Three from Stepping Stone by Cornerstone

My first impulse in filing this report was to preface my notes by saying that the wines from Cornerstone Cellars just keep getting better and better. Then, I looked at our report from last January and noticed that I said the same thing then. At least my impressions are consistent. The truth of the matter [...]

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Berlin Tasting in Copenhagen

Berlin Tasting in Copenhagen" might sound a little confusing? However the Berlin Tasting is a reference to a famous tasting held in Berlin the January 23. 2004. It was held by the Chilean wine producer Eduardo Chadwick from Errazuriz and he had invited 66 wine journalists from all over Europe to taste the best Chadwick wines from Chile against the supernames from Bordeaux and Tuscany. 16 wines were tasted from the vintages 2000 and 2001, among them 2000 Chateau Latour, 2000 Chateau Lafite and 2000 Chateau Margaux.

Source: http://www.wine4freaks.com/37/berlin-tasting-in-copenhagen/

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WBW 76: Barossa Boomerang

Not too long ago I drank quite a bit of Australian wine, particularly Shiraz. Given that this grape, also known as Syrah, expresses greatness in the Barossa Valley I could not pass an opportunity to revisit this region for this months’ Wine Blogging Wednesday. Our host, Adam from Wine Zag, proposed we look for any [...]

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Indonesian Luxury at Four Seasons Sayan Bali

Cuddling under the protection of the Ayung River and surrounded by beautiful lotus pools, Four Seasons Sayan Bali is a luxurious enclave in the jungle setting of Bali where guests are offered a natural lifestyle in the midst of the fresh moist air. Uncompromised luxury and untouched nature mix up to give a peaceful and [...]

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Viognier Theme for WBW78

Nice theme for summer. Join us June 20th. Source: WordPress Via: Drink What You Like I?m delighted to announce that I am hosting Wine Blogging Wednesday #78 on Wednesday, June 20th. WBW78 will mark my second time hosting this monthly virtual wine event. Our theme for this month will be a grape that is near [...]

Viognier Theme for WBW78 originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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Field Notes from a Wine Life ? Cover Story Edition

Odds and ends from a life lived through the prism of the wine glass…

The Wine Spectator Affect

When I received my November 15th issue of Wine Spectator on October 11th, featuring a cover shot of Tim Mondavi and an feature article on him and his estate winery Continuum, I captured some online research reference points so I could have a baseline to measure the effect that a flattering Wine Spectator cover story might have on a winery in the digital age.

Using Wine-Searcher, CellarTracker and Google Keywords search data to track various data points, the results, while not directly linked to conclusions, do indicate a small bump in interest as a result of the cover piece.

For example, Wine-Searcher data indicates that the average bottle price, an indicator of supply and demand, rose $2 month over month, from $149 a bottle to $151 a bottle.

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In addition, the Wine-Searcher search rank (always a month behind) indicates that Continuum was the 1360th most popular search in September.  By Friday, November 11th the Continuum search rank had increased to 471st for the month of October. (See the top 100 searches for October here).

Likewise, interest at CellarTracker increased, as well.  The number of bottles in inventory from October 11th to November 11th increased by 177 bottles, likely no small coincidence.

Finally, Google searches increased fivefold from an average of 210 monthly searches to approximately 1000 monthly searches.

What does this all mean?  Good question.  The truth is, a Wine Spectator cover appears to have moved the needle a bit, and while the easy route is to take a righteous Eeyore approach to mainstream media and its blunted impact in the Aughts, as contrasted to what a Spectator cover feature or glowing words from Parker meant just a decade ago, I believe a more tangible takeaway is to realize that these sorts of cover stories don’t happen in a vacuum and that Wine Spectator cover and feature was likely a result of weeks, months or even years’ worth of effort from a PR professional.

In an attention-deficit, social media-impacted, offline/online hybrid world of information consumption with mobile and tablets proliferating, in order to break through to (and ultimately assist) the consumer, the value of the PR professional, an oft neglected part of the marketing hierarchy, in reaching out and facilitating the telling of a winery’s story seems to be more important than ever.

It’s not about press releases, it’s about people supporting and telling the winery story, repeatedly, as a professional function – that leads to media notice, and that leads to 14 cases of wine being sold and inventoried at CellarTracker in a 30-day period of time.  It’s perhaps obvious, but not adhered to.

Wine Labels

To me, a wine bottle is a blank canvas that can either inspire in its creativity or repel in its insipidness.  While I have a reasonably conservative approach to the kinds of wine I want to drink relative to technological intervention, I am unabashedly progressive when it comes to the kind of wine labels that appeal to me.  In support of my interest with wine packaging, I keep an eye on The Dieline wine blog to see what’s happening in wine label design (another example from The Coolist here) and I also pay attention to the burgeoning field of wine label design contests. 

What say you about progressive labels?  Like ‘em?  Loathe them?  I placed a poll to the right.

Below is a slide show of winners from the recent International Wine Label Design competition.

Reconciling the Contradiction

I will lobby the nominating committee of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences on behalf of anybody who can help me understand how it is that in the span of a week I can see multiple research reports (here and here) on a revived sense of fiscal austerity by consumers yet other reports (here and here) indicate that wine above $20 is the fastest growing segment this year.

These two clearly don’t jive with each other, yet I’m witless to understand why wine is “trading up.”  Help! 

 

Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/field_notes_from_a_wine_life_cover_story_edition/

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Kurniawan house photos

The Justice Department filed some photos in their wine counterfeiting case against Rudy Kurniawan. Don Cornwell, a collector and attorney who has been actively following the goings-on, posts the six pictures that the government filed in their latest brief to rebuff Kurniawan’s claim that they entered his house illegally. While the stacks of boxes, packed [...]

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