Update on Crushpad.com

A large part of one of the chapters of Wine Brands was dedicated to crushpad.com, this luxury winery based in San Francisco. Why was that? Crushpad.com and crushnet allow want-to-be winemakers to make wine... on the Net if they don't live in California. They have access to all the facilities via videos and podcasts. Crushnet goes even further, as stated in their press release: "Crushpad is at the forefront of the Wine 2.0 movement, providing new wine makers with the resources and support to create their own luxury vintage from grape to bottle -- and a unique opportunity to express their creativity through wine making. Something that until now has been reserved only for professional winemakers living in wine country."

There are three features that really attracted my attention:

- "Real-time, streaming video that allows individuals to direct the action from the comfort of their living room: panning, tilting and zooming in on all the activities at Crushpad's 34,000 square foot winery and communicating with Crushpad staff; even cheering on members of their wine making group from afar."

- A wiki : "Enowiki, an online resource that demystifies many of the more technical aspects of wine making."

- "Wine Styler, an online tool that enables individuals to graphically define the style of their wine and automatically drive the associated technical wine making decisions. Wine Styler is also tightly integrated with Enowiki and educational videos to provide a comprehensive wine design environment."

I just wish we had such a tool in Europe!

Wine critics vs. wine consumers

There is a great post in The Pour, Eric Asimov's blog in the New York Times: "You can please all the people, or you can make great wine". It is the usual controversy on the critics' role in the wine business: should consumers follow blindly their reviews or should they appreciate a wine only on their own criteria and/or personal tastes? Critics are supposed to know their wines but they are also human beings with their own prejudices and tastes. Is there a way to help the consumers?

Some people might write a book, such as the Wine Trials by Robin Goldstein reviewed by Newsweek and commented upon by Eric Asimov in his post:

"According to the Newsweek article, the book shows that 100 wines under $15 consistently outperformed more expensive bottles. In particular, the article cited two comparisons: a $9.99 bottle of Domaine Ste. Michelle brut, a sparkling wine from Washington, outscored a bottle of Dom Pérignon, while Two-Buck Chuck cabernet sauvignon was preferred over a $55 Napa Valley cabernet, Artemis from Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars."

This proves only that people have very different tastes in wines, some with discriminating palates and others with simpler tastes.

Consumers now have a new resource, a free wiki wine rating site to find the best wines in a specific location, wineape.com, I already mentioned in this blog. The idea came up when three people, Jeff Dracup, Colleen Wagner and Kevin Jackson, who enjoy trying new wines, found out that most wines had no rating. “We felt the 100-point wine rating system, used by Wine Spectator and others, fell short in many respects. First, the ratings come from a select group of people who may or may not have the same taste in wine as the average consumer. Second, and more importantly, there are just too many wines being released each year for all wines to be rated by such a small group of wine tasters”, said Jeff Dracup in his press release (September 6, 2007, published on pr.com). With that statement, Dracup shares the opinion of Kevin Kells, development director of consumer packaged goods at Google to wine industry executives during the 16^th Annual Wine Industry Financial Symposium held in Napa Valley on September 18^, 2007, when the latter said: “We don’t believe that five guys sitting in a room should be able to know the right answers compared to the hundreds of people who are out there. We want to hear people’s comments”. He has even gone a little further: "Who is this "critic" to tell me what I should or shouldn’t like? On the other hand if a group of independent consumers say they liked a wine – it is more likely I’m also going to enjoy that wine. I feel more confident buying a wine recommended by many other wine consumers than just a few critics.”

Web 2.0 is about user-generated content, and a wiki such as wineApe.com might bring an other answer to the controversy over critics and consumers: the voice of the people. Isn't it called democracy?

WineApe.com, the wine wiki

While writing Wine Brands, I came across a very interesting wiki, wineape.com, founded in 2006 by Jeff Dracup, Colleen Wagner and Kevin Jackson - three people who enjoy trying new wines, but who found that most wines had no rating. Their idea is to challenge the power of the wine critics, and to give the power to the consumers. Why should consumers choose their wines only on the advice of a few wine critics, who have access to a limited number of bottles? “First, the ratings come from a select group of people who may or may not have the same taste in wine as the average consumer. Second, and more importantly, there are just too many wines being released each year for all wines to be rated by such a small group of wine tasters. As a consequence, we found that the vast majority of wines have no rating,” said Jeff Dracup, Co-Founder/CEO of WineApe.

The idea behind WineApe.com is to create an international community of wine tasters/consumers who share their tasting notes with everybody. Not only will this community bypass the wine critics, who publish in print or even on the Net at very carefully chosen times (to be ahead of competition), but the community will help the wine makers to know their consumers better. The ratings of their wines by their consumers are included in emails that go to the wineries. “We’re hoping these emails will provide wineries with the feedback from consumers necessary to help wineries improve their wines and offer better wine values,” says Colleen Wagner, President.

Fast to inform, fast to react, fast to form his/her own opinion, here is the new consumer of the 21^st century.