Last week I was interviewed for the French TV channel France5 on how to market efficiently French wines to international markets. The first question of the journalist was: is there any difference between “Old World” and “New World” wine labels? She wanted me to show some “New World” labels. I pointed the “Red Rover” label to her as being “fun” and efficient with the dog face, the name “Red Rover” and the obvious grape mentioned on the label. She was sure no French wine could feature a dog on a label. Really?

Next day I had lunch with a friend in a Bordeaux restaurant and we both ordered a glass of Château La Folie 2005 with our lunch. We asked to see the bottle. And bingo! There was the cutest little dog on the label. Of course the style of the design was very different: I didn’t have my camera and couldn’t take a picture but it was one of those nice looking dogs – not the impressive mean-looking dog of Red Rover.

What does it mean? First of all, French labels are getting more contemporary. Wine makers are now aware that pets are part of our everyday life, like our wine and food. This kind of design is a good way to reach the consumer and appeal to his/her emotional side. Then, it also means that wine makers are ready to simplify their message on wine: wine is not always a serious and difficult subject. It’s fun and can be drunk without commenting on it for hours. Enjoy your wine in front of the fire place with your dog sitting at your feet during the cold season or outside in the garden while your dog is playing when it’s nice!

For any other country having a TV channel devoted to wine is… no big deal. In France it requires to go through a major administrative work. Why is that? First of all, because wine is now considered as a very dangerous drink leading to alcoholism and major health problems. Second, because the French law require to ask “permission” to open a new channel to a very special authority overlooking the media, the CSA (Audiovisual Committe). Last but not least, the lobbies against wine are very strong.

This new TV channel, Edonys, just applied for permission to start working. Its mission statement is to produce films on the culture of wine in France but also all over the world. The channel will be broadcasted in Europe and at least in two languages, French and English. The project is very appealing to any wine lover, whether professional or consumer. That’s why the initiators of the idea are already lobbying to get the support of the wine community in France. Let’s hope the project will meet with the approval of the Audiovisual Committee.

I just finished reading My life in France by Julia Child and I really enjoyed it. It’s funny, full of humor, very humble and inspiring for any aspiring author. For people of my generation, Julia Child was part of the American wine and food scene. She was an icon but I must confess that I never really took time to read about her, her life and her work. I had the image of a great chef, a formidable woman who brought French cuisine to America and a star of the food scene but didn’t know anything about the woman behind the scene.

My life in France recounts the hard work behind the bestsellers, the TV shows and all the paraphernalia going with stardom. I had no idea it took Julia over 10 years to write her first cook book, no idea that she cooked each recipe over and over to make sure it will work in an American kitchen and no idea she loved wine. Her husband Paul is a key person in her success: he gave her his love for great wines and the book is full of tastings and interesting views on wine.

If you love wine and food and want to take a break from marketing, pour a glass of your favorite wine, relax in your favorite chair and read Julia’s book. Cheers!

A few weeks ago, The New Wine Consumer radio show featured the Academy of Wine Communications. Until then I must confess my ignorance of this somewhat illustrious Academy founded in 1994 “to encourage wine writers, the craft of wine writing, and wine coverage in the media”. Since then, the Academy evolved in a more sophisticated way. It now “provides its membership a means to network with colleagues; to meet key members of the media; hone and update their media lists; and learn classic and innovative marketing and public relations techniques”.

Being a member of numerous associations and/or professional organizations, I was amazed to see on the homepage of the Academy links to a Facebook page, to a LinkedIn page, to Twitter and ustream.tv. This is really an organization that strikes me as the prototype or – better – the archetype of what a web 2.0 association should be: the central network point for its members to network between themselves of course but also to have a link to the outside world where potential curstomers, business associates or partners are.

According to Michael Wangbickler, the Academy aims at becoming international and opening to new communications experts. With such an open and innovative strategy, it is sure the Academy has a bright future.

A few months ago, an article on wine as investment in Decanter Magazine raised all hell between pro- and con wine investors. Today, the subject is back on Bloomberg under the title: “Fine-Wine Investors Raise a Glass as Petrus, Margaux Lure Fund”. Robert Lench, manager of the Vinum Fine Wine Fund in Guernsey off the coast of Normandy, buys the most famous wines, such as Haut-Brion, Lafite or Petrus, for his fund and says it attracts many customers who are looking for tangible goods to invest in.

That is the paradox of the wine investment: scared by the volatility of the stock exchanges, people with cash buy real estate and… wine. What if the value of the wine goes down? Drink it, is the general advice. It is true it’s easier to drink a bottle of good wine than to sell a piece of real estate. And seeing the level of your bottle going down is less traumatic (and more pleasant) than watching the decreasing curve of your investments!

More seriously, according to Bloomberg journalist Adria Cimino, “Vinum’s Lench says historical wine data shows its value as a long-term investment. The top price at auction for 1996 Vintage Chateau Haut Brion jumped 89 percent from 1999 to 2007, according to Sotheby’s. The 1996 Vintage Chateau Lafite during the same period rose more than fourfold, the data show.”

Who said this? French State Secretary for Prospectives and Evaluation of Public Policies and Internet, Eric Besson when asked why French wines couldn’t advertise on the Internet at LeWeb8 conference. This rather silly statement went around the world through various web sites, twitter and videos on the conference.

Unfortunately, as soon as this statement was made public, various reports showed that the French wine industry was loosing shares on most international markets: in England, American wines supplanted French wines; the export figures for the US went down and so on.

French wines are so good they don’t need to be advertised? Thank you for ruining our wine culture, Monsieur Besson!

The question mark is important. But it shows that the French administration, represented by the Ministry of Health, seems to be ready to put an end to an incredibly stupid story.

In 1991, the “Loi Evin”, a law edicted by the then Ministry of Health Claude Evin, banned all advertising of alcohol in magazines, TV, radio, billboards. Internet was not yet considered a real media and, as such, was not mentioned in the law. Since it was not mentioned, a court ruled that you could not advertise on the Internet. Second step: a court ordered Heineken to close its French site as it was advertising on alcohol. Third step: in November 2007, a magazine published an article recommending four Champagne brands for the holidays to its readers. A court ruled it as advertising and fined the newspaper. The court stated that even informative articles related to alcohol had to mention the legal warning on the danger of alcohol. So much for freedom of the press! Some newspapers and magazines complied fearing a heavy fine.

Today there is this piece of good news brought by Decanter Bordeaux correspondent Jane Anson: “The French minister of health supports changing the Evin Law to allow wine advertising on the internet.” A CIVB spokeperson told Anson: “While we welcome the news that the internet may now be a legal method of promotion for winemakers, this has not yet been made official – and is not the only threat to French wine.” It is unfortunately true but at least now, we have a little hope.

How vexing to have missed so many fascinating events, just because I was traveling in the US and then taking two days (well, about 30 hours) to drag myself and my suitcases from California to France, through Salt Lake City and Paris. Convenient but not as fast as I hoped!

Anyway, I missed two major events and it will take me a little time to recover from the disappointment. Let’s start by my first disappointment: a Live Twitter tasting and marathon food narrated by my friend Robert McIntosh, author of the blog The Wine Conversation and co-founder of OpenWineConsortium to match some of the best wines of Hugel & Fils. The Twitter Tasting is organized by the distributor Bin Ends once a month since July 2008, as explained on their site: “Twitter Taste LIVE is a ground breaking new tasting format that will bring the famous wine personalities of the world straight to the consumer via the popular social networking tool Twitter. This is not just national, but international! Users all over the world will have the opportunity to join the worlds top wine personalities online to taste their wines. Even better, users will have the potential to comment, ask questions and go back and forth with the winemakers in real time.” Robert and the participants from Europe, China and the US chatted along the tasting and the pairing. The event went well, if I believe Robert’s report with the usual little technical blunders. The experience was basically very positive and was even featured on Springwise.

His virtual tasting done, Robert McIntosh went to the first European Wine Bloggers Conference (EWBC) 2008 founded by our friends of the OpenWineConsortium (OWC) held in Logrono, Spain on August 28-31! That’s what it takes to be an international traveler. They’d better give me the dates of the next conference: I’ll make sure to be around. What stamina! When the organizers expected 10 people, they had many more and had to close the event for lack of room! Wonderful! It looks like everybody was able to taste wonderful wines brought by the attendees and WORK: they talked about what blogging is about and how to make money with a blog, they chatted live, they made videos and even had the conference filmed by VinusTV. There is not yet a formal report of the conference but you can already read all the biographies of the participants and their interviews.

That’s it! I got it and I read it! I just couldn’t believe my luck when the post office delivered Gary‘s book on Friday. (My skepticism is just the result of a lost book package, actually MY own book, by… DHL.)

Last week, Gary was concerned about his book not being available in some stores. He Twittered the question to the world. Randulo saw this Tweet and invited him to call in live to the podcast he was doing at the time, which Gary did. You can listen to the short phone chat with him about the book, and his interest in tea, which he finds very similar to wine in many ways.

Anyway, Gary’s book is on my desk and I carried it along with me all weekend to read it. Funnily enough, on the cover Gary’s name is subtitled “star of winelibrarytv.com“. Fortunately, Gary is much more than a star: he’s witty, bright, funny, sincere and honest. He writes as he talks: with energy and passion. Do you know a lot of “stars” with those qualities?

Gary worked very hard to give us his opinion on 101 wines he really enjoyed and brought thunder to his world, as he put it in the title. The book is not a guide, it’s not the wines Gary recommends you to drink: “buy wines that are true to themselves and true to you”, Gary recommends. Why is that? Because “that’s how we’re going to change the wine world”: forget the ratings, forget the critics, forget the marketing strategies, the commercials and the ads. Buy a bottle because you think you’ll like it: if you don’t, you’ll have learned something about yourself and wine.

How did he select his 101 wines? They are “the 101 wines that I am most excited about and want to recommend to anyone interested in wine”, “wines that break down barriers, create new styles, and ooze charisma”. The program sounds intriguing. Should we get in a little more details about the wines? From #101 to #1, every wine is reviewed with the same info: winery name, price, origin, grapes, ABV (alcohol by volume), production and web site.

First Gary’s titles: “Making Mom Proud” for 2 Brothers, Cabernet Sauvignon reserve 2005; “It’s in the mail” for Ambulineo Vineyards, Big Paw Chardonnay 2006 or “Wine for your two-year-old” for Taylor Fladgate, Quinta de Vargellas, 2005. There is the humor and the odd comparisons. When Gary wants his reader to imagine how a wine tastes, here is what he advises to do: “I need you to take some pigs-in-a-blanket – you know, those mini hot dogs. Now you’re going to take a strawberry Fruit Roll-Up and wrap it on one more layer. That’s right! We’re going one more layer! Now bite it. Eat. Sprinkle some black pepper on it! That is this wine”. What is he talking about? a Languedoc wine, Mas de la Barben, Les Calices 2003 selling for $44! And in case you have some doubt about what a fruit roll-up is, there is a foot note on the subject.

Is Gary not taking wine seriously by any chance? Not at all. Gary is certainly one of the more erudite people I read on the subject: he’ll tell you everything on the most obscure grape, like Kekfrankos or about a label, like Ceago Vinegarden. Ceago is a Pomo Indian word, meaning “grass seed valley”. He will give you insights on the winery and the winemaker, tell you what he felt and smelled and tasted in the wine.

You can agree or disagree with whatever Gary says but there is something you have to agree about: Gary’s book is easy to read, gives you an in-depth appreciation of the wines he tasted, plenty of information on almost everything related to wine, taste, aroma and flavors. The book is informative, easy to read and you’ll get a good laugh out of Gary’s comments and remarks. How many wine books make you laugh?

This is the result of a French-American study conducted by Dr Liz Thach and Prof. Francois d’Hauteville. Thach found out that French Millennials don’t drink wine because it’s expensive, bad tasting, difficult to understand and alcoholic. They keep drinking an occasional glass of wine while eating at the family table but they’d rather buy beer or cocktail when on their own. This study comforts the very thorough book written by Dr. Celine Simonnet-Toussaint in 2006 on the subject, Les jeunes et le Vin (Young people and Wine) and doesn’t bring any new information on the subject.

It is more interesting to make a parallel with American Millennials, one of the most interesting segment of potential or existing wine consumers. How did they get interested in wine? For some of them, their parents drank wine and they grew up with wine on the table. “My parents are both big into wine”, said 22-year-old Jennifer Hammons to journalist Deborah Pankey, Daily Herald Food Editor on November 30, 2005.”At first I didn’t like it, but then it grew on me.” Same scenario for young people in France: wine is a food always on the family table. Young children are encouraged to taste a drop of champagne or wine during family gatherings. Later in their teens, they can drink a third of a glass of wine or champagne with their meal. Why do they then reject wine to go on to beer, cocktails or liquors? Very often, as sociologist Céline Simonnet-Toussaint explains in her book , young people under 25 reject wine because it is the symbol of the family. Young people want to experiment with their freedom, but they come back to wine at around 25, when they get their first job, their first “real” apartment and start settling into their new life.

Others discover wine by themselves – during a trip to a wine country, like Napa in the USA, Burgundy in France, Tuscany in Italy, Priorato in Spain or Porto in Portugal. They get interested, go to wine classes or tastings, join a wine club and explore wine stores to get good advice. Mostly they listen to their peers, surf the Internet to read about wine and discuss their new passion in forums.

The wine industry is aware of the need of young people for more knowledge. At the same time, this new generation of wine drinkers is very different from preceding generations. They have a much sweeter tooth being the “Coca Cola generation”, they are “zappers”, having known TV and the Internet all their lives, and they are used to getting what they want and paying a high price for it. After all, they pay $3.50 for their daily Starbucks cappuccino and download their songs for $1 or their movies for $5 every day on their iPod or MP3. They know that everything has a price and usually a high price.

Taking these parameters into account, some winemakers thought about designing wines specifically targeted at Millennials and GenXers: fun labels, fruity forward wines and a high price. Millennials do not hesitate to pay up to $20 for a bottle of wine! Indeed, they do not yet have any big financial burdens: no children, often a two-income household, no parents to take care of, a good salary and a large disposable income. Unfortunately for the wine industry, they rarely buy the same bottle twice, because there is such a huge choice of brands. They want to be the first to discover a new brand or a new trend, the first to try them and share them with their peers.

At the same time, young people are not as comfortable as their elders when they buy wine. They can be adventurous but from time to time they seek quality and certainty. Whether they are American, European or Japanese, they will rely on a classic wine from Europe or a well known luxury brand from the New World. Wine is still a little intimidating for Millennials, whether they’re French or American!

That’s why I’m a little skeptical of Thach’s conclusions: I’d like to see some figures!