In Steve Heimoff’s most recent post regarding the controversy surrounding Robert Parker’s independent consultants (you can read the Wall Street Journal article on it here) he writes these words:

Look, folks. Every wine writer with any influence or connections has partaken of gourmet meals for free. Every wine writer with any influence or connections has been hosted, or limo’ed, or accommodated, by his or her hosts, to some degree, and at one time or another. I have, and so has each critic I’ve ever known — because over the years I’ve run into them at the same feasts, in the same hotels, at the same festivals whose entry fees were waived for members of the media. I don’t know Dr. Vino personally; perhaps he is that rare bird, a wine writer and critic who has never taken a dime from a winery or winery organization. If that is so, he must be independently wealthy, which few wine writers are.

In response I worte this comment. Looking at it after I hit submit, I was dismayed at some grammatical mis-steps, and missing words (my wife copy edits all my posts). Also it’s important enough that I wanted to reproduce my thoughts here on my blog.

Nice post Steve.

I fault no critic for taking free meals, free private jet rides, free admission and free lodging. I have no problem with reviewers tasting wines non-blind while on junkets and then scoring them. You folks have to eat after all, and you need a ride to get there. Why not do it in style?

While I don’t condemn Parker for what’s happened, I am extremely pleased at recent events.

Why? Because it has given me the perfect opportunity to convince key influencers to stop comparing themselves to the pseudo high standards set forth by Parker in the WA and in his books.

Citizen reviewers on Twitter, blogs, cellar tracker and vinfolio should all be viewing themselves as mini Kermit Lynchs, not mini Robert Parkers.

The same way that bloggers can post affiliate links to books that they review and earn a commission from Amazon, I believe that bloggers and others in social media should be able to post links for others to purchase the wines that they review and earn a set dollar commission.

Further, I believe those links should go straight to the winery’s website. Reviewers should acknowledge the fact that they are earning a commission. They should also be paid handsomely for it, because they are the channel of the future.

It’s transformational. Imagine social media links on multiple platforms all driving recommendations and reviews right to the source, to where the wine is made. All done transparently. All done ethically.

How? As you point out, credibility is earned and folks must take critics on their word. They won’t read you if they don’t trust you.

The same logic applies to citizen reviewers. And if they disclose that they are getting paid if you click a link after a good review, there can be no conflict of interest. Why? Because if their readers begin to sense that they are giving wines that they earn money from good reviews simply to earn a comission, they will stop clicking those links. They will stop trusting those reviews. No readership, no trust, no revenue.

The system is self policing. This disperse channel will coalesce, and it will be the most transformational event in wine since the repeal of prohibition.

These are exciting times. And we will have Parker, Jancis, and you Steve to thank for helping speed its arrival with your candor.

Agree? Disagree? This was not tongue in cheek stuff. I mean it. And while some conservative wineries may question the legality of affiliate links, I am firmly in the camp that believes that set cash commissions for affiliate sales though links does not endanger a winery’s license.

And as for the ethical questions: to use Heimoff’s term, it truly is a tempest in a tea cup.

Congrats to Mary Baker at Dover Canyon on a great write-up in BusinessWeek. Mary is, hands down, the best winery writer out there. Her posts are detailed, authentic and beautifully written. In other words she has real talent. Like her other readers I just wish she had more time to write.

As far as the article goes, it seems the print media have finally gotten themselves a pretty good understanding of blogging and its benefits. The quote in the article by Debbie Weil is exactly on the money (see below). Nobody does care about our “widgets” – that is unless we make our widgets their widgets – and blogs can help winery writers do just that.

The link is here, and the portion of the article dealing with Mary and her blog is reproduced below. Good times for all winery bloggers.

In 10 years since starting the Dover Canyon Winery, Mary Baker and Dan Panico have learned to expect surprises. But last March, when Baker heard someone yelling from her driveway at 3:30 a.m., her heart pounded. “Truly freaked out, I awakened Dan and I suggested (in case it was a homicidal maniac) that he should go check it out,” wrote Baker on her blog the next day, adding that the maniac turned out to be a truck driver whose rig was stuck on the road to the Paso Robles (Calif.) winery.

Baker’s humorous and informative posts give readers a peek into life at the two-person, $400,000 winery, which makes zinfandel and syrah. Mail-order sales have almost doubled in the past year, and the blog is an inexpensive way to reach the growing number of online buyers. “It’s more important than ever to create a personal connection,” says Baker.

Baker started her blog in April, 2006, using a software package called TypePad Pro that costs $149.50 a year. She got the blog up in a half-hour and spent two weeks tweaking the design. “It grew into this place where I could be creative and tell what we’re all about,” says Baker. Beyond the daily happenings at the 10-acre winery, she posts articles on sulfites and tannin, grilling recipes, news about Paso Robles, and anything else she feels might pique her readers’ interest. That’s just what a blog such as hers should do, says Debbie Weil, owner of WordBiz.com, a blogging consultant in Washington. “Nobody cares about your widgets,” says Weil. “People care about what they can do with your widgets or the lifestyle surrounding your widgets.”

To get people reading her blog, Baker drops a postcard with the blog’s address into bags with customer purchases. She includes a link in the winery’s e-mail newsletter, and has joined a community of bloggers who in turn link to her. Weil suggests building an audience by making insightful comments on the feedback sections of other blogs and including your blog’s address. Just be subtle: Asking influential bloggers to trade links, says Weil, is “totally bad form.”

It’s a good idea to post at least a couple times a week, but Baker often doesn’t have time. TypePad allows her to schedule posts, so she can write several entries at once that appear several days apart. As she juggles the many tasks of running a winery, Baker takes comfort knowing she can at least blog about them in the morning.

Here’s another winery blog for your list Mike!

I met Morgan Twain-Peterson almost exactly a year ago at the OIV Wine Marketing course at Davis, just before my son was born. We hit it off immediately. We sat in the very back of the class and talked about the industry almost as much as we listened to the presentations.

I remember Jim Lapsley (the program coordinator) making a comment that in his experience there was a direct relationship between the grades he gave students and how close they sat to the front.
Burn!

I also recall Jim (who’s a great guy BTW) looking at me like I was a complete mouth-breather when I told him I was there to learn about the “old way” to market wine. Jim hadn’t heard of The Cluetrain Manifesto and he quickly ended our conversation when I mentioned it and then excused himself. Looking back Jim probably thought I was a communist.

But really, because the internets have done such a good job disseminating information, the real benefit of in-person conferences is networking not data exchange. Luckily that wasn’t lost on me or Morgan. Even though we chatted almost as much as the speakers did it was valuable time extremely well spent.

By far the best part of meeting Morgan though was the similarity of our circumstances. Both young. Both crazy enough to think we could build new wineries.

Then there’s the fact that his dad actually helped Joe Swan, our neighbor and patriarch of the Russian River Valley, build his historic winery. There’s also the fact that Morgan drank the kool aid and believes in the power of the online medium almost as much as I do. Last year while he was touring France he contributed his travel writing to pinotblogger, and just last week Morgan kicked the tires on his new winery website and blog at blog.bedrockwineco.com.

This is exciting stuff. In his words

Bedrock Wine Co. specializes in making hot-lipped, straight-up, no bullshit, delicious wines…My hope with this site is to give credit where credit is due. [O]ver the next couple of months a number of interviews will take place with those people who have helped me understand wine.

Not content to slap up just another winery blog, Morgan is taking the Bedrock Wine Co. blog into new frontiers with his extensive use of video. I especially dig his extremely detailed accounts of winemaking and winery minutiae. It’s fascinating for both industry folks like myself, and for passionate wine enthusiasts as well. For instance, there’s some great videos of Morgan out in the vineyards he’s sourcing from describing what makes them unique. There’s also footage of a barrel run to the east bay, and lots more.

Most folks have heard of Morgan’s Dad, Joel Peterson of Ravenswood fame, but his pop will be staying out of the enterprise for the time being due to a non-compete contract he signed with Constellation when Ravenswood was sold. So Morgan will be on his own this crush – no consulting winemaker on staff. 800 cases without a net (which should be the tag line for his blog IMO). Still, considering that Morgan made his first Pinot when he was 5 I’d say the family reputation is safe.

So, a great big welcome from pinotblogger to Morgan and the folks at Bedrock. I encourage you to check out the blog, join their mailing list when it’s available, and try their wines in 18 months. And until then, enjoy the journey vicariously through his words and video.

Should be good times indeed.

bordering on poetry over at El Bloggo Torcido.

Tell me what you ate with the wine.
Tell me how the wine made you feel.
Tell me how it smelled.
Tell me what memories the wine evoked.
Tell me what senses were engaged.
Tell me what flavors excited you.

Tell me how it connected you with the people who made the wine, the people that grew it, the people who thought to share it with you…

Click on over and read the whole thing. It’s a pretty polemic against wine ratings, and it captures the emotion that anyone who has created something for others to enjoy feels when their creation is subjected to a highly reductionist score or rating.

But that way lies maddness; the type of maddness only artists can afford to indulge. And as El Jefe knows as well as anyone: we’re business people first and second. Artistry as a raison d’être comes in a distant third.

So Mr. Wine Reviewer, if your stars, points or grades help you communicate your opinion to hasty readers so impatient to cut through the glut of wine that they can’t be bothered to parse a tasting note, I say well done sir. Rate away! You’re helping the market break its inertia and open its wallet.

And while that’s not exactly romantic, is not a bad thing either.

The article in the SF Chronicle today by W. Blake Gray does a good job of explaining the dynamics of an industry driven by recommendations. It also does a good job of pointing out what can happen when a handful of gatekeepers serve as the main source of those recommendations.

But sentiments like this irk me:

Winemakers and some oenophiles like to complain about the “Parkerization” of wine, implying that Parker’s personal taste for dramatic, powerful wines has taken over the world…

“We’ve gone from 13 percent alcohol to 15 percent because of this,” says importer Neal. “For some people in the wine business, if a wine gets a 95-point score, it’s a tip that the wine will be disgusting to us.”

…

“We’ve moved away from people making their own artisan wines with their own vision to people saying, ‘I thought I was doing pretty good until I got an 87 on this Pinot Noir,’ ” says Sebastiani’s Lyon.

Rubbish! It’s pretty disingenuous for folks to claim that the producers getting the high scores, or the ones that want high scores, are somehow “forced” to make wines that they themselves don’t enjoy. Everyone needs to align their product with a market, no matter how small. If you choose to go after the mass market, then you’re going to have to contend with the mass market’s preferences.

Here’s a flowchart I made that explains how wine really gets made.

So much hate, and for what? This rating system and these reviewers have led to an expanding market for wine and countless cases of wine sold!

I’ve beaten this example about to death, but Jordan Winery has gotten almost exclusively mid and low 70′s from Parker, and yet they are the number one most requested brand in restaurants. How to explain it? Easy: The path to wine sales doesn’t go through Parker and WS exclusively.

If you view a high score from Bob or Jim as simply a nice bonus – if it happens – and conduct the rest of your marketing, PR and branding as if your life doesn’t depend on their opinion of your wine, you should do fine. The trick is to be creative and make your wines and winery remarkable to your particular market.

Still not convinced? Check out the new study on consumer purchase decisions Steve at Vinfolio posted about yesterday. For wines priced over $20/bottle, 72% of those surveyed said that knowledgeable friends were their number one source of wine recommendations. Even more striking, 24% said they got wine related info from wine blogs – double that of Parker.

Find the people your target demographic listen to and make them like your wines. Likely this will mean getting your hands dirty and creating relationships with a lot of unwashed bloggers, or being extra-sweet to the folks that come into your tasting room. Who knows, you might forge some friendships along the way. And hey, you might even get in on the ground floor with the next Robert Parker.

You never know.

Free Phone Notification For Wine Delivery

In a recent post on wine getting overheated in the back of delivery trucks, Jake pointed me to one of his posts over at the Grape Thinking blog that mentions that UPS will provide a courtesy phone call alerting wine buyers that their shipment will arrive the next day.

I think that it is certainly a step in the right direction. The problem I’ve experienced however is that even when I know a shipment is going to be arriving, I often simply can’t be home to sign for it. As a wine consumer myself, nothing ruins my day more than seeing one of those yellow tickets saying I missed a delivery, because I know that my expensive wine will be out in a big brown rolling oven for 24 hours instead of sleeping peacefully in a temperature-controlled storage area.

Nickel and Nickel Pays 4.1 Million for 31 Acre Russian River Valley Vineyard

That works out to 130K per acre, which isn’t too shabby at all. Still, we’re way behind Napa where some land is fetching upwards of 280K per acre.

“We know it’s a lot of money,” said Larry Maguire, a partner in Nickel & Nickel. “We have a lot invested in the single-vineyard [program],” he said. “If you’re in for the long term, you have to control the vineyards.”

I concur, doctor.

Link

UK Nanny State Wants to Change Wine Drinker’s Knickers, Tuck Them In At Night

“We want to target the older drinkers, those that are maybe drinking one or two bottles of wine at home each evening. They do not realise the damage they are doing to their health and that they risk developing liver disease,” a Whitehall source said.

One bottle a night? Per household (which means more than one person, presumably)?

Horrors! Call Nanny 911!

Link

Just a quick note that I’ll be out in Ukiah on Thursday for a PR conference put on by the Mendocino Winegrape and Wine Commision. I’ll be talking about blogging and PR/Branding for (shudder) about an hour. Hopefully everyone won’t be glassy-eyed and drooling by the time I’m done.

I’m told there’s wireless, so part of the talk will be spent showing off the best of the wine blogosphere. If your ears start burning and your logs show any hits from Ukiah CA, you’ll know that was me.

Then next Monday I’ll be hanging out in the studio of KSVY in Sonoma with producer Randy Hall and Kaz on their Wine Biz show. I believe we’ll be touching on precision viticulture and the controversy surrounding its use. Should be a blast.

Finally next month I’ll be participating in the keynote panel at the annual Wine Industry Technology Symposium with a few other fine fellows including Philip James from Snooth.com (who just started their open beta, congrats!). I’ll be giving a shortened version of the Mendo talk and hopefully contributing a little value to the roundtable discussion. If you happen to make either of these events please head on up and say what’s up.

…is cooked wine. Yuk.

Jeff at Good Grape has an excellent post up today outlining the dangers of not being available to sign for your wine shipment when either UPS or Fedx attempts delivery. Many in the industry try and mitigate the dangers of having wine cooked in the back of a delivery truck by shipping during the cool fall and winter months, but Jeff offers up a good alternative suggestion: temperature sensitive stickers.

Basically if your wine shipment arrives with the sticker showing that extreme temps were experienced during shipping, you as a customer can reject the shipment.

It’s a novel idea, and certainly less expensive than some other solutions I’ve run across. Give the entire post a read here, and feel free to comment and let me know if this is something you would find useful.

A bunch of other wine bloggers have already mentioned Vinolin but I thought that I’d add to the chorus. It’s a great one stop shop for what’s been happening in the wine blogosphere. I manage probably 120 wine RSS feeds in my Netvibes homepage, which was a bit of a pain to compile and takes a while to load, but now all I need is Vinolin. Nice job Pras.

Vinolin’s creator Pras is the lead developer for Inertia Beverage Group and I had a chance to have lunch with him last summer. We talked briefly about the project and I have to say it is looking a whole lot better than the alpha preview I saw back then (and it was pretty sexy even then).

One of the more interesting features of the site is that it displays a list of the the top 14 most frequently updated blogs. Perhaps it will motivate me and others to get back into daily posting so we can make the list. You never know!

Vinolin has the polish and the eye candy to attract a more mainstream wine crowd while highlighting some undiscovered wine bloggers. I would think the next step would be to create some buzz and traffic to the site. If Pras can do just that and garner some steady traffic to Violin it might just become the information hub for the vinosphere.

Over at the REthink blog Paul writes about an interesting email he received from Jennie Haug from Titus Vineyards. In it Jenny points Paul to an article on the resurgence of the “porch sitting” phenomenon in Sonoma County and says that “as a winery I think it’s worth some pondering to consider how to apply this idea of porch sitting to a website in terms of connecting and encouraging folks to come by and sit a spell.”

Paul responded by listing three ways to make your online home more porch-like.

How do you turn your site into a porch?
Change content regularly
Put items up exclusively for your club (remember, your club is not just an annuity program, it is really developed to REWARD your top customers)
Contact your customers often to invite them to YOUR PORCH (your winery)

Great advice. It’s no surprise though that the most obvious way to turn your site into a porch, i.e. a quasi-public space where you can engage and converse with the public, isn’t mentioned. Paul has recommended to clients in the past not to start blogs, arguing that the ROI on time invested isn’t great, and that a poor or neglected blog could do more to hurt your image than to help it.

Blogs are Porches

But really, there is no better online analogue to a porch than a blog. Not only does a blog meet Paul’s requirement that your content be regularly updated (assuming that you do post regularly), but it is a place where you can actually have short chats with current and potential customers as well a spin a yarn or two. If you enjoy people, and liking people should pretty much be a prerequisite for working in the wine industry, then interacting with folks via a blog will come naturally. Just like a porch, a blog post is an informal visit where you can share gossip, talk about the weather, ask for feedback, or bounce opinions off your neighbors.

Blogs Can Work

No one really knows yet what a successful blog can mean for a winery. They are just too new. Those who do blog often say that the benefit to them is indirect, and hard to quantify. However, I hardly think that this is a good reason not to have one. PR is nearly as impossible to quantify, and yet we as an industry wouldn’t think of going without our bi-monthly attempts to get our names printed on some dead wood. Charity fundraisers, besides being great for the community, are often seen as ways to “build the brand,� but are supremely hard to justify solely on business grounds. Hospitality and customer service in general are hard to track, and more than anything else ours is a hospitality driven industry.

But there are things we can measure (comments, links, mailing list sign-ups, online orders) and I’m here to say that based on those measurables alone that having a blog, and putting in the effort to make it a good one, is well worth it.

Since I began the Capozzi Winery blog we’ve had over 600 mailing list sign ups, over a hundred links to the blog, and 350 comments (not counting spam). And we don’t even have any wine to sell yet. Think how much better you could do with an established brand and an actual product to sell. Many of our sign ups were driven by a tee-shirt give away. Some close to me have suggested that, well, those are people looking for something free, not potential customers willing to shell out $45 for a bottle of wine.

I think that’s a foolish attitude. As I outlined here, people are more than willing to trade up for what they want regardless of how frugal they may seem when they are shopping for items that they aren’t emotionally attached to. Our free tee-shirts are our first crack at creating a relationship and kindling a passion for our winery, our family and our wines. It is our first chance to make a case to these folks why they should take the time to trade up for our wine and, best of all, these are people that most in the luxury end of the industry are simply ignoring. If we can wow them with superior service and a great product (in this case a free organic cotton tee-shirt with our logo on it), they will be happy customers, perhaps even become brand ambassadors to their friends, and will be much more likely to buy our wines regardless of the price.

If we are going to grow demand for wine, we can’t all keep fishing in the same pond. Your online porch is the best place to cast your line out into the deep waters.