What’s it All Mean?

There is a plethora of wine advertising. Every week numerous advertising offers are sent out by email by wine retailers; adverts are placed in newspapers and wineries send out newsletters. Many of these offers use the same old words, which in many cases are meaningless. Let’s examine some of hidden meaning behind some of them.

Award Winning Wine – Oh glory be! What a wonderful expression but what does it mean? Stuff all! To make this claim, all the wine has to have achieved is one bronze medal, even if it is from an insignificant, minor wine show where “every child wins a prize.”

Award Winning Wine Maker – Oh my, Oh my! This is even more meaningless than an award winning wine. Can you imagine any winemaker with any experience that has not had a medal awarded for at least one of the wines they have made?

James Halliday 4 or 5-star winery – Just because a winery is rated as 5-stars, doesn’t mean that it sometimes produces lesser wines.  

Boutique Wine/Winery – With over 2,000 producers in Australia today, the majority of them are by definition “boutique,” but many of them are turning out nondescript and/or over-priced wines that they have trouble selling.  Boutique should not to be confused with Cult Wine/Winery. The cult winery is usually one with high Parker scores, or a closed mailing list; sometimes that’s because the wines are very good, sometimes it’s because they appeal to RPJ and/or the US market.

Old Vines – Everyone loves the romantic idea of gnarled ancient vines with incredibly deep roots producing beautiful quality fruit with fantastic intensity and complexity. But what are old vines? Are they 15 years old, 25 years old, 50 years old or 100 years old? There is no formal definition so anyone can make that claim to even 12 year old vines.

Full-Bodied – Now this is an interesting one. From time to time, especially on back labels of bottles, wines are described as “full-bodied,” and whilst most people would agree what is full-bodied and what is medium-bodied, it does not stop wineries producing medium-weight wine and calling it full-bodied. I have even had wines that are verging on being light-weight being called full-bodied by wineries.  (Just look at some wines in the SIWC Top 100 “weight” classes.

Vintage of the Decade – Or a variation on this theme. When the 1998 vintage was released it was hailed as “the vintage of the decade.” The reality was that 1990, 1991 and 1996 were probably better vintages but they were long gone and the wineries had product to move, so another vintage of the decade was born. In all years, there are always great wines and shockers; the trick is to find the good wines from any year, rather than thinking that all wines from any particular vintage are great.

As Good as the Prior Vintage – We’ve sold out of the excellent X vintage, but we now offer the X+1 vintage at the same price; it’s just as good.  This may be true some times, but in many cases, it’s hard to believe.

Gold Medal/Trophy Winner – Recently I received a sample form a major producer that boasted the wine had won a gold medal at the China International Wine Show. Whoopee $hit! What does one gold medal from some obscure wine show mean? Nothing! It’s just advertising to try and give the wine credibility. However, if a wine has won a stack of gold medals, the chances are it is good.

Low cropping – If the grapes yield less than 2 tones per acre, everyone would agree that it is a low cropping level; the problem is that there is nothing stopping producers who crop at 4 tones to the acre making this claim.

XX Points – This is the most common and abused sales technique used by all in the supply chain and it takes many forms.

·         The least credible are retailers that use their own point rating system to promote wines. In many cases the points awarded are higher than many recognised systems and one can only wonder what relationship there is between points and potential profit, yet some retailers get away with it on a continual basis.

·         The second most common abuse is where retailers look for the single highest score and promote that score as the main selling feature of the wine.

·         The next worst are those that do the same thing with multiple scores, often leaving out any lesser scores , even from otherwise regularly quoted reviewers.

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Recently a beauty came to my attention. A Sydney retailer quoting a tasting note that was written by the proprietor of a Melbourne retailer (and attributed to the author) to advertise a particular wine. It shows just how desperate retailers are to find positive comment to help them sell wine.

·         Then we get into an area when things get reasonable. Some of the more ethical retailers will quote two or three, or even more tasting notes, with scores, to promote the wine. At least this gives the buyer a good picture of what is being sold. However even here buyers need to realise that they retailers obviously use the most attractive tasting notes. In one recent advert there were sixteen wines offered with multiple tasting notes on some of the wines, but they used nine different reviewers to ensure the highest scores were used. There was nothing less than 90 points and many were around 95.

Reserve – You just have to love this one! The classic is Jacobs Creek which has a Reserve Range that retails for less than $15. Whilst the range is better than the entry level range, and very drinkable for the price, the term “Reserve” at this level cheapens the term to the point of the term becoming almost meaningless. It no longer means it it’s a top wine; it just means there is a range/wine below it.

Premium - This is another beauty! What is a “premium” wine? Ask 20 people and you will get 20 different answers. Some regard premium wines at $15 and some at $45. Cask wine drinkers probably think it is wine that costs more than $5 a bottle.

Blue Gold Award – The Sydney International Wine Competition awards medals and trophies which are frequently quoted in advertising. Most people are not aware that these awards are given for how well a particular wine happens to match with a selected food dish, so it’s not all about wine, its all about a specific wine and food match.  

My Grapes went into Grange – This one is a beauty; every second man and his dog in South Aust claims to supply grapes that are used in Grange and it can go even further. I was recently informed that one maker claimed that that his old vines are from a part of the “Grange Vineyard” that Penfold's bean counters sold off as part of an across the board sale of vineyard holdings. The fact is that there is no “Grange Vineyard.” Penfolds use the best grapes they can find in any given vintage, be it from their own vineyards or from bought in grapes. Over the last 50 years many vineyards have supplied grapes for Grange, sometimes for only 1 or 2 vintages, but that does not stop growers/wineries letting everyone know that “they supply grapes for Grange,” even if it was only once and 15 years ago. Generally this claim is about as reliable as a gold medal from the Woolloomooloo International Show for Cask Wine.  

Value – This is one of the greatest misnomers of all time. What is value? There are some people are happy to pay $2,000 for a top year First Growth Bordeaux and think they are reasonable value whilst some people think that paying more than $9 for a bottle of wine is a waste. Each person has their own level of what represents value, so in many cases, a retailers idea of value may not align with yours.

On Special (or Weekly Specials, Monthly Specials, Internet/Online Specials etc.) - Sometimes these are genuine bargains, but often they are new release wines which are featured at normal prices (for that retailer) in the hope of moving stock before other, sharper prices appear.

20% off – This is one of the best of the lot! The question is 20% off what? Frequently the chains have 20% off when you purchase 6 bottles or more; but in many cases the reduced price is the same, or sometimes even more than you can find the same wine at an independent store.

Save 40%, 50%, 60%.  See above, always compared to some fanciful RRP, usually its not a recent or common street prices; this often applies to cleanskins when they are not allowed to mention the name of the winery; remainders, off-vintages, and stock not wanted after a takeover etc.

RRP (recommended retail price). Recently I received a retailers email stating "this a wine was retailing at $42.99" but their price was $22.50. That looked like bollocks so I rang the winery who said RRP was $26-$28. An email questioning the basis of for the claim was sent to the retailer who responded "when it was first released we were selling it at $42.99. Since them they have reduced the price 3 times in wholesale to bring it down to the current price." What this fails to mention is that the $43 price was the previous vintage. The same retailer quoted the list price on another wine at $25.99 but was reduced to $17.50. The retailer responded with "the price is based on wholesale price and the normal retail margin which gives it a retail around $25 and that is what we used and rounded up (to $25.99). Kemeny's and Auswine both state retail at $25."  The reality is that Wine-Search Pro shows a different story. Of the 15 retailers listed selling it, 7 of them have it for $18 or less, 11 are selling it for $20 or less (including both Kemeny's and Auswine). Vintage Cellars, who are not known for being cheap, have it at $23.99 and only one retailer is more expensive at $24.15, so the $25.99 is farfetched.

Stock Reduction Sale - this one (and a few of the others) came from Brian who said "I can't wait for the "Stock Increase" sale."

Members Price - I just received an email offering a certain McLaren Vale wine that was "Members price $48, Non members price $ 55 per bottle" but its available from the winery from $40 a bottle or from a Melbourne retailer,  who is not known for being inexpensive, for $45 a bottle (with free freight.) Groucho Marks  was right after all; I wouldn't even buy from places like these as a member, let alone as a non member.

Buy one, get one free – Often these offers are made for remainder stock and cleanskins that simply aren’t moving. Just because you “get one free” doesn’t mean its good, just that you get twice as much “stuff” – even if its rubbish.

Bonus beer, book, cork-extractor, bottle, magnum, decanter, glasses, steak knives, carry case, etc, etc.  The marketing guys are forever busy thinking of ways to think you are getting something for free when you buy a case of wine. Some of these can be good deals but often the books are almost out of date, the corkscrew worth very little etc. Look at the free item carefully and if you can’t get use out of it, its worth nothing!

Free Freight – i.e. freight-inclusive prices.  With some independent merchants this is the real deal; they have competitive prices and include freight to various areas, (Australia-wide in some instances.)  But some merchants offering Australia-wide delivery are often $2 or even more per bottle more expensive than their competitors, so it may be cheaper to pay the freight from another merchant with lower per bottle prices.

A Perfect Example - This example (thanks to Brian's research) shows just how much rubbish and how misleading advertising can be! Get Wines Direct is advertising a "Possums Shiraz 2003." It states, "Absolute stunner of a wine this wine was made for the US market where it was retailing for $US27.95 a bottle and has a link to a US site (not the cheapest one for this wine mind you,) but the US site is actually specialling it for $23.99 USD. (It's also available in Australia from another merchant for $19.95AUD.) More importantly, the 2004 vintage is selling in the US for half the price of the 2003. Having said all of that, the Get Wines Direct Price of $9.95 may be a good price, it's just disingenuous advertising as the US market prices have no relationship to those in Australia. It's typical of "creative advertising" and designed to make it look like consumers are getting a huge bargain (which is not always the case.)

Meaningless Waffle

There is so much of this it is hard to know where to start. Most of it is complete rubbish.

How about this one - “The fruit for this wine was sourced from a range of premium South Australian vineyards then vinified by traditional winemaking methods and matured for 24 months in small French and American oak casks”

What does it tell you?

“a range of premium South Australian vineyards” - means that it’s a South Aust regional blend; big deal.

“vinified by traditional winemaking methods” – means it has been made into wine; more of a big deal.

“matured for 24 months in small French and American oak casks” – means that it has seen oak, but so what? If it was new oak, the wine would be very different to old oak; it’s almost meaningless as it does not tell you if there is any real oak influence.

So, when reading wine advertising, it pays to ask yourself “what am I really being told about this offer.” It could help your purchasing decisions, especially with wine you have not tasted.

Feel free to submit your comments!