Comments, Thoughts and Feedback from Gerald in the US (9 August)

 

Over the last twenty-four hours I received three emails on three different topics from Gerald at Weimax who is a well respected retailer in the US. Rather than interspersing them into a few different stories, some of which are a few weeks old (the US has been on summer holidays) I have put them together  in one Readers Comments page.  Gerald wrote....

 

I am amused by the letter to the sommelier story.

 

Years ago I was at a Napa Valley winery for dinner with some friends and their neighbours. A woman introduced me to her husband, saying "This guy was my fastest sales presentation.  I thought he was kind of rude, but now that I've been trying to sell wine for 6 months, I see he was the most honest, direct and, ultimately, polite."

 

She had come to our shop and opened her bottles.  All the wines were, to my taste, way out of balance.  Too much alcohol.  I told her she might have a chat with the grower of their Chardonnay and encourage him/her to better manage the vineyard.

 

"We grow our own Chardonnay."

 

Well, I told her the wines were not of interest and I felt they were unbalanced and over-priced.

 

In her travels, she'd met dozens of sommeliers and "buyers" for stores. She found many of them would say "Well, call me in a couple of weeks, I may have a slot for you."  And they would, once again, put her off.

 

"I'm so stupid and naive, I keep calling."

 

She found my honest response to her wine to be refreshing, even if the end result was  "no sale."

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Here in California, so many wineries view a shop such as ours as "competition," instead of as an "ambassador."

 

They all seem to prefer to sell wine to restaurants, even though these places come and go.

 

Many offer special, unpublished, "on sale" (restaurant) pricing. This is an extreme example, but a Napa Merlot costing stores $280/case was being offered to restaurants for $120/case.

 

I was the first or second customer of a prominent Napa winery back in 1973...I've been buying their wine regularly ever since, despite some arrogant and rude treatment by various sales representatives of this estate over the years. They are currently selling their wines through a major liquor distributor and they monitor the sales...micro-manage. I sold out of the 2005 Chardonnay and the distributor has the 2006. But I am told I cannot buy the 2006 since my "allocation" expired in late May of this year. The distributor was unaware of the allocation. They still have more than 130 cases available, but it's restricted to their more "prized" accounts.

 

Meanwhile, I'm told by a little birdie that the distributor is way behind in selling the Cabernet and Zinfandel of this producer.  "We'll never make our goals by the end of the year."

 

Does this make sense?

 

Does this occur in Australian wine marketing?  Do Aussie wineries prefer to sell directly to consumers? Do they undercut retailers with pricing?

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What got me looking at your site was to see if you had anything posted about the new line of wines called Robert Oatley (the guy that started Rosemount.)

I tasted them the other day and was amused to see they've got perfectly decent, if unexciting wines at normal prices...I guess they don't recall their success with Rosemount was good quality and below-the-market pricing from a new or emerging wine area (new to us, anyway)... They're $66 a 6pk wholesale, so $15-$18 retail. 

I read they sent $6 million worth of wine to the US. Wow...remarkably ambitious.

I received a press release and letter by snail mail...too bad they addressed it to our shop, but with the buyer's name as the owner of a nearby competitor! 

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Just was checking your web site a moment ago and read your wonderful exposé called "Cronyism."

I have a small stack of envelopes containing issues of The Wine Advocate which I have not opened.  For one, we do not "sell" wines based upon various reviewers...I know, it is foolish to be in the business of selling wines, and not using these supposedly reliable "third party" reviewers to move merchandise.  What a fool I am to try to establish my own credibility as a "wine merchant" who has a shop full of taste-tested (by me and my two colleagues) wines when I could simply load up on 90-point beauties.  (Here's a shop/wine bar that features only 90+ point wines...)

It is currently fashionable, it seems, to bash poor Mr. Parker for the huge wines being made all over the planet. 

There's actually a lovely book written by a New York woman (who was banned from the E-Robert Parker/Squires site) named Alice Feiring.

It's a lovely little book with a particular perspective...

Anyway, after seeing so many monster wines achieve huge scores and well-made, drinkable-from-the-top-of-the-bottle-to-the-bottom wines get modest reviews, I figure the time has come to stop "supporting" this sort of criticism.

I see all sorts of new, start up wine brands get huge scores and really fine, not-the-new-kids-on-the-block wineries get short shrift.

So, as a journalism school graduate, I was amused and dismayed to read your Cronyism article.  I have yet to open that issue of TWA, so I remain unaware.

But I can tell you I see the same curious stuff in Europe.  The famed Italian wine guide called "Gambero Rosso" is supposedly impartial.  But I began to worry about their objectivity a few years ago when, in one year's book, they mentioned the wines of a particular winery and referred to the manager by his nick-name. 
Other winemakers in the neighbourhood are referred to by more formal names.

In a way, it's a sort of style of writing that tips off some readers to the "look at how cool I am to know so-and-so, who's a celebrity..."

In attending the Alba Wines Exhibition in Piedmont last year, I was amused to dine one night with a couple of European journalists.  One was from Belgium and the other from Denmark.  The Belgian fellow was/is a real curmudgeon and said he could not possible be a friend of any winemaker.

"I have to be objective and be able to criticize their wines.  How can I be their friend?"

The Danish fellow, a lovely gentleman, said he had all sorts of winemaker friends and he could be very honest in criticizing their wines.

 
I could see both their perspectives, though I think I prefer the more stand-offish and impartial critic.

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There's a local web site featuring "consumer reviews" of businesses, restaurants, etc. The site is called Yelp.

Thankfully, reviews of our shop are good.  But they call me every few weeks wanting to discuss my appearance on their site and ways, for money, that can enhance my reviews or how they appear.

I politely tell the Yelp staffer I don't have the money to buy into their "advertising" program (these start at $150 a month and go on up from there). But I always wonder when I'll get a negative review and if it's posted by a competitor or the Yelp people posing as a consumer.

Here's a little story on the local TV of this sticky situation..

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And the attached missive is an e-mail I get from some outfit.  They always have seemingly high prices on the wines they offer at supposedly discounted pricing. They list XYZ as an affiliate of ABC wines, though  I do not believe they are affiliated. Here's a link to the price list for the XYZ brand and you'll see they  offer a $40 savings when buying from them, on a case of wine supposedly costing $240 from the winery, but the price list shows the winery actually sells their Syrah for $180 a case to private customers.

Please...if you cite this or make fun of this posting, don't use my name as a reference...I run into this individual from time to time and don't need to be tortured any more than I already am...(TORB: Names deleted to protect Gerald for Torture.)

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Also from the world of curious eno-journalism is a posting on a blog of a woman who's the Northern California editor of a "trade" publication.  They accept advertising and are a bit "for sale"...

She has an obscure blog and I found it one day.  Amusing is this posting about her tasting of the wines of the Vietti winery from Barolo:
 

She goes to the tasting and imbibes 6 wines...but judging from her write up, she must not "spit." She has these people as making their 40th vintage of Pinot Grigio (not much of this grape is cultivated by Barolo vintners) and she claims they single-handedly rescued Barbera from extinction (it was the Arneis grape they helped to revive)...

I'm not sure how you can call a 2004 vintage of Barolo as being "pale" or a sturdy, well-built single vineyard Barolo from 2004 as being "velvety."  But she does.

Oh well, everyone to their own taste. But pay a little bit of attention, please.

Hope all is well with you...
 

 

Feel free to submit your comments!

TORB Responds: Sunday 10 August

Hi Gerald,

 

Re your questions above. Most wineries who sell direct make sure they sell at full price to the end consumer. This is especially the the case with the bigger wineries. These guys don't want to upset their retailers. Its also important to realise that two companies (Woolworths and Coles) through a myriad of different branded retailers, sell over 50% of all the wine in Oz. Many knowledgeable consumers who visit cellar doors complain about the price at the winery versus the street price of the wine.  

 

At the other extreme, we have wineries that only sell to mailing list customers, but they are a tiny percentage. There are some small wineries that sell much/ most of their volume through cellar door, to their mailing list and direct to restaurants. These wineries, but there are very few of them, sell for less direct to the end consumer than retailers can. The example you outlined does happen here, but very rarely.     

 

 

Copyright © Ric Einstein 2007