Yesterday, the 2011 edition of Vinexpo opened in Bordeaux and Burgundy was the guest of honor of the ESC Dijon Institute of Wine Management conference. Three keynote speakers presented the success stories of their business or organization : Florence Ragonneau of the Bureau of Burgundy wines (BIVB), François Desperriers, founder with Aurélien Ibanez of BourgogneLive.com blog and Jean-David Camus, who manages the Albert Bichot Hospices de Beaune sale every year.

The BIVB is the “official” voice of Burgundy wines on all markets. Florence Ragonneau’s mission was to carry the image of Burgundy wines on the Net and all social media.  First of all, she launched a web site in 8 languages to reach the most important international markets. The site provides information targeted to professionals, journalists and bloggers, influencers and consumers as well as e-learning facilities. Then she took the BIVB on Facebook and created a strong community of about 2,500 “friends” around the Burgundy wines.

Jean-David Camus is a young entrepreneur who saw the strong possibilities of taking in the 21st century a 200-year old brand, Albert Bichot.  For various historical reasons, Bichot is one of the biggest buyers of wines of the Hospices de Beaune during the famous November auction sale. Camus gave the opportunity to consumers to get together to buy a barrel of the Hospices de Beaune wines: a barrel allows 48 people to buy each a 6-bottle case for a price between 30 to 70 euros a bottle. It puts the buy at a reasonable financial level for lovers of great Burgundy wines.  What is new is that the auction and the buy take place on the Internet: the prospective buyer registers on the dedicated site and agrees on a price (usually around 4,000 to 6,000 euros a barrel): if the barrel costs less during the auction, the buyer pays less. If the auction takes the price of the barrel over the agreed maximum, the sale does not take place. It is a wine-win deal for the Hospices and the consumer. To promote his action, Camus resorts to all available media: Twitter, Facebook, web site, links to blogs. The results are convincing: he brought over 1,500 new customers to Albert Bichot and sold several barrels of wines.

last but not least, François Desperriers told the amazing success story of Bourgogne-Live.com. Launched in January 2010 by a few “tweets” on Burgundy wines, Desperriers saw his audience grow because of the consumers’ interest in Burgundy wines. In March desperriers and Ibanze launched their blog, Bourgogne-Live.com. They were rapidly frustated by the lack of comments and of conversation. They then created a Facebook page where conversations regularly engaged on their blogs’ articles and videos. Meanwhile they also carried out links to news and other blogs they thought of interest to their community.

Those success stories put Burgundy wines on the digital map. Burgundy producers also got involved, helping to spread the word about their wines. By now, consumers would have to be very distracted to miss Burgundy on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and any other media. Enjoy!

Twitter.com just is launching a new wine brand, Fledgling, to promote literacy in the world. Out of the $25 paid by the consumer, $5 will go to Room to Read, a non-profit group dedicated to raising literacy levels in developing countries. An other innovative company was brought in this effort: the winemaking team of Crushpad in California designed the wines, a 2009 Chardonnay and a 2009 Pinot Noir.

A few things are striking in this “Fledgling Initiative” for the brand standpoint:
-Twitter has basically no business connection – except for a lot of wine professionals and wine lovers tweeting – with the wine industry but chose to link its name to a wine brand instead of a coffee or a chocolate. For this charity-related operation, the company is convinced wine is the right medium to carry their message. According to Biz Stone and Evan Williams, “The Fledgling Initiative embodies two things that are at the core of Twitter’s mission: providing access to information and highlighting the power of open communication to bring about positive change.”

- The operation is conducted by two innovative companies: Twitter and Crushpad. Their marketing strategy is mostly digital and viral. Tweets have already relayed the initiative. As usual with Crushpad, buyers will be able to follow the making of the wine through digital channels, including Twitter.

- The label is obviously designed to remind the buyers of the charity behind the initiative.

This initiative is alrealy relayed by many print and digital media, by web users and many “tweeters” as well as bloggers. I could only wish more technical companies would use wine as a carrier of social and ethical values such as those promoted by Twitter and Crushpad.

During the Symposium of Masters of Wine in Bordeaux last June, the first panel was on “Wine on the Web”. The moderator was Christophe Macra, one of the four French MW. Christophe invited four prestigious panelists to talk about Wine and Web: Jancis Robinson, Rowan Gormley, founder and CEO of NakedWines.com, Eric LeVine, founder and CEO of cellartracker.com, Mike Linton, consultant for Peet’s Coffee and Tea and now on the advisory board of venture capital companies.

I will not bother you with a longer text as the panel was filmed and is now available on the symposium site:

Adegga.com is a Portuguese start up specialized in the wine business. I met Andre Ribeirinho and his team during the 2009 EWBC in Lisbon. At that time, I was very impressed by the AVIN tag they created and even mentioned it in my French book on Web marketing for the wine industry.

During the Spring 2010, adegga.com drastically improved the look of the site, giving the web user a much more pleasant experience when visiting the site. Then I saw a few new features implemented and I had the feeling that adegga.com and AVIN went their separate ways. Andre confirmed the “suspicion”: “The AVIN is now an independent project. Recently we’ve split Adegga and the AVIN project in 2 in order for each project to focus on what they do best. This way, we’re opening a lot of new possibilities for the unique code. We’re also starting to invite some people to the project as ambassadors who will not only help promote the project but also have an active voice on where it should be heading.”

Adegga.com is now launching three new features:

- the “Producer Verified Accounts and Videos”
- A mobile application
- The “Adegga Selection”.

What are the Producer Verified Accounts and Videos? “We want more wineries to use Adegga to promote their wines online using our Verified Winery accounts”, said Andre. These accounts allow wineries to add videos, photos, news and winemaker notes to all wines on their wine list. In the specific case of videos we want wine lovers to better connect with the people making the wine. Seeing a video of a wine producer will certainly add a human touch to the online conversation. ” As far as I’m concerned, Andre is preaching to the choir! I’m all for a human touch and helping the consumer get a nice experience on line. Example: Cortes de Cima winery is a premium member.

The mobile version of the site exists but adegga is working on an iPhone app.

Last but not least, adegga’s team launched this summer a new online wine promotion program called Adegga Selection. What is the goal? According to Andre, “We want to help wineries sell their samples instead of giving them away.” That’s a piece of good news but how can you reach such a goal? “A wine producer, said Andre, approaches us wanting to promote the launch of a new wine. As a community we’ll be talking about the wine and deciding if it’s interesting to promote. Some of the top Adegga members will even get a few samples. If the wine is “selected” then it will go on sale on the site for 15 days on a limited quantity and a special price. We’ll have some interesting ways to get people who bought the wine to return to Adegga and talk about it, raising the profile of the wine.”

For now, the program runs as a pilot in Portugal but will be extended to the US and the UK very soon. For this month the Adegga Selection is Mark Stephen Schultz Touriga Nacional Reserva 2005. Great choice!

I’ll have the pleasure of seeing Andre and his team during the 2010 EWBC conference in Vienna. I am absolutely amazed by how fast adegga.com became a sophisticated, user-friendly and nice site for wine lovers. I just wished we had more of ambitious and entrepreneurial spirits like Andre Ribeirinho and adegga.com in Europe to help wineries to compete internationally.

For many people, even in the wine business, the Masters of Wine are a mysterious entity.  They are the elite of the wine industry, having passed a very difficult series of tests. There are only 285 of them in the world: it is an exclusive club. At least, that’s what I thought before I met Christophe Macra, one of the five French Masters of Wine, a young and entrepreneurial spirit full of energy and humor, founder of  Tasteo and Esensio.  Thanks to Christophe, I was invited to the 7th Symposium of the Institute of the Masters of Wine held in Bordeaux last week and whose theme, “Forging Links”, for the perfect topic for someone who spent most of her professional life networking and “forging links” between several cultures and their people.

I will spare you the details of every dinner and tasting. I’d like to emphasize what was so new and fascinating during this symposium. Out of the 285 MW, “only” 75 attended the conference. The 250 other attendees were professionals from the wine industry: journalists, consultants, importers, distributors, writers and educators.  There were 17 countries represented between everybody. The official language was English.  I attended every session, every tasting and every dinner. I met people I knew but mostly I was able to “forge links” with people from all over the world: Russia,  USA, England, Italy, China, Belgium, France, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, among others.

The inaugural session was moderated by Christophe Macra MW on “Wine on the Web” with four major topics: are blogs the new gatekeepers ?; Reviews : wine critics for Consumers; Social Media and Icons on the Web; mobile strategy. The speakers were Jancis Robinson MW for her blog, Eric LeVine, founder of CellarTracker/GrapeStories, Rowan Gormley, founder of NakedWines and Micheal Linton, from eBay. Most agreed on the fact that consumers and bloggers are replacing the wine gurus but Jancis Robinson is comfortable with the situation.  Indeed a blogger is powerful if he/she has an audience: Jancis has the audience and even if her job is more difficult now, she likes it. Some other types of sites will attract a lot of people: CellarTracker, for example, has a strong following because of the comments left by its many users: it has 1,400,000 consumers’ reviews at the moment. What about social media? Jancis Robinson adopted twitter.com very early: she uses with talent and on a regular basis. According to her, Twitter is a good tool to react fast to a comment. The iconic figures of the wine industry, such as Yquem, are now on Facebook and Twitter to engage with their consumers. Mobility is an other key word for the future of the web: most people have a web access though their phones and use it to look for information and very soon to buy. The conclusion of this amazing panel: according to Rowan Gormley, Internet is the best way to cut down costs of marketing and promotion. It seems that social media, and especially Facebook, is now bringing more traffic on web sites than Google and any SEO techniques.

A pasionnate debate took place between Margaret Hernandez, head of the House of Krug, Sylvie Cazes, President of the Union des Grands Crus de Bordeaux, and member of the famous Bordeaux family Cazes and owner of Château Lynch-Bages with her brother Jean-Michel, Eduardo Chadwick, owner of Villa Errazuriz in Chile and Christian Seely, CEO of AXA-Millesimes, the insurer owner of several wine estates in the world. The debate was : “Who serves the consumers best? Families or corporations? A quick survey in the room seemed to show people trusted families more than corporations. Maggie Hernandez and Christian Seely preached so eloquently for corporations they turned some attendees in their favor! Both are very lucky to manage what was formerly family owned estates. The tradition of a strong family management is still very much alive in Krug and the estates managed by AXA-millésimes: Château Pichon-Longueville, Château Pibran, Château Petit-Village, Château Suduiraut, Quinta do Noval (Portugal), for example. As Eduardo Chadwick and Sylvie Cazes strongly emphasized, behind corporations or families, there are people. This is the quality of the people that make the quality of the management and of the wines.  At the end of the discussion, almost everybody agreed that people are making the difference, not an administrative structure.

Some sort of illustration of this principle came out during the next session, “Passing the torch”. Three families, three stories: Jean-Bernard Delmas and his son Jean-Philippe both managing Château Haut-Brion and Château La Mission Haut-Brion owned by the Dillon family, Miguel Torrès and his daughter Mireia, Jean-Claude and Olivier Berrouet, managing Petrus for the Moueix family. Two families, who are now owners of the estates, figured out a way to pass the torch for 3 generations in Haut-Brion and 2 generations in Petrus to people ouside their own family. They showed that family owned estates trust the family managing the estate enough to create a sort of “succession” tradition. There is legitimacy founded on trust, high level of professional skills and a certain sense of continuation. Some people even questioned the legitimacy of passing the torch to a child who might not be as good as a hired professional. Of course, it was not the case with the Torrès family: Mireia is certainly one of the brightest wine professional of Spain. But the question was asked and deserved an honest answer: sometimes it might be better to let a professional manage the estate until a scion of a next generation can take over with the same passion and the same skills as his/her predecessors.

The next day, we were asked to concentrate on “Emerging Markets: BRIC”. We also focused on “Asian markets and their links with the world consumers”.  On those dry and very technical subjects – full of figures and hard facts – we had the most amazing speakers: Judy Leissner, CEO of Grace Vineyards for China, Eleonora Scholes for Russia, Magandeep Singh for India and Dirceu Vianna Junior for Brazil. Full of humor and anecdotes, they filled us with thoughtful insights on their respective countries. Judy emphasized the importance of the government in the wine business: the three major wineries are state owned (ChangYu, Dynasty and Great Wall).  When the typical consumers’ profile is changing in the Western world, the typical Chinese wine drinker is male, 45 to 60 yr-old and drinks frequently… without liking wine. Indeed drinking wine is a social status related activity.

Eleonora Scholes showed us the differences between the perception of the Russian drinker and the reality. Russians are considered heavy drinkers, big spenders, conspicuous consumers, unpredictable and opinionated. They are in reality not the heaviest drinkers, spend the few money they have because if they don’t, the government will take it or the economy will collapse; wine is still status related and Russians are cultured and educated.  Russians drank in 2009 81 liters of beer, 15 l. of vodka and 7 liters of wine (down from 21 liters in 1985).  Every third wine is imported but, being expensive (150 roubles=3,8 euros), they’re drunk by people with higher income.

Let’s move to Brazil now. It is a young, energetic and rich country where wine is important. According to Dirceu Vianna Junior, There are two markets: one used to domestic wines and entry level imported wines; then demanding professionals with high disposable incone. The Bazilian market meets with three main obstacles: uneducated consumers, price sensitive market and an invasive bureaucracy. But the potential is huge because of a strong population increase and the increasing interest in luxury goods.

India is the “mystery” land where an average salary is 90€ and a good salary 200€. Can Indians afford wine? Hardly, answered Magandeep Singh: the price of a bottle is about 10 to 20 euros. How often can you drink a bvottle of wine on a basic income of 90€ a month? The market is small considering the population of  India: 1,200,000 9 liters cases are consumed in India, including 200,000 cases of imported wines. Mumbai and Delhi are 80% of the market. Any hope for the future: yes, with an up to date marketing to reach the younger consumers through social networking.

The highlight of the aftertnoon was our keynote speaker, John Hegarty, creative director of the ad agency BBH and ower of Domaine Chamans in Languedoc. “Lose the mystery, and enhance the magic” of wine, was his advice to an enthralled audience.  He reminded us that the basic rule is “engagement” because of the fragmenting of the audience. he emphasized the importance of “brands” in the wine business because “brand=reputation”. He pleaded for innovative, creative, daring strategies to create differentiation. Differentiation generates traction, that generates premium. How to brand a wine to create the magic ? We have  to understand the purpose of wine (we know the function) . Wine flavors our life.

Nothing was truer than this statement when we were sitting in front of four glasses featuring wines from Paul Draper, Alvaro Palacios, Paul Pontallier and Peter Gago: “modern legends”. No, because legends are make believe or dead and those wines and their makers were wonderfully alive.

After those four days spent with stimulating speakers and guests, I completely reviewed my idea of what a Master of Wine is: he or she is a great human being able to make 250 guests from all over the world gather in Bordeaux. They’re fun, bright, knowledgeable and open. I can’t wait for the next Symposium held in 4 years somewhere in the world. See you then!

It’s particularly interesting for me to observe what Clos Pepe is doing on Twitter (@clospepe), because we’ve been to their amazing annual events at least twice. Wes Hagen and his wife Chanda are both charming and hospitable people, and they make a more than decent (some might call it cult) Pinot Noir, too. The folks at Clos Pepe are so nice, that even the 1997 web site design doesn’t dim my great feelings of their barbeque/tastings at their Sta. Rita Hills home and winery. In fact, I think their Twitter feed is more enjoyable to follow than going to the site which has, among other turn-of-the-century features, centered texts and multiple Quicktime videos on auto-play.

Take a look at what Clos Pepe is up to on Twitter:

If I were living in the area (or even in a location where they could ship me their wines), I’d prefer to be following this Twitter stream than to have the same events and announcement arrive in my mailbox. This seems to be an ideal way to get news of Clos Pepe.

• Subscribing and unsubscribing is a snap on a Twitter client or mobile or even using the Twitter web page.
• I can see who might also be interested in Clos Pepe, possibly follow them and compare notes, etc
• The news doesn’t come into my email stream, which I protectively reserve for high priority messages (like the vi@gra offers and Yale diplomas I deal with daily).
• The channel works both ways, so they can also get (and hopefully respond to) feedback

Using Twitter in this way goes against traditional wisdom of “engagement”, aka “Don’t Blurt!”. In the Clos Pepe example, I know Wes has his own Twitter account as well, and we can see plenty of personal engagement there. I know that the winery’s production is small enough to require you to be on an allocation list if you want to buy some. This is an enviable position for any winery to attain. I wonder how many people who are on the list are also on Twitter? I know at least one person. I wonder if he follows @ClosPepe?

Eve disagrees with me on this one, I think of Clos Pepe as a brand. What do you think and why?

Aline Baly from Château Coutet sent me a long email after the publication of the first article. I was so happy to read about the success of her innovative web strategy I asked her to let me publish her answer. Here it is – a little amended for more concision with Aline’s approval:

“I have been very encouraged by the recent influx of colleagues on Facebook and Twitter (most recently Yquem and Bordeaux Gold). I am very excited that this sometimes viewed as sleepy appellation is embracing social media — and recognized for doing so.

Coutet has been on Facebook for over 3 years — this has allowed me to stay connected to more than 300 followers. I also post all news related to Coutet on my personal page– keeping another 400 individuals in the loop on the latest and greatest from the Gold Wine region of Bordeaux.

As for Twitter… I have some great success stories with the tool — including getting a top level journalist at Coutet for a one-on-one tasting after replying to one of his comment and having visitors stop by Coutet after responding to their comment that places them in the region and in wine tasting mode!

Using both of these tools, I’ve connected with so many individuals that love our region! There are 4-5 twitts on the topic alone on a daily basis– and that is only a minimum.”

Thanks to Aline  for sharing her success story with us.

Sauternes and Barsac don’t have the best reputation among the wine consumers who are not luxury wines savvy.  Say Sauternes, people think Yquem. Say Barsac, they think… what?  Say Monbazillac, they picture cheap sweet wines. It is time for this category to speak up and get better known.

Internet is giving this category of sweet wines the opportunity to be heard and hopefully later on to be tasted and bought by consumers with a better understanding of their characteristics and values (not value!).

Bill Blatch, well known wine professional, launched very recently a beautifully done blog on the golden wines of Bordeaux:  BordeauxGold.com.

Then we lately met on Twitter or Facebook many famous Sauternes or Barsac names:  château Broustet is certainly one of the most active on social media. It has a Facebook page, a Twitter account and a blog (in English).

In France and unfortunately limited to the Bordeaux area, a group of about 25 estates from Sauternes and Barsec joined forces to create “Sweet Bordeaux” with tastings hosted by young women and a trendy web site. Sweet Bordeaux also offers “sweet hours”, “weet music” and “sweet recipes” – all in French. Why not a site in English and similar actions in cities like New York, Paris, London, Amsterdam or San Francisco where young crowds would love the concept?

We also spotted mYquem, the new creation of the famed Château d’Yquem venturing on Twitter. When worldwide famous names such as Yquem or Haut-Brion are on Twitter, it means that social media are becoming an important part of the image of a wine estate, as prestigious as it may be.

The weird thing is that sweet wines have a poor image but Sauternes estates have a great reputation.  The leading Sauternes estates with an international reputation are right to lead the way on Internet in order to create a contemporary and trendy image. Groups like “Sweet Bordeaux” should be all over the world reaching out to the young wine drinkers with their sweet tooth.  Sauternes is on its way to enter the 21st Century and we’ll be happy to welcome them in a virtual world full of savors and aromas. Let’s follow them!

But what web site, what for and what use? My last post on “Does a winery need a web site?” generated interesting and well thought out comments from wine educators, winery owners and other readers.

First of all, it seems everybody thought a winery needed a web site. Some said a web site was the “brick and mortar” piece of their communication. I would call it a “click and mortar” but let’s not digress on semantics! The web site is usually seen as the place to send wine consumers, wine critics, educators and web users from Facebook, Twitter or any other social media to get information. I agree 100% on that point. But a web site can’t be “static” or it looses all its strength and usability. A “static” web site will lose visibility on any search engine if it is not regularly updated. If a once a year update is considered the norm, let’s forget about having a site. The site needs to be energized by news, tweets, videos and/or blog posts linked to social media.

Second, I didn’t get any comment on what kind of web site is needed. As for content, we usually see on most web sites a short presentation of the winery, the wines, a contact form and a news page (sometimes rather dated). It’s all good and well but what’s the point for the consumer? If a consumer knows and likes the wines, or if he heard about the wines from a friend or a forum/blog post, he’d like to be able to find and buy them. No information on the web site of the winery is no help. He’ll have to rely on the new search tools, like snooth.com, wine-searcher.com, cellar-tracker.com or cruvee.com. What about if he/she is not located in the country of the winery? What about if he/she is not familiar with those tools? All those questions are raised by the way most wineries’ web site are designed. They’re not consumer friendly. Most wineries design the site they want, not the site they need.

What I meant when I asked: “Does a winery need a web site?” was: if a winery has a web site, it has to be designed to help the consumer, not to look pretty or carry only information. A web site has to create a link between the winery and the consumer – through history, presentation of the team and description of the wines, of course – but also and mainly by helping the consumer to be a part of the life of the winery. Not only by giving him/her the way to buy the wine, but also to keep in touch with the winery and its team through the web site, the blog and all social media available. A web site has to address the consumers’ needs in order to fulfill its purpose. If it doesn’t, why invest in a web site?

For many years, the success of a communication strategy on the Web was measured by the traffic on the site or the click on a banner. It might not be still true. Because of the growing importance of social media, blogs and micro chats, it is more important for a winery to be present on the Net through all those channels.

I was talking to a winery manager a few weeks ago. He was complaining that all his actions on Facebook, Twitter and other social media didn’t bring much traffic to his web site. We looked at the mentions his winery was getting on the Net and we agreed it was more important to be talked about than to get traffic on the web site. Why is that? Consumers are all over the Internet. They might not keep in mind a specific brand. but when this brand’s name appears on the Net in their favorite blog or forum, or is mentioned on Twitter, it reminds them of the brand. Q.E.D!

What does it mean for a winery? It means… a lot of writing. It’s not an easy job when you are supposed at the same time to harvest, make the wines, sell them or present them at Pro-Wein or Vinexpo Hong Kong, to be also blogging, interfacing on Facebook, filming your latest event or chatting on Twitter. But it is worth the trouble. It is rewarding and a lot more efficient than a simple site.