites, categorize all these items in an easy to understand and easy to access way you would have the quintessential wine information portal. It might get there one day but clearly more investment is needed. But it's on the right track.

Decanter.com, the online presentation of Decanter Magazine out of England is also a nicely run wine information site, but it too suffers from not quite being comprehensive enough. If you want the Decanter or Wine Spectator "take" on all things wine then these two sites do a fine job.

But the site that people flock to because they know everything they want will be there doesn't exist....yet.

The issue is not that we don't know what a comprehensive wine information website would look like. And it's not an issue of the technology not being there to create what is necessary. The problem is marketing. How does one bring enough eyeballs to a Wine News Portal site to pay for and make a profit on the extraordinary amount of time and money it would take to build and maintain this web site? Answer this question and you will see the emergence of something special.

The Nexus of Wine & Astrology

While fun to contemplate, I suppose, this man's notion that the wine we drink reveals our personality is, well, loopy.

Find out who you are based on the wine you reach for by reading this.

Then, go to today's paper, open up the Astrology column and get a further idea of who you are. Then, head down to Madame Svalotsky's seedy little place on the frontage road near Interstate 9 and add to your knowledge of yourself. Finally, after you've paid her $50, get back in your car, drive to the supermarket and buy a little Earl Gray. Make a pot of tea. Now, look at the tea leaves left in the bottom of the pot. See how they adhere to the bottom of the pot. Now you'll have a complete picture of yourself.

Wine & Short-Sighted Editors

Wine writing is not an easy career to sustain. The pay is generally pretty bad. Plus, there are any number of folk out there who are willing to do it for free or next to nothing because wine is their passion and they fancy themselves writers.

So, when a person is able to sustain a career or a column in a major newspaper for twenty years you can assume they are doing something right. And when that column is syndicated too, well, that means that editors across the country, those people who are paid to uncover good writers and good writing, have placed a blessing upon the column.

This was the case with Fredric Koeppel.

Fredric began writing a wine column for the Memphis Commercial Appeal in 1984. He left a job as a college English teacher to pursue a career as a journalist. Not only did he write about wine, but he also wrote features for the paper. It wasn't long before Scripps Howard News Service picked up his column on wine and begun distributing it to newspapers across the nation. Not a bad gig.

In 2003, with a new editor at the helm of the Commercial Appeal, Koeppel's column was cut from a darned good sized 45 column inches down to 12 to 18 column inches. In January 2004 the new editor at the Commercial Appeal abruptly canceled Koeppel's column, along with his $1,800 a year stipend for purchasing wine.

It was the view of the new editor that the readership wasn't interested in nor needed a wine column. This despite the fact that Memphis is home to Fed Ex, International Paper, AutoZone, a healthy legal community and a large medical community--just the kind of audience that keeps a column going for 20 years. The cancellation of the column was also reflective of the editors' understanding of the region as being provincial and religious. According to Koeppel, at least one member of higher management at the paper thought the readership would question the morality of even having wine in the newspaper's headquarters (wine writers of Koeppel's standing receive a huge amount of unsolicited samples). There were also questions raised as to what Koeppel did with all the samples he didn't taste, a very distasteful question indeed. Koeppel, as most writers do, gives unused samples to charitable organizations for their events.

All this raises the question: what use is a wine column at a daily newspaper? Clearly there are readership issues. Does your readership want such information? Then there are advertising issues. Can the local business community support the column through advertising near it from retailers, restaurateurs and related businesses?

But I would argue that a newspaper, and any publication's editors for that matter, first asks what kind of information they think best serves their community and readership. If the answer is that a wine column does not do this then moving on to other questions such as advertising just isn't relevant.

The editors at the Commercial Appeal clearly believe that wine is an elitist subject of little value to a readership they see as provincial and uninterested. It's equally useless to point out in detail the condescension in this view as it is to point out the lack of perspective that the editors clearly possess in coming to this view. As for the religious motivations behind this view, well, we should leave that topic for another post.

The good news is that Fredric Koeppel remains full time at the Commercial Appeal as the visual arts writer and reviewer, the columnist on books, writing about houses and remodeling for the Home & Garden section and writing general features and reviews on restaurants every two weeks.

Koeppel has also kept his hand in the wine writing business by launching his own website: KoeppelOnWine. At his website he's able to offer in-depth reviews, regular features and his own unique and experienced view on wines and the wine industry that appeals particularly to consumers, whether experienced drinkers or novices.

 

Wine: The Conservative Industry

Yesterday, while walking around the vineyard with my graphic designer and photographer and the client (see the previous post), my client states, out of the blue, "That wind is cold...it's coming from the North. It's going to be colder tonight and we'll get frost." It seemed he was talking to himself.

I woke up this morning to find a nice layer of frost and ice on my car and roof of my house.

I live in Glen Ellen in the Sonoma Valley. My little microclimate tends to be a bit colder and a bit warmer than areas not more than a mile away. You can bet that last night a number of "frost alarms" went off in vineyard managers and vineyard owners' bedrooms.

This is probably the most dangerous time of year for vintners. If a heavy frost comes and you don't have protection against it, you can lose a lot of potential crop. The danger can last well into May. Most frost protection comes in the form of overhead sprinklers that will come on when the temperature in the vineyard drops below a certain point. It went on last night. I've not heard of any damage, but I've not surveyed my contacts yet.

But getting back to my client, you have to appreciate this kind of connection to the environment. We forget sometimes that the wine industry is filled to the brim with farmers, not just marketers, winemakers and distributors. Farming makes a person conservative. And this conservative nature has been used as an explanation for many of the methods and ideas you find in the wine industry from the marketing to the winemaking. There is a fundamental simplicity to the farmer. They work with and fight nature at the same time. And those who have been farming long enough to read nature's intentions usually produce the best grapes.

Shooting in the Vineyard

You wouldn't think taking a simple picture for an ad would be too difficult. Find the right spot. Put the people in the shot dressed real nice, wait for the right light, then snap.

It's not like that.

We are working up some ads here for a client. The ads will feature two generations working at a winery; the grandfather and the granddaughter. We'll put them in the vineyard. Don't worry. It will be nice. But the process is more demanding than you might think.

Today we scouted locations for the shoot. We needed a vineyard that would give us room to shoot, that would provide interest, though not so much to detract from the people, and we needed a location that allowed us to work between rows yet be able to have sun in the afternoon that was behind the subjects. In other words, we needed the perfectly placed vineyard.

So there we were. Me, the photographer, the graphic designer and the winery owner driving around 150 acres of vineyards in the morning. It was the only time we could get all of us together. But the problem is that we will be shooting in the late afternoon. So we had to guess, for now, at the angle of the sun. Four of us, standing in the vineyard, pointing into the sky.

It took about an hour before we narrowed it down to two possible sites.

I much prefer doing studio shots. There is much more control and manipulation of the subject possible. Also, you don't need 500 foot extension cords, generators, ladders or fork lifts. And, you aren't at the mercy of the weather or movement of the earth.

Let the Witch Hunting Begin

Jonathon Nossiter, Director of Mondovino, responds to his critics.

Turns out he finds me, accurately, to be one of them. (Good observation Mr. N.) Turns out he also finds me to be a member of the Witch Hunting Union.

America's Chardonnay Coup

It's not the 1976 Paris Tasting, but it sure is impressive.

Walter Schug's Schug Carneros Estate 2003 Carneros Chardonnay was the only American Chardonnay to win a gold medal at the recently completed "Chardonnay du Monde" wine competition in France. 1090 Chardonnays from across the globe were entered into the competition. Only 64 were awarded Golds.

Schug is a Carneros Pioneer. The man has been making wine for more than 50 vintages, beginning in his home country of Germany. At one point in the 1960s he was in charge of grower relations on the North Cost for Gallo. He then became the founding winemaker for Joseph Phelps in Napa where he created Insignia and was the first man in California to bottle a varietally labeled Syrah. He also made some of America's most stunning sweet wines in the 1970s.

He left Phelps to start his own winery, focusing on Carneros fruit. His passion is Pinot Noir, but clearly he has a hand with Chardonnay.

I don't usually give much thought to Gold Medals and such. But there are a few competitions out there that carry prestige. Chardonnay du Monde is one of them.

Read more about the Chardonnay Victory here.

Real Art for Real Wine Lovers

            
In the course of feeding your passion for wine you come across various "accessories" that you are told you must have in order to do it right: Corkscrews that look like animals, 2000-bottle freestanding cabinets, cute "wine charms". The list of wine accessories is mighty.

Then there is wine art. That weird genre in which landscapes and bottles are represented in normally very amateurish or cute ways.

But sometimes you come across an artist whose unique brush and clear mastery of technique combines with a passion for wine to create something quite stunning.

Leanne Laine is such an artist. I admit, her work appeals to me in large part due to the way she uses color and light. Though a portion of her work is happily focused on wine and that's why it is featured here at Fermentations, there is a dark, brooding, sensual quality to the way she gathers and blends color on her canvas that is striking, regardless of the subject matter.

Laine is a Canadian who got to art after a stint as a singer then time in the corporate world. She's one of those lucky ones who found her calling at a young age. The prices of both her original works as well as her prints are quite reasonable.

In the past I've been convinced that artworks representing your passions, such as wine, always seem a bit tacky to be hung on the wall of your home or office. The "wine works" I possess are prints of Willi Wine Bar Posters. They sit in my office. But I admit, I'm tired of them. Frankly, they are just a bit too happy. I never liked "happy"  looking art. Laine works in a broad range: celebratory, intimate, voyeuristic, abstract, whimsical, crude, spirited.

Her works can be found at her website and at her website as well as at this online store.

 

When Giants Fight

I tend to worry when to giants battle each other for the chance to be the savior of the little guy.

That's the spin that comes out of the Wholesaler and Big Retailer camps in a terrific Los Angeles Times article about the future of wholesaling and retailing wine.

The article details the desire of retailing giant Costco to overturn law in Washington State that prohibits it from purchasing wine directly from the producers. Instead, it is forced to buy from Wholesalers. Furthermore, wholesalers are, by law, forced to sell wine to all retailers at he same price and no credit may be extended.. This means, of course, that Costco can't get a discount on its wholesale purchases even though it tends to buy wine by the palate. They are challenging the Washington State laws saying they violate the Sherman Anti Trust Act.

Costco claims consumers are being screwed because they are forced to charge higher prices due to the laws. The wholesalers like the monopoly on sales just the way it is because, well, because who wouldn't like to have a monopoly on the sale of any product.

In fighting their now decade long battle to prevent any form of direct shipping of wine to consumers, the Wholesalers have always claimed that wineries just want to tear down the "three tier system" that is in place for getting wine from the producer, to the wholesaler, to the retailer, to the consumer. But the direct shipping movement has always been instigated by small, family-owned wineries and wine geeks who just want a more efficient way to do business together. If direct shipping were allowed everywhere tomorrow, the Wholesalers would lose business, but they'd still be among the most profitable entities in the wine business since most wineries would still use them to move the majority of the wine they sell, including the smaller vintners.

But Costco's fight: That is INDEED about tearing down the legally enforced Wholesaler Monopoly known as the three tier system...make no mistake.

Oddly, the official response to this attack on wholesaling is remarkably pitiful. Juanita Duggan, that chameleon of truth who is the Executive Director of the Wine & Spirits Wholesalers Association defended the work of the wholesaler this way:

"Alcohol has to be treated as a special product because when it is misused it causes devastating social consequences,"

Whatever.

A far better defense of the wholesale system comes from Wayne Chaplin, president of Southern Wine & Spirits and clearly someone who is able to say what he means and mean what he says rather than spout nonsense n a robotic, inane way:

"It is expensive to ship wine. It has to be stored properly, and there is a lot of cost savings by consolidating shipments and sending them in bulk."

He's right.

Both sides of the battle claim their victory will be good for wineries and producers. I'm not so sure. We've seen how power corrupts the wholesaling segment of the business. Just look at who they've decided they had to hire for their executive director to defend them during the direct shipping battle. On the other hand, putting so  much power in the hands of the big box retailers is something I'm not so sure is a good thing either.