Kendall-Jackson Humanizes Their Brand

It’s rare when network TV and wine come together but when it does I take a look. I’m not a regular viewer of Undercover Boss but might be after this episode at Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates. New President Rick Tigner works at the bottom of this organization and learns a lot. And he does the right [...]

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TMiW 2 ? The Tastes They Are A-Changin?

Jeff Lefevere and I return to review the top wine stories of the past month including tongue-twisting wine names, a disturbing wine manifesto, trends in wine marketing, the stellar 2009 Bordeaux vintage and much more. Hosts: Tim Elliott and Jeff Lefevere Topics If the wine is hard to pronounce, is it worth more? Has wine [...]

TMiW 2 – The Tastes They Are A-Changin’ originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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Marie Antoinette mirror from Boca Do Lobo resembles the mirror used in the Palace of Versailles

Are you aware of your true beauty, hidden behind your body and soul? If you want to see that real beauty, take a look at the reflection of your body on this Marie Antoinette mirror which is an exclusive piece made by the brand luxury house of home décor, Boca Do Lobo. This exquisite mirror [...]

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Oregon Pinot Noir from Sineann

Peter Rosback is one of the most well-known and well-respected winemakers in the Pacific Northwest. Rosback got his start in winemaking in 1985 as a home winemaker experimenting with Pinot Noir. In 1986, he began making Old Vine Zinfandel from The Pines Vineyard. Rosback entered the wine business commercially in 1994 when he and David [...]

Oregon Pinot Noir from Sineann was originally posted on Wine Peeps. Wine Peeps - Your link to great QPR wines from Washington State and beyond.

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No one wants to watch wine movies

Ok, so I got your attention. I’m sure some of you came racing over here to tell me I’m wrong. Sideways, Mondovino, A Good Year, French Kiss, and more … so many good, and not so good, films that speak of wine. I’m not here to debate the quality and accuracy of the films, but [...]

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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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Social Connections are still about people not stats

Small world story; as I walked towards my local coffee and sandwich shop, St. Davids in Forest Hill, I got an email to say my Foursquare mayorship had been lost to another user. I didn’t know this lady, but I have to admit I felt slightly affronted than I should lose this title, despite it [...]

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