Category Archives: Wine Culture

Let’s Be Clear about Influencers in the Wine World

11 Monday Feb 2019

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wine influencerIf you spend much time around marketing types you can’t avoid the term “influencer”. Allegedly , it’s what all of us writers with social media accounts are striving to be. What is an influencer you might ask? Here is one definition from a website called the “influencer marketing hub”:

  • An influencer is an individual who has the power to affect purchase decisions of others because of his/her authority, knowledge, position or relationship with his/her audience.
  • An individual who has a following in a particular niche, which they actively engage with. The size of the following depends on the size of the niche.

So “influence” is specifically about influencing purchasing decisions. This definition is followed by some corporate-speak which is enough to make you gag:

It is important to note that these individuals are not simply marketing tools, but rather social relationship assets with which brands can collaborate to achieve their marketing objectives.

WTF. A “social relationship asset?” A “social relationship asset” that “brands can use to achieve marketing objectives” sounds pretty much like a “marketing tool”. We can shorten this to just “tool”—that is what you are if you’re an “influencer”. Marketers seem to think that people who write and post on social media have nothing better to do than promote their products. I can only speak for myself but I don’t want to be anyone’s “asset”.

I seriously doubt that, in the wine world, bloggers, tweeters and Instagrammers are influencers as defined here. Former wine retailer Amber Lebeau wrote a post about this recently and I think she’s exactly right:

In over seven years working on the floor, I’ve never had a customer come in with a blog post, Instagram or tweet on their phone looking for a wine. Again, anecdotal, but that is the stark truth.

Amber goes on to list several types of people who do influence purchase decisions—friends and family, somms and restaurant by-the-glass programs, visits to wineries, and published media among others. Among writers, the large circulation wine magazines such as Wine Spectator and newsletters such as the Wine Advocate or Jancis Robinson’s Purple Pages apparently have some influence. But this is a very small group whose words actually induce people to make specific purchases. The rest of us are doing something else.

The problem here is a conceptual problem. The concept of an “influencer” tries to shoehorn something as complex and multifaceted as human communication into a narrowly focused activity with a clear, instrumental payoff such as a “purchasing decision”. Wine writers, bloggers, Twitter publishers, and Instagrammers are first and foremost communicators. What they do is create discourse. They transmit information of all sorts, entertain, instruct, mark discoveries, give commands, cajole, mimic or confuse. They articulate, reinforce or undermine values, and most importantly, they establish connections, passageways that people can use to conduct life.

All of this communication is about influence of some sort—it changes minds, provokes emotion, motivates action. Purchasing decisions are only a very small part of this.

We create discourse because communities need communication to survive and individuals need connections to be, well, connected.  As writers we aren’t assets for individual wineries but web spinners and mesh makers, establishing connections, showing relationships, forging alliances, creating concepts of good and bad. It’s about establishing the background conditions that allow some wines to emerge as desirable.

If you want a handy marketing term to hang this on then think of it as creating “buzz”—a time worn term but still accurate.If no one is talking about your wine then it’s unlikely to be successful.

Once you instrumentalize this important work and reduce it to a purchase decision it no longer functions effectively as communication and begins to lose its community function. It’s purpose is directed away from its core function. Communication and the maintenance of discourse is not something that can be easily measured and thus will never appear to be cost effective. To insist that it must is to measure it according to a standard it cannot meet which will destroy it.

If you want a vibrant wine community we should put this concept of “influencer” in its proper place.

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Americans Loved Their “Bum Wine”

06 Wednesday Feb 2019

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bum wineI commented recently on how conservative and tradition-bound wine is. Wine is about nuance not large changes or dramatic shifts in style.

Nevertheless, sometimes wine styles change, often massively. One example of a massive change in taste took place in the U.S. in the decades following WWII, where in the course of about twenty years American wine consumers changed their preference from sweet wine to dry.

In the 1950’s and 60’s 70% of the wine sold in the U.S. was cheap, sweet and alcoholic. Yet, by 1978, 70% of the wine sold in the U.S. was dry or relatively dry table wine.

How did such a revolution in taste occur in such a relatively short period of time?

The short answer is we imported French traditions, spurred by improved transportation to Europe for American vacationers and soldiers returning from Europe who gained a taste for French wine and food.

I’m working on a longer essay detailing how and why American tastes changed. In researching what most Americans were drinking in the 1950’s and 60’s I came across some old friends—Thunderbird, Ripple, Richard’s Wild Irish Rose. Remember those?

I would like to say the memories were fond but these wines weren’t for making memories.

People called it “bum wine” because it’s what the winos drank. But really there were a lot of respectable people whose Saturday night tipple was soda pop with a monster kick.

Wine is a Peculiar Pursuit

04 Monday Feb 2019

Posted by in Philosophy of Food and Wine, Wine Culture

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magniying glassThe wine world is an interesting amalgam of small but meaningful variations within a context of relative stability. Most major wine styles are embedded in traditions that go back hundreds of years and are still vibrant today. The weather is an agent of change as is the genetic instability of grapes.  New varietals are continually introduced,new wine regions emerge, and new technologies and methods are developed, but these are minor deviations from a core concept that seems immune to radical change. There are, after all, only so many ways to ferment grape juice. Red and white still wine, sparkling wine, and fortified wine have been around for centuries and are still the main wine styles on offer. Every wine we drink is a minor modification on those major themes.

And so as wine lovers we revel in nuance. We find minute shifts in aromatic expression worthy of deep thought. A slight zing of extra acidity or an elegant softening of hard tannins is worth hundreds of dollars. We debate whether an increase of .5% alcohol has thrown a wine completely out of balance. In no other dimension of life is so much made of so little.

Perhaps that is part of wine’s appeal. Wine is not loud, not extreme, not intrusive or monumental. It is demanding but inconsequential. A very peculiar pursuit.

What about the Vineyard?

30 Wednesday Jan 2019

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prine ridge tasting roomAs this article in Decanter about the changing character of tasting rooms points out, wine is no longer only about what’s in the glass. Wine is a symbol of the good life, la dolce vita or la belle vie depending on your affectation.

The old idea of just tasting as much as you can, at as many wineries as possible, has given way to consumer desire for a way to immerse yourself in romanticised aspects of the wine-country lifestyle.

That world in which wine tasting was a matter of “tasting as much as you can, at as many wineries as possible” is a world well lost.
But, of course, what each of us thinks is a “good life” differs and so wineries are all in on creating a tasting room experience that resonates with their brand image.

The decor of some reinforces the idea of wine as an expensive luxury, while many smaller producers have opened urban spaces in downtown Napa, Sonoma and Healdsburg designed to express their winery’s ‘personality’…

Others opt for hands-on activities or a casual nature vibe to pull in millennials.

This is a good development I think. It helps wineries with their bottom line which, it is to be hoped, they will invest in wine quality. It makes wine less of a commodity by giving people a personal connection with the wine they drink and boosts direct-to-consumer sales—surely a better wine experience than what you find at the supermarket.  And it’s the only way many talented winemakers, who don’t have a vineyard or winery set up for receiving visitors, can flourish.

The down side, however, is that in striving for “personality”, “activities” and downtown tasting rooms, we lose connection with the vineyard and the region. There are few places more pleasant than a winery but it’s the gently sloping hills covered in vines, old stone walls, and rusting farm equipment that make it so. If the connection with the growing of grapes is replaced by “experiences” and “activities” we will lose something essential to the wine experience.

And if wineries are selling lifestyle or experiences how many will continue their dedication to wine quality? (if they have it to begin with) If it’s not just about the wine, I worry that the wine will take a back seat.

At least in the days of standing around an old barrel covered with bottles using a floor drain for a dump bucket, it really was about the wine—there was nothing else for it to be.

Misunderstanding Biodynamics

28 Monday Jan 2019

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cowhornBiodynamics is a rapidly growing method for farming wine grapes, although it is still a small part of total production with less than 11,000 hectares of certified vineyards world wide as of 2017. Essentially it involves viewing the farm as an integrated ecosystem, focusing especially on soil health using homeopathic preparations, and with all vineyard operations regulated by the celestial calendar and phases of the moon.

Yet it has a reputation for being flakey, weird, and unsupported by science. The science behind it is still a work in progress. But many experienced and talented winemakers—from Littorai’s Ted Lemon to Tomas Duroux at Margaux’s Chateau Palmer–are committed to it, so it’s anything but flakey. Weird? Well yes it is. But some of that weirdness comes from misunderstandings about biodynamic processes that look less “weird” when the details are understood.

Craig Camp of Oregon’s Troon Vineyards is one of those talented winemakers committed to biodynamics. His recent post entitled “Biodynamic Fake News” goes a long way toward setting aside some of those misconceptions. His entire post is worth a read but here are the highlights.

— Cow horns filled with manure are not buried throughout the vineyard. They are a container for fermenting manure which is then used to make a preparation applied to humus to increase available phosphorus and stimulate the microbiome. (Micro-organisms in the soil. )

–Moon phases are only one factor in determining the timing of activities in the vineyard and are not rigidly adhered to if weather or other factors must take precedence.

–Neither raw manure nor unusual plants such as yarrow and nettle are directly distributed throughout the vineyard. They are fermented and added to compost which is then distributed in the soil to enhance the microbiome.

–The calendar for winetasting is not a required part of the Demeter certification and may or may not have validity.

There is much more in the original post. But what is evident from Craig’s account is that the treatments of the compost are largely about enhancing the micro-organisms in the soil. There is considerable science that is beginning to show the influence of the microbiome on terroir and wine quality. The scientific credentials of biodynamics may in the end be vindicated by this research.

The “mystical” dimensions of biodynamics are not central to its practice and should not be used to dismiss it as nonsense.

What Do You Sell When You Sell Wine?

24 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Contemporary Food Culture, Philosophy of Food and Wine, Wine Culture

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vineyard-3619525_960_720The form of the question suggests that wine is more than wine, more than an alcoholic beverage.  In thinking about the problem of slowing growth in the wine trade and questions about who is buying, who isn’t, and how wineries ought to respond to market conditions, it occurred to me that we can’t answer these questions unless we pay attention to the many things that wine is.

For many people, perhaps the majority of wine drinkers, wine is a commodity, an alcoholic beverage alongside other alcoholic beverages, that is affordable, pleasing to consume and will get you buzzed enough to relax. For others, the pleasant taste and alcohol is a stimulus to conviviality and good cheer, something you drink at parties to encourage a particular kind of social interaction. For these consumers, (call them “buzz babies”), much of what they are trying to accomplish can be achieved via other beverages. One might have a preference for wine over beer or vice versa but substitution is usually an option. And for this consumer price really matters. Alcohol is alcohol and as long as your threshold of drinkability is met, you’re not going to pay more.

But for others, wine is primarily an accompaniment for food. It enhances a meal and the meal feels incomplete without it. The effects of the alcohol matter as well but it’s the food enhancement that distinguishes a good experience from a mediocre one. This consumer (let’s call them “food freaks”) even when looking for an everyday, hassle free experience, will be more selective than the buzz babies. Particular meals will require particular wines. and not just any wine will do. And of course for some interested in food enhancement, choice of wine becomes a carefully managed puzzle to get the pairing just right. For food freaks, substitutability of one type of alcohol for another may not be possible. Although there are foods that go well with beer or spirits, and cocktails can sometimes be precisely calibrated to dishes, wine is widely acknowledged to be the superior food accompaniment. For food freaks, they may be willing to pay more for a bottle because they must be more selective, and a poor choice can have a negative impact on the food.

The next step up on the wine chain is the “casual connoisseur”. She enjoys the alcohol and food enhancement but also enjoys learning a bit about wine, will go to wineries regularly because she enjoys the winery experience, and may join a wine club. She is known to sip wine just to appreciate the flavors, aromas, and textures. There is no substitute for wine for the casual connoisseur, and although not into wine enough to spend big bucks she will splurge on occasion just to enjoy the experience.

The casual connoisseur however is also prone to suddenly falling head over heels for wine and transforming into the “compulsive connoisseur”. This person will study tomes devoted to obscure Italian wine regions, track down rare vintages for which she mortgages the house, and practices blind tasting with vials of synthesized aromas. Vacations are more accurately described as pilgrimages. (Most of you reading this blog will recognize the type). Price sensitivity is determined solely by the size of the bank account and the only substitute for a wine will be a better wine.

Then finally there is the status seeker who buys wine in order to display wealth or cultural capital. Price is not an obstacle but is the point of the purchase.

My point is that wine markets include a lot of diversity and on questions such as ability to raise prices, the profitability of direct-to-consumer sales, and strategies for increasing sales will depend on the category your customers occupy.

Yet operating behind the scenes for most of these wine consumers is a particular image of wine that subtly influences purchases. This image has at least three inter-related components.

1. Wine is a symbol of refinement. It is a beverage that aspires to elegance and requires the recognition of nuances in order to appreciate it. Wine is also typically consumed in contexts where there is an expectation of good behavior and respectful conduct.

2. Wine is  symbol of the sweet life of conviviality, good food, and good taste–a simple life of everyday pleasures where the benefits of community and romance are acknowledged and acted upon as a matter of routine.

3. Wine is an expression of place. Artisanal wines are rooted in the geography and culture of a particular people and are an expression of their sensibility.

When you sell wine you are selling the image of wine as well. Discussions of the future of the wine industry, prospects for growth, and strategies for overcoming obstacles have to take this image into consideration. Strategies that undermine this image are unlikely to be successful.

For more on the philosophy of wine visit my Monday Column archives at Three Quarks Daily

Are We Prematurely Panicking about Selling Wine to Millennials?

23 Wednesday Jan 2019

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millennialsThe Internet is abuzz with discussions about the latest report from Rob McMillan of the Silicon Valley Bank on the current financial state of the wine industry. According to the most recent data, baby boomers are aging out of the wine market and millennials, short of cash and more focused on cannabis, cocktails and beer, aren’t picking up the slack. The result is slowing growth rates for wine consumption in the U.S. The worry is that millennials (age 22-37) are turned off by wine and its sometimes stuffy image signaling a long-term trend that will harm the industry.

No doubt wineries face an immediate problem if consumption is slowing. But I’m wondering if it is realistic to expect millennial consumption to be the solution.

I doubt that wine has ever been the drink of choice for most young people. It’s expensive and less efficient as an alcoholic delivery system than beer or spirits. Cheap wine is one dimensional and not very interesting. Yet appreciation of better quality wines is not only expensive but requires some experience, education and appreciation of nuance. Wine’s charms are often best appreciated with fine food consumed at a slower pace, and it’s a symbol of the good life and for some people elevated social status.  In other words, the wine experience is more likely to appeal to people as they mature.

This is not to say that wine can’t appeal to young people. Only that as a statistical generalization it is less likely to appeal to them. The median age of the millennial cohort is about  29 years old. That’s a bit young to be jumping wholeheartedly into wine.

The wine industry for the past few decades has enjoyed rapid growth largely supported by baby boomers. Yet the baby boomer generation got a late start in appreciating wine. I didn’t have a lot of time to dig for data today so I couldn’t find an analysis of how much wine was consumed by baby boomers when their median age was 29. Buy I’m quite sure their consumption was meager.

The baby boom generation today is aged 54-72 so they were born between 1947 and 1965. The median boomer was born in 1956 and so she was 29 years old in 1985. It is highly unlikely that 29 year old was supping much Chardonnay.

Why? Well, we know that in the 1980’s alcohol consumption, including consumption of wine, was plummeting. These were the Reagan years, “Just Say No to Drugs” was  the message, and hedonism wasn’t on the table. All of that changed in 1991 when 60 Minutes aired an episode on the French paradox—the French were notorious wine drinkers with a diet high in fat and cholesterol yet they enjoyed low rates of coronary disease. The hypothesis was that red wine was the source of their good health. (It probably wasn’t the cause but it was a good story)

As you might imagine, the French wine industry promoted the hell out of this story, rates of wine consumption skyrocketed even while alcohol consumption continued to diminish, and the rest as they say is history. Obviously, we cannot draw secure conclusions from one historical case. But it does show that 29 year old behavior is not destiny. The boomers were late to the party but when they arrived it became a celebration.

What seems stuffy at 29 can seem exciting at 35. When I was 29 I believed you couldn’t trust anyone over 30. It’s funny how that changed overnight.

There is little reason to think millennials–who after all pursue experiences rather than things, love to travel, and have already shown an interest in authentic food–will not embrace wine when they become more settled. That is, unless the neo-prohibitionists persuade them otherwise.

 

To Attract Millennials Try Offering Real Value

21 Monday Jan 2019

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sticker shockBusiness of wine guru Rob McMIllan, founder of Silicon Valley Bank, published his annual summary of the state of the U.S. wine business last week. Despite record breaking sales capping off many years of steady growth, according to the report, the rate of growth is slowing and the future looks challenging. The basic problem:

Baby boomers, who control 70 percent of US discretionary income and half of the net worth in the US, are moving into retirement and declining in both their numbers and per capita consumption.

and:

Millennials aren’t yet embracing wine consumption as many had predicted. Damaged financial capacity is a major contributor, but cannabis legalization is another factor explaining their slow adoption of wine.

Recent negative reports about wine and health, consolidation of distributors making it difficult for some wineries to find a market, the continued emergence of Big Box stores’ private labels, and the increasing cost and declining supply of labor are among the additional factors dragging down growth rates.

But the main issue is aging baby boomers and disinterested millennials, who seem to be embracing craft beer, cocktails and cannabis rather than wine. The Great Recession of 2008 delayed the career prospects of the millennial generation just as they were entering the job market. That loss of income and job experience, coupled with massive student debt and expensive housing in urban areas, will limit their disposable income for many years thus creating strong headwinds for sales of premium wine.

That trend runs up against the pricing strategies that wineries have been using the past few years. Consumers have shown they are willing to pay a bit more for a bottle of wine. Sales of wine under $10 have been flat or negative for some time, while sales have increased in the premium market. So what did wineries and retailers do? They raised their prices without necessarily improving quality. The wine that used to cost $8 now might cost you $12-$15. Of course, not every winery was able to raise prices but enough of them had sufficient market clout to do so and the strategy acquired a name—premiumization.

But that doesn’t seem like a wise strategy if you’re trying to sell wine to cash-strapped millennials. Might that have something to do with their reluctance to embrace wine? $15 is a lot of money to pay for the simple, sugary cough syrup that the big distributors are putting on supermarket shelves. Allegedly, millennials are into experiences rather than things. The only experience many so called premium wines offer is boredom.

Rob McMillan predicts premiumization has run its course and wineries will struggle to raise prices. A return to real value might be a good idea if it’s not too late.

Objectivity and Loving Attention

17 Thursday Jan 2019

Posted by in Philosophy of Food and Wine, Wine Culture

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wine taster 2The key to objectivity, for human beings not gods, is attending to an object for what it is, as something that demands I approach it with discipline. For instance, a difficult piece of music demands of a pianist who wants to master it that she pay attention to each nuance rather than skip over or modify the difficult passages. She allows the object to guide what she does and how she approaches it. She has desires and interests but puts them aside for the moment and allows the object to dictate her standards for acting.

Wine tasting is no different. When evaluating a wine, the first question is not “do you like it?” Instead the questions are “what is this wine about?” Where did it come from? What are the full range of properties it exhibits?”

Those who claim that wine tasting is subjective don’t like this kind of response to skepticism. They ask “How can you be certain you’re not being influenced by unconscious desires or influence?”

Well, you can’t be certain about anything. Why does certainty matter so much to you? The skeptic about objectivity wants a foolproof method, a logical certainty, that we have real contact with the world and is disappointed when none can be supplied. But that demand is misplaced.

It’s perfectly possible for us to achieve a robust connection to objects in the world. But the connection is not a logical achievement. It’s an ethical achievement, the product of discipline, knowledge, self-reflection and a kind of steadfast attention associated with love. These are human scale qualities and it’s all we have.

Often they are sufficient.

For more on the philosophy of wine visit my Monday Column archives at Three Quarks Daily

Ga Ga Over Glou Glou—Yes It’s Baby Talk

14 Monday Jan 2019

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person chuggingFrom “terroir” to élevage” to “sommelier”, the French have given us a wonderful vocabulary for denoting various elements in wine production and consumption. Their most recent linguistic import, despite the onomatopoeia, will hopefully have less long term significance.

You may not have heard the phrase glou-glou yet. It hasn’t quite hit the mainstream although it’s common in natural wine circles. Roughly translated, it means glug-glug mimicking the sound liquid makes when you chug it down your throat. It has come to refer to wines that are so refreshing you want to grab the bottle and keep drinking. It’s the hip version of porch pounder and among some natural wine aficionados, it’s become almost talismanic. Here are just a few encomia to the glories of glou-glou:

From Helen Johannesen, who owns the LA bottle shop Helen’s Wines:

It’s easy; it’s casual; it’s a vin de soif,” she said. “You’re not going to be swirling it in your glass over three hours trying to extract the tasting notes … It’s also a vibe—like: It’s a party! It’s cool! Life is for the living! (She said “living” in a Frenchy way.)

From Italian winemaker Stefano Bellotti:

So I decided, instead of making serious wine, I just wanted to make wine. Wine to drink. I make a red and a white. It worked out really well because instead of making wines that you have to intellectualize, I’ve also produced ones that just win you over, a wine you don’t think about, that you take great pleasure in drinking. You don’t need to worry what about the region or the varietal or the nose or whatever. When you do this you are intellectualizing wine, and wine doesn’t give a shit about being intellectual. So it’s “Simply” red or white: you bring them to the table and you don’t think about it, you just drink it. That’s it.

Summing up the general tenor, Louis Dressner finds this gem of hyperbole:

It’s more than just drinking. It’s a lifestyle.” said some bearded hipster.

It sounds like someone’s been drinking the adult Kool-Aid.

There are many methods for preserving freshness and fruitiness in wine. Glou-glou specifically refers to the use of carbonic or semi-carbonic maceration in which whole grapes are fermented in a carbon dioxide environment that allows the juice to ferment while still inside the berry. The result is a very juicy wine with low tannins. This is the method of fermentation that gives the wines of Beaujolais their distinctive bubblegum and banana aromas, which finds its most sublimely ridiculous expression in the cheaply made, expensively marketed, insipid Beaujolais Nouveau.

That this has become the cause célèbre of the natural wine movement is a shame.

Wine is of course many things. One of those things is a simple, inexpensive thirst quencher that we can drink while relaxing or occupied with other tasks. There is always room for this sort of wine and glou glou wines are more interesting and drinkable than most of the plonk you find at the supermarket.

But that is not all wine is. Wine is also a deeply complex, fascinating intellectual terrain as well as the source of great beauty, and an emotional lure connecting us to the land, the community, and to history. Anyone who thinks the future of wine lies in wiping out those deep resources in favor of weeknight chug-a-lug fundamentally misunderstands the scope of wine’s attractions. The glou glou wine style has a place; the excitement surrounding it is just juvenile.

As Simon Woolf, an expert on natural wines wrote recently:

Glou-glou dumbs wine down. Our thirst for juice light and bright with not a tannin in sight is being quenched at the expense of other qualities. Why should a winemaker sweat about structure when what’s most prized is fluidity? How many natural wine drinkers still care about longevity? How many importers or bars have the sitzfleisch to lay wine down? Why would they bother? When a market thirsts for something juicy and new and asks no questions (“don’t think” is another tenant of glou) such as whether a wine might be better given a year or two, what the market gets is you-know-who.

I’ve been drinking a good deal of natural wine lately and have visited several winemakers devoted to making wines that minimize interventions in the winery. I only occasionally come across a wine that I would describe as glou-glou. Thankfully, not everyone is on board the glou glou craze.

Natural wine is a fascinating and promising area of wine production driven by sound ethical and environmental principles as well as a search for distinctive flavors and vineyard expressions. If it is taken over by this simple minded pursuit of simplicity it will become just another passing fad attractive to only those unserious about wine. That is neither aesthetically inspiring nor a wise business strategy.

For more on the philosophy of wine visit my Monday Column archives at Three Quarks Daily