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!

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?

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!

Millennials are the dream target of many wine brands. They have time, they have money and they crave learning about wine. Really? Think twice. Or, as 29-year-old journalist Nadira Hira put it, “think authentic, don’t think marketing!”.

Is it bad news? Not really. Millennials are a generation of zappers, with short attention span but they have strong values: they believe in authenticity and honesty. No more marketing stories but the truth, nothing but the truth: who is the winemaker? What is the story behind a brand? What is really in the bottle? No fairy tale, but a true story.

Technology can’t be ignored either. Every Millennial (at least almost) has a mobile phone and a laptop. They love searching the Web for videos and various “fun” sites. How does it translate for a winery? Wineries can’t ignore Facebook, Twitter, videos, mobile sites and social media if they want to reach the 76 million of Millennials.

The Millennials are really a difficult target but they are worth the effort: wine is part of our common culture and what better job than teaching the beauty of wine to young people?

Since the Social Media Report by VinTank published a couple of months ago, the notoriety of adegga.com increased tremendously and got a much deserved attention. Founded in Portugal by Andre C. Ribeirinho, adegga.com is a very innovative company whose technology is well advanced.

In spite of being Portuguese born, adegga.com is an international platform available in Portuguese, French, English, Spanish, Italian and Dutch. Adegga.com and its team, the two Andres and Emidio, were the technical wizards behind the EWBC: all technical problems and glitches were solved with energy and efficiency by the smiling guys. But the interesting part was the discussions with them about what is their very unique creation, the AVIN code (Adegga Vin Identification Number). You certainly heard about the ISBN code, the identification number for books that allows any libraries or bookstores to identify a book by its very unique code. Adegga created the same system for wine. An AVIN code will be given to every vintage of the same wine.

Even more amazing is the ability for a consumer to access information on the AVIN coded wine through a mobile phone. A winery can apply either the diagram with the code on its back label or only the AVIN number. When the diagram is applied on the bottle, the consumer directs the phone camera on it and has direct access to the wine information on the adegga site or, very soon, on an other site.

This impressive technology is a big improvement for the wine consumer as well as the wineries. The consumer can access useful information while the winery has a direct access to its consumers.

Next week I’ll be on my way to the European Wine Bloggers Conference in Lisbon, Portugal. I’m one of the lucky one who’ll get to speak twice – once on Social Wine Brand and the second time on the Future of the Social Wine Brand.

But what is exactly the social wine brand? More and more winery owners are getting aware of the importance of social media to reach their consumers. They start writing blogs, create a page on Facebook and an account on Twitter. Those are great initiatives but they’re far from being as efficient as they could be. Indeed being part of a social media network means a lot more. It means interfacing with other wine professionals – even peers – and, of course, consumers. One of the weaknesses of the European wine network is the lack of communication and cooperation between winery owners and wine makers. Europe is more individualistic and competitive than its New World friends – i.e. Americans, Australians or South Americans. It impairs the launching of efficient networks. Indeed, networks require trust and sharing information and tips. Europeans are usually more retentive and don’t give away information or tip to an unknown party.

Is there a solution for this situation? Yes, we see in Europe innovative initiatives coming from wine makers who understood how working together (and not against each other) is important. The French “Mes Vignes” network is one of the best examples. Several winemakers from various French producing regions got together to offer wine lovers the opportunity to rent some vines for a year and create their own wine. In Cahors, the wine makers “banded” together to promote their wines in the US through blogs and buzz marketing. I’m sure other countries have many success stories they’ll share during this panel on social wine brands.

Blogging is certainly one of the best social media a winery can develop. But it is not enough to write posts on the state of the vine or how the wine is doing in the vat or in the barrel. The blog needs to bring value to the winery or the shop owner by creating a special relationship with the final consumer. The blogger needs to create links with other bloggers by sharing information, giving away ideas or starting interesting discussions. Topics can vary. I recently read a discussion on Facebook initiated by David Corey on : “would you rather buy high priced wine discounted or small production wines with consistenly fair pricing? let’s say $29 and under?” The question is a very good example of the kind of topics consumers are passionnate about: over 30 people answered and commented upon each other’s comments.

Don’t hesitate either to join professional networks such as OpenWineConsortium or LinkedIn with its Wine 2.0 or Wine Business section. Be proactive, create relationship and emotion around your brand. Comment on other people blogs, give away information to help somebody, get involved in discussions you are interested in – “just do it” or “think differently” but whatever you chose to do, do it in a spirit of cooperation and with an open mind.

As usual, a report by VinTank creates a lot of interest amongst wine aficionados and tech people. Good iPhone apps in the wine business are not that easy to find. VinTank’s report is of great help to the wine consumer: Paul Mabray went through all the hard work of buying the apps, and creating various filters to test them (wine reviews, wine and food pairing, wine journal, social media capabilities, Point of purchase option, User Interface, innovation and data cleanliness). With those 8 features, any wine consumer can chose the app most pertinent to his/her use.

VinTank’s paper is very informative on the best BtoC apps. The top apps recommended are good tools to establish and maintain contact between wine companies and consumers.

This said, my main concern is that there is no real app for wine professionals. As such I’m also interested in price comparisons between two or more sites and not only what the price point. I’d also be interested in auctions for more expensive wines.

Next steps for the industry: mobile site for all wineries to maintain the stream between wineries and consumers, more BtoB apps and specific apps for high end wines (Opus One, Haut-Brion, Palmer, Sassicaïa, etc.). And more reports from VinTank!