Letting a blog silent for many months after years of writing posts several times a week and sharing thoughts with readers and/or friends was not an easy decision. Of course, I could mention the increasing pressure of work and of two teaching positions, speaking assignments  in the US and Europe or the writing of a new book (in French – don’t get your hopes too high ) but it would not be quite true. In fact for the last few months I was asking myself what I could write about in this blog devoted to new technologies and innovation in the wine business. It seemed that precisely the innovative and creative trek was slowing down in the US and in Europe. I felt frustrated and could not decide what to do. Well… I did not do anything…

Suddenly out of nowhere in the last few weeks  a lot of news (good or bad depending…) and new trends came in my mail boxes and woke me up. Was it me – bored with what I was doing or really the financial crisis letting people drop their projects by lack of money? Whatever the reason life is back and I intent to share again some thoughts and news in this blog. I hope you’ll forgive me for letting you down and that we’ll be able to renew our links.

Let’s go back to work right now. Being a writer (in French and English) as well as a blogger and journalist I always paid attention to what was going on in the press. Today a couple of pieces of bad news came to my doorstep and got me thinking about digital writing: the great Quarterly Review of Wines folded it wings after 35 years of high quality wine writing and publishing. It was one of those perfectly thought out, beautifully written and researched magazines that was the pride of the international wine press. Why did it fold? There is no more romance in wine, says founder Richard L. Elia to decanter.com: “Beyond the usual explanations — upcoming retirements, the magazine world is in perilous shape, advertising is down, the digital age is king, out-of-state wine delivery problems — what initially attracted us to wine was the romance of it. [...] Today, wine is often dominated by marketing and finance people, who measure their interest by numbers.”

Second piece of bad news: the Spanish wine magazine Sibaritas also folds. After 18 years, José Penin, its founder, stopped the publication to go online, as he explained to decanter.com : “The recession and the rise of online wine sites meant reader numbers dropped significantly in 2009. ‘To keep Sibaritas alive we didn’t want to cut the number of issues, or the content or contributions from our acclaimed writers, so we decided to make this painful decision’, said Penin.”

Romance gone, on line competition… Is it good news or bad news for the wine industry? It is always very sad to see great magazines fold whatever the reasons. But saying that the wine industry is dominated by finance and marketing people might be an overview of the situation. There are still millions of small quality oriented vineyards needing attention from the press. If corporations are very powerful in many industries, it is still marginal – as far as I know – in the wine industry – at least in Europe. Why not write about those wineries and wine producers? But I can understand that a life long project can exhaust somebody’s energy. And as Brian St Pierre told decanter.com, The QRW “seems to be going more from battle fatigue than that the crass bad guys are winning, but they leave the field with honour intact (and the fight goes on, I hope).” Thank you to the Quarterly Review of Wines for hours of great reading.

What about the on line competition? It is not so much a competition than a different world: the press does not talk to the same readers. A traditional magazine will reach to older people used to the print while the on line press will reach the younger crowds, widely connected to their cell phone. The rise of the tablets (iPad, Kindle and others) is helping the switch from print to on line. The online world opens tremendous opportunities to the press to re-think its editorial line, its style and its connection to its readers. Millions of tasting notes from consumers are now available on line: do they need (or wish) to have more tasting notes from wine critics? Should a producer pay more attention to wine critics than to consumers’ opinions? How could an on line magazine make use of this huge amount of data generously shared on line by consumers and amateurs? What is the situation of the copyrights of consumers on line?

This is just a few thoughts to flex my fingers and get my neurons back to work after months of “leisure”. Let me tell you how happy I am to be back!

If you love wine, running and New York, come applaud 15 Classed Growths of Bordeaux whose managers decided to run the New York Marathon in November 2011 to raise money for a good cause. Under the name “Bordeaux Grands Crus Runners”, those marathon veterans will run the 26.2 miles to celebrate wine and raise money for the organization Lysistrata, which works to defend women’s rights in the world. The famous artist Titouan Lamazou is one of its supporters and will cover the event.

Taking advantage of the international coverage of the event, the French Runners will contribute by auctioning some of their best wines to help Lysistrata. They will also promote the Bordeaux wines by dinners and prestigious events.

Each of the 15 Runners has different reasons to leave for New York: Marie-Louise Schÿler, Communication Director of Château Pichon Longueville in Pauillac, is there for “the values of conviviality, solidarity and helping others”.  For Henri Lurton, owner of Château Brane-Cantenac, “New York represents the challenge of  overcoming his “deficient aptitude” through team  spirit and, above all, the motivation of being able to proudly sport a coveted medal”.  Jean-Emmanuel Danjoy, Director of Château Clerc Milon in Pauillac, “has been  motivated in his training by the group’s  enthusiasm, the charitable dimension to the project and the sporting challenge.”

Whatever the reason driving those men and women to run in New York, the cause, the event and the challenge are worth all the efforts, energy and talent put together to make a great success of the Grands Crus Runners’ initiative. Hat to them all!

Recently listening to a panel on drinking local during a conference, I was a little surprised by what I heard. Two main issues were raised among the panelists:

- Price is the main issue: consumers are reluctant to pay more for local wines. One of the panelists got a few laughs from the audience when he asked why American consumers are ready to pay $10,000 for a mass-market car and $50,000 for a luxury American one?

- Drinking local and eating local should be disconnected as producers do not have the same production costs in wine and food.

Both issues are important but, as a European, I had the feeling that the main issues were bypassed by the panelists. In Europe, “local” wines are really produced locally. When you visit an estate, you see the vineyards around the house. if, on a bottle, there is no mention of an estate, consumers know this is a cooperative wine, like in NV Champagne, for example. In the US, it is not uncommon to be invited in a vatroom or a tasting room at a “local” winery and not see any vineyards around the place. The winemaker or the owner will explain matter-of-factly that grapes or juices are bought from grape growers not too far or much further.

In such a context, what does “drinking local” mean for a consumer? Reading the back label of many wine brands, I see frequent mentions of grapes being bought to growers sharing the same values as the winemaker, such as low yield or healthy grapes. It might be one of those “cultural differences” but I do feel a little perplexed: where do the grapes really come from? When I read “Central Coast” on the front label, are the grapes from Paso Robles, Buellton or Santa Ynez Valley? What kind of quality guarantee do I get as a consumer? Not being able to see the actual vineyards is very frustrating. And speaking of price point, why should a consumer pay $15 for a wine whose grape growing is unknown?

This said, it does not mean that the wines are not good or well made. It just raises the question of what “drinking local” means in the US from an international point of view: how can American wine producers successfully market their wines on European markets where origin is a crucial issue? How can European wine producers successfully market their wines in the US where origin is not an issue? If you have the answer, let me know…

Château Lanessan in Haut-Medoc near Bordeaux is one of those discreet and high quality family owned estates you hear about from time to time.  But it deserves more attention that it gets.

Lanessan belongs to the Bouteiller family. It was run for the last 30 years by Hubert Bouteiller, brother of Bertrand Bouteiller who ran Château Palmer for 30 years. The Bouteiller family is established for several generations in the wine business. When Hubert retired, the family decided to bring to its management a young Spanish woman, Paz Espejo who had an international experience. Graduated in oenology as early as 1994, Paz started her career in Spain and Italy. She then settled in Bordeaux where she worked for Calvet and Cordier merchant firms. She learned to present their various wines on international markets until she was called to become director of Lanessan in 2009.

I already had the pleasure to meet Paz when she was working for Cordier. Energetic, passionate and professional, she struck me as unusual in the quiet wine scene of Bordeaux. That’s why she seems to be the right person to awaken the sleeping beauty of Lanessan. Knowing marketing as well as vineyard management and wine making, she put herself at work as soon as she got to Lanessan.  Besides her new two vintages (2009 and 2010) made in a rather different style, she worked on the image of what is now called “Domaine Bouteiller” with a new logo and includes Château Lanessan and its second wine, Les Calèches de Lanessan as well as Château de Sainte-Gemme.

A new graphic identity was created for the web site and all the communications. Orange is now the basic color of all promotional materials because it symbolizes energy, sociability and a modern creative approach. The labels are more contemporary. For Les Calèches de Lanessan, a horse-drawn carriage is used in reference to the family collection of carriages.

This new branding strategy is discreet enough not to bother existing customers but bold enough to attract younger consumers to Bordeaux wines of high quality sold at a very decent price, around $20 a bottle. Who said you cannot find a great Bordeaux wine under $25?

Thanks to Christian Seely and Marie-Louise Schÿler of Château Pichon-Longueville in Pauillac, their guests enjoyed a wonderful Portuguese evening during Vinexpo. Château Pichon-Longueville belongs to Axa Millesimes Group that owns also vineyards in Portugal as well as other vineyards in France and Hungary. When Christian Seely traveled to Portugal 18 years ago, he fell in love with the Douro region and its wines.  That’s why this Classified Growth welcomed 26 vineyards from Douro for an elegant and very interesting tasting in the chateau chais.

After the tasting of the red wines, the guests went back to the park where white and rosé Portuguese wines as well as cod (steamed, smoked, carpaccio – whatever you liked) and various hams awaited them.  The dinner was then served under a tent in the park: a goat casserole, broad beans, new potatoes and mushrooms in a pultry sauce; almond tart and “Queilo da Serra da Estrela” cheese won the heart of the guests. Of course, red wines from Douro, Quinta do Noval Colheita 1997 and various ports from the Douro producers were served on each table. What about Pichon-Longueville wines? Forget them: for a few hours, we were in Portugal!

The evening was a great success. At first a little surprised by this “Douro Evening”, guests became enchanted by the event. They did not learn anything about the history or the wines of Château Pichon-Longueville but they will remember the most original gala evening in Bordeaux of this 2011 ediiton of Vinexpo. Is not it the best marketing strategy? Kudos to Christian Seely, Marie-Louise Schÿler and the great team of the chateau for an unforgettable evening!

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!

A recent survey conducted by Vinexpo on women and wine in United Kingdom, France, Germany, Hong Kong and the US showed that cultural differences are an important factor of differentiation in appreciating wine.

What did those women agree upon? They usually prefer red wine over white wine. They are driving the sales for rosé wines:  16% said they’d rather drink rosé (over only 6% in 2009). This is an increase of 160% in 2 years! 70% drink wine while socializing with friends or on a date: 68% consider wine important and even essential on a romantic dinner. French women are leading the trend with 50% of the answers while 10% of British women and 5% of Hong Kong female drinkers would not go on a date without some wine.

This first breach in the consensus opens the door to the deeper cultural differences. Women do not agree on the factors leading to their choice. 70% of French women consider that the country of origin is their first criteria while it is important for only 50,8% of British women. In the USA, grape variety is the most important criteria – not surprisingly. Price (58,5%) and country of origin (67,8%) are most important in Hong Kong.

The deepest difference appears with the question : is wine part of tradition or a part of your lifestyle? American women answer loudly and strongly that wine is part of a lifestyle while for French women it is part of the tradition.

This survey is an interesting marketing tool because it was conducted on line in 5 countries in partnership with several sites of various magazines: Elle in France and Hong Kong, Konsum Göttinnen in Germany, Wine Enthusiast in the US and Decanter in England. Interestingly enough, the sites partnering with Vinexpo are not wine-related in France, Hong Kong and Germany. They are more lifestyle- or -women-related magazines. In UK and in the US, it is the opposite: the surveyed women were readers of wine magazines, but they claimed wine as a lifestyle choice.

Even more fascinating is the use of Internet as a tool. The survey revealed that the women wine drinkers in the age 18-30 are using most the Internet (14%) while in France only 3% go on line to look for wine. Let’s just hope that Internet will be more and more used to discover wine(s) from all over the world, and not only by women.

Branding a region through the colors of its wines is a new marketing strategy I really enjoyed. Most of wine lovers know Bordeaux for its red wines.  Bordeaux also produces white, rosé, clairet (darker pink), bubbly (the Crémant) and sweet wines of various yellow shades. Unfortunately, those colors are not as known as the famous red. That’s why when, a few weeks ago, I got an invitation to (re)discover the various colors of the Bordeaux and Bordeaux “superieur” wines I was interested: what an original approach to the wines of a specific region that consumers think they know. In fact consumers know mostly the Classified Growths and ignore the diversity of the Bordeaux and Bordeaux superieur area.

The program included an evening and three half days based on the wine colors: a blind tasting to select the summer rosés, a trip to properties producing mostly red wines (the Ruby event), then a yellow theme on the beach of the Bassin d’Arcachon and the firework, a dinner created by Michel Porthos where the color of the each dish matched the color of the wine.

Wine is usually about color: think Cahors and its “black wine“, think Provence and its pale rosés, think Bordeaux and its dark red wines, think Alsace and its white wines.  But is also part of the stereotypes of the region : Cahors, Provence, Bordeaux and Alsace produce other styles of wines. Provence has some beautiful red wines while Alsace Pinot Noir is a gorgeous wine.

The marketing strategy of the Bordeaux and Bordeaux Superieur is a good example of a simple and efficient strategy: invite a few female bloggers, create a fun and instructive program and bingo! you get a good buzz on the Net. The young Italian blogger Magda Beverari, the French Nina Izzo, the Canadian MarieEve Inoue were fascinated by what they learnt and discovered.  They blogged and twitted about the trip. No need to spend a lot of money: just be creative and trust your guests.

This experience showed that Bordeaux is trying to brand its wines of lesser fame (and much cheaper price) than the famous Classified Growths. It is time for international wine consumers to understand that a Bordeaux wine at about $15 is a good wine: one does not need to pay an extravagant price to taste and enjoy a good Bordeaux wine. I just hope international consumers will appreciate wines from smaller estates and will not be put off by “low” prices.

For the last two weeks, Bordeaux buzzed with the “En Primeurs” campaign for the 2010 vintage. Last week was the peak of the campaign with tastings all over the Bordeaux area. Every appellation and classification opened their doors to journalists, bloggers, importers, distributors and all kinds of professionals. This time of the year is a blessing because it is possible to meet all those people one knows through Internet, via their blogs or virtual events.

Château d’Yquem, true to its cult status, organized the tasting of its 2010 vintage in the most beautiful room of the Bordeaux Opera.  The staging was gorgeous with beautiful white flowers in huge vases and the golden sculptures of the walls.  It gave a very zen feeling to the tasting very much in symbiosis with the vintage. As most know, I am not a wine critic and will not comment on the 2010 vintage, except to say it was as zen as the staging. I enjoyed the smoothness and the elegance of the wine. As Sandrine Garbay, the brilliant cellar master of Yquem, told me, it is already very drinkable and amateurs will be able to enjoy it earlier than the 2009.

After the pleasure of tasting the 2010 and the 1988 vintages, meeting a few friends, exchanging a few words with Pierre Lurton, Sandrine Garbay and Valérie Lailheugue, Communication Director of the Château, I started thinking about cult wines and branding. When I wrote Wine Brands – three years ago – I concluded that cult wines like Château Haut-Brion or Château d’Yquem, were not wine brands: they were luxury brands, but not to be treated like a Dior perfume.  Luxury wine brands are a very specific type of brands: very rare (a few thousands bottles every year) and not expandable, often expensive, exclusively distributed, luxury wine brands can thrive only in the rarefied atmosphere of  exclusive events and zen elegance.  But because they are an agricultural product as well, they cannot be treated like Calvin Klein jeans. How did they achieve this legendary status? Answer: organic marketing. According to Michael Havens, who founded the Havens Wines Cellars in California, “Synthetic marketing emphasizes the brand’s concept, label and price, followed by the wine; organic marketing focuses on the wine and the region first, followed by concept, label, etc.”, said Havens to journalist Marvin Collins of Winesandvines.com (Sept. 18, 2007).  As Michael Havens said even more wittily, it is “a story of a guy in a place with a grape”. Of course, luxury wine brands are more than just great wines grown in an exceptional place and elegantly bottled. Nowadays it is also a concept. The concept certainly evolved over the years more “organically” than voluntarily. Each luxury wine brand had to differentiate itself from the others but instead of emphasizing the packaging, they worked on the emotional link they created with their customers. Drinking a glass of Haut-Brion or Yquem is like drinking a little part of European history. Emotion through a beautiful wine, elegant bottle and refined staging is what created the brand over the centuries.

Last year, I wrote in my French blog about winefair.com, this French initiative: a virtual and 3-D wine fair. I was impressed by the technology and the design of the site. This year, the second edition of winefair.com opens up to international markets.

During the last few weeks, I was in contact with many American winemakers and opinion leaders. The concept is not easy to grasp because it is rather innovative and creative: the site is mostly a business platform allowing winemakers and professionals to get acquainted, meet, talk and keep in touch after the show. In order to enjoy all the functionalities of the site, you must register as a visitor: you’ll then access the list of exhibitors, be able to see when they will be available on their booth (a green dot next to their name) and even make appointments with them on the agenda.

Wine enthusiasts are also encouraged to register as they’ll access a description of the winery, presentation of the wines available and also be able to chat with the producers.

Who are the producers ? A lot of them are French, some are American (Randal Grahm from Bonny Doon, Craig Camp from Cornerstone Cellars, Jeff “El Jefe” Stai from Twisted Oak Winery), Australian (Mark Gifford from Blue Poles in the Margaret River area), Portuguese or Spanish.  Consumers and professionals can take advantage of the agenda of each producer to come and meet them. It is a rare oppportunity as most of those international producers do not sell their wines in Europe.

As all fairs, conferences in French and in English will take place during the 5 days of the show: they are live video conferences. I listened to a couple of French conferences live today and was impressed by the level and interest of the content.

The first conference (image above) was with the CEO of the Spanish Qude Bodega about organic wines and wine tourism. This afternoon, the discussion was on the site wine-sign.com, linking communications and wine. It is a lot of fun to chat on line with the speakers using their tchat tool or Twitter.

There were some technical glitches yesterday during the opening. The site was even cut off for a few hours – thanks to a lot more connections than expected on Monday at 9:00 am!  But things seem to be fixed by now and hopefully the site will run smoothly from now on.  The wine fair might open an extra day next week to answer all the requests of people and give more time to the exhibitors to meet with the crowd.

Take the time to stop by the fair and enjoy the English-speaking program we designed specifically for you!

[Note: I work with winefair.com because I believe in the project, my first criteria to accept a new mission.]