Second label, bulk wine or new brand?

I just read an article in the North Bay Business Journal that raised a very interesting question: is it better for a winery to create a second label or to sell the wine in bulk when you have too much of a lower quality wine for your main brand? This discussion happened during the Business Journal’s 2008 Wine Industry Conference on April 9. Some said that their "winery had considered a second label but determined selling the excess wine in bulk was better than risking diluting the brand." Others argued that "a second label can help a winery with distributors, but it should have a different name," and be tied to the main brand at least on the back label.

The debate is still going on in the trade anyway. I can think of a few successful examples I know in the French wine industry. In 1998, the famed Château Palmer, a classified Growth of Margaux, near Bordeaux, launched a new brand called Alter Ego de Palmer. It's not a second wine but a full new brand, clearly linked to the main brand but different in its positioning: the wine can be drunk young with all the qualities of a great Margaux wine, finesse and elegance. It is not confusing for the consumer and very reliable for the distributors.

An even more recent example is "Clarence", the second wine of Château Haut-Brion, one of the five First Classified Growths. For many years, the second wine of Château Haut-Brion was named Château Bahans Haut-Brion after the plot on which the vines were planted. The name was difficult to remember and to pronounce, even for French people. A few weeks ago, Domaine Clarence Dillon, owner of Château Haut-Brion, officially announced the new name of the second wine: Clarence. "In 2009, stated the press release, Domaine Clarence Dillon will be celebrating the 75^th anniversary of the first visit of Clarence Dillon to Chateau Haut-Brion. This milestone will enable us to write a new page in the modern history of our second wine. In recognition of three quarters of a century of presence of the Dillon family at Chateau Haut-Brion, Domaine Clarence Dillon has decided to mark the occasion by renaming our second wine “Le Clarence de Haut-Brion” and by bottling our second wine in the elegant “Haut-Brion” bottle, specially engraved with the mention:“Clarence”. It was Clarence Dillon himself who fifty years ago brought this now iconic bottle design to Chateau Haut-Brion and first began using this elegant form for the 1958 vintage."

Second label and second wine are common business practice in the French wine industry. This practice is considered as a reinforcement of the primary brand instead of a dilution.

Are podcasts the new online news channel?

Last night, during our podcast on video on the Net, it occurred to me that we got used to new technologies very fast and that they spread all over even faster. Blogs and podcasts - considered new tools a few months ago - are now... would I dare say banal? We all have cameras, know how to use them and post our videos on line; we all know how to create and animate a blog. What's the use?

Like blogs, podcasts are of two types:

• branded podcasts for an estate or a winery;
• thematic podcasts – about wine, food, women, travel, lifestyle etc.
  

Château Palmer, a Classified Growth in Margaux, launched its blog first, then its webcasts. What is the purpose of these unusual actions by a very formal Bordeaux estate? The blog was at first supposed to replace the “News” page of the first site. In 2004, when the second version of the site was opened, a blog was quite a novelty. Château Palmer was the first Classified Growth to open a blog, and, as far as we know, is still the only one to have such an interactive tool. The management very quickly understood the use of such a tool: to interact with their consumers and wine lovers. Their posts are open to comment, and whoever wishes to express an opinion is welcome.

The first video podcasts were launched for the 2006 harvest after much thought. Once more Château Palmer was a pioneer in Bordeaux, and, in this rather conservative area, the Châteaux owners gave interviews which were then published as a podcast. The site of the Wine Spectator is now full of this sort of video. Until this move by Château Palmer, no estate had published its own podcasts. Harvest is a crucial time for a château, and filming it, as well as interviewing the participants, is rather tricky. Accidents may happen, rain may fall, thunderstorms may occur – and everything will be recorded. Of course one may edit the film or the interview, but then where is the honesty in such an enterprise? The idea is to give the consumer information, which is as accurate and true as possible. The risk cannot be described as non-existent for a winery. Château Palmer took the risk, and so became famous for the quality and realism of the information given to its customers and web visitors. This type of “branded” podcast is the best way to reach the end-consumers. Life at the Château and interaction with the team are shared with every end-consumer and Club member.

The thematic podcasts are different. They want to bring together people sharing a common interest or passion, in our case wine or wine and food. From December 2006 to March 2008, at the suggestion of longtime friend Randulo, Robin Garr, the creator of wineloverspage.com, launched the “WineLoversPage TalkShoe”, a weekly live Internet radio show.

The live show was hosted on the talkshoe.com platform, which is a community of web users and show hosts. How did it work? Every week Randulo and Robin chose a topic related to wine: for example, how to read a French label, corkscrew or screwcap, unusual wine and food pairings, wine goes to Hollywood, Champagne, wine and cheese, etc. The audience could listen to the live show, call in to give an opinion or take part in the topic, or download the show after it was completed.

Podcasts are not only videos or audio interviews. Behind the scenes there is a syndication technology called RSS requiring skills in programming and editing, which were provided by Randulo. TalkShoe's technology allows a much better interaction with the web users. People can talk to the show host live and/or can download the podcast – keeping it for further listening on their MP3 or iPod at a convenient time. Podcasts, like blogs, are syndicated and have a life of their own on the Net. Once they start being syndicated they reach more and more people.

How does it answer our question? By their instantaneity, the podcasts, especially when they are hosted on a platform such as TalkShoe that allows live broadcasting, can bring information on very actual questions and serve as news carriers. It's not the "breaking news" of CNN but it provides a very accurate information by its quick realization and the speed of its distribution. The technology brings the world up to speed and people together.

Wine, a luxury brand?

I read today on the decanter.com Newsletter that Dom Perignon opened a bar in the famous Harrods store in London and offers a glass of 1975 Oenetheque vintage of Dom Perignon for £250. If you have some financial problems, you can settle for the 1995 Vintage of Oenotheque for the mere sum of £60. If you are lucky, you might meet Claudia Schiffer at the bar since she was the advertising icon of the Karl Lagerfeld video on Oenotheque Champagne.

We all know that Champagne aimed at making its wines a luxury product. Question for luxury buffs: do you sell a luxury wine by the glass? Do you need "people" to make it great or expensive? NO! Why sell a very expensive and luxurious champagne by the glass? It is the same strategy as all those branded cheap Dior products for 50 or 100 € you see all over. Does it blur the image of the brand? YES! A luxury brand exists only through the phenomenon of scarcity: a glass is not as scarce as a bottle. Would you sell a bottle of perfume by small bottles?

Why is it bothering me so much to see a wonderful champagne sold its image to the crowd? Because I see everyday in the wine business how luxury wines protect and develop their fragile image without compromising it. Think Château Haut-Brion, think Château Palmer: all those brands create a very emotional and affective link between them and their consumers without selling a glass of their precious nectar in a department store, as elegant as it could be. Wine is not a coffee shop or department store product. Before being a commercial endeavor, wine is about taste, pleasure, people and places. It is about tradition, emotion, history --past and present. Indeed the contemporary brands might become the wines of our children and grandchildren. They will tell the next generations what our life was about.