My last entry started a real conversation; I love it.

My last blog entry, about how the wine industry could do a better job of marketing their product and how wine writers could try to reach beyond the small circle of people they write for and try to reach a larger audience through a serious decrease in snobbery, seems to have struck a chord.

I have seen links to my article receive tweets and retweets, diggs, and email forwardings. My blog numbers have exploded. I have gone from nowhere to the #4 top blog on Wine Blog Network Rankings.

Most importantly, I started a conversation; a real one with differing viewpoints. I am thrilled and amazed at the number of people that have found their way here to my blog, I am so incredibly grateful that some of you felt moved enough to share your thoughts here, on facebook, and by email.

This blog entry is about you, my readers, and what you have had to say in response to my last entry. Here is our conversation so far, please feel free to keep it going.

Shannon L., blog author’s friend, Dec 27 2009 8:46 PM

Walmart and Costco also sell Menage a Trois. Costco being the cheapest at $6.99 a bottle.

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Kelly Doyle Mitchell, owner of juicyplants.com, Dec 27 2009, 8:52 PM

Great read! Loved what he had to say about marketing and the (over)pricing in restaurants!

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John Cesano, blog author, Dec 27 2009, 8:59 PM

Again, better with food than by iteslf, but an absolutely GREAT food wine, and only $1.17 per glass from Costco. Wow. Beer prices for this wine’s superior food pairing qualities. That’s what the wine industry should be telling folks.

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Rob McLean, article inspiration, Dec 27 2009, 9:39 PM

Ok, so I am starting to see some of the light. My parents drank wine but mostly the famous box wines you’d find while at the grocery chain.
I being of the industrial worker type always enjoyed beer and shots as opposed to wine. I must admit a little wine does go a long way, at least to my head.
Appreciate the nod from this writer and friend, I will keep reading and eventually perhaps even change my beer drinking tunes. Admittedly Mr.Cesano already has me looking at the wine in my grocery outlet with more interest. Just haven’t committed as of yet.
Keep it up John, you are the future when it comes to a friendly voice in the wine writing community. I am sure of that.

Always
RK McLean

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Nancy Cameron Iannios, Oregon’s best tasting room and wine club manager, Dec 28 2009, 10:38 AM

Wonderful John! This is my favorite blog yet. I truly believe this would be a worthy submission for national publication with one of the big wine magazines…you should give it a try! I’m definitely going to pass it along to all of my So. Oregon wine associates. It is something that needs to be addressed! I cannot tell you how many guests have stepped right up to the tasting bar with an immediate disclaimer: “please don’t laugh at me if I don’t taste the wine correctly…I’ve never done ‘this’ before.”
First and foremost, wine should be fun and the stigmas associated with wine do need to loosen up. You don’t have to comment on the nose. It’s not necessary to recognize the nuances. You needn’t concern yourself with whether or not you are holding the glass correctly. Wine is meant to be enjoyed. You either like it or you don’t and you definitely do not have to agree with what you read or with what you hear. Reviews aren’t the final authorative word; they are merely one person’s perception and opinion. Each person’s taste buds allow for the final personal review.
The absolute beauty of wine is that it’s subjective. Each person’s experience is as unique as their own fingerprints. Tasting notes are more of an exercise in creative writing than they are a carved in stone description. I’ve seen many a concerned guest struggle to pick up on a flavor that is suggested in tasting notes. A gracious host/hostess can immediately address such concerns and save the whole experience.
I totally agree that you needn’t depend upon the price tag on a bottle of wine in order to enjoy an enhanced food experience. My daughter Rachel turned me onto Bogle Merlot about a year ago. You can purchase it at almost every supermarket for about $7.99. It has allowed me to have a dinner by candlelight experience in between paychecks on more than one occasion!

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John Cesano, blog author, Dec 28 2009, 3:57 PM

Robert Parker Jr. just gave a Napa wine you’ve never heard of (Dana Estates’ 2007 Lotus Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon), that you’ll never see (only 250 cases made), that you wouldn’t buy ($275 for a bottle of last year’s release), a perfect 100 point s rating. seriously, who really cares? Way to go wine industry, just keep shoveling that news that no real person cares about.

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Shannon L., blog authors friend, Dec 28 2009, 4:49 PM

I love what Nancy has to say. I believe she should submit it so some publication!
I admit, I buy my wine purely by if I like the picture or the title of the vineyard on the label!
I either like it, or I don’t. That simple.

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Shannon E., Wine Goddess, Dec 28 2009, 6:53 PM

[Parker] has to sell his newsletter and books. Look at his audience. Those dudes (readers) need to think they have something up on everyone else. Don’t sweat it just use it in your comedy routine (who is Dana? Is she THAT hot?)

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John Cesano, blog author, Dec 28 2009, 7:06 PM

Today, I checked in with the twitterati of winedom, and the big news was that Robert Parker, THE wine critic, had deigned to grant a 100 point score to a Napa Cabernet you have never heard of (Dana Estates’ 2007 Lotus Vineyard Cab), will never see a bottle of in person (only 250 cases produced), and can’t afford ($275/bottle for last year’s release, this year’s will likely be more). Really, who cares, besides a bunch of wine geek, Frasier Crane wanna-be, Napa cult Cab, fan boys? This news will not effect one single person I know.

Let me say it again clearly to wine writers and the wine industry: give real people news that they can use. Tell real people about wines that are readily available, do not cost an arm and a leg, and pair well with the food people eat at dinner time. Give people a reason to try your product, instead of writing for each other about things real people will never care about.

Just sayin’.

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Josh, author of drinknectar.com, Dec 29 2009, 8:58 AM

This was a very good and well written piece. The wine industry is behind the curve when it comes to 1) vision and 2) marketing and 3) distribution (don’t get me started here)

I love to debunk the wine snobbery of it all. There are a few good wine writers trying to do the same. Both John and Nancy are spot on in their comments too.

Josh @nectarwine (twitter)

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Tamara, author do sipwithme.blogspot.com, Dec 29 2009, 9:03 AM

Good article and I hear what you’re saying, but I personally find it more interesting to taste (and read about) quality over quantity. Not just wine either, same goes for beer. I can drink a tall boy for next to nothing or I can indulge in a deliciously handcrafted local ale. I’d pay 5 times the amount for the microbrew… and I’d be more likely to read a review about it too. Same for food for that matter. Do you want to read about a Big Mac you can get for under $5 or do you want to read about and taste the juicy gourmet kobe beef hamburger loaded with toppings you could never imagine on a burger (like a quails egg!)? News that you can use is good, but it has to be more than just about value. Just sayin’.

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John Cesano, blog author, Dec 29 2009, 10:41 AM

Tamara, your points are valid…as far as they go. When I visited friend in Oregon a couple of months ago, I did not drink a single Budweiser, but I did enjoy a handcrafted IPA or two at Wild River Brewing in Grants Pass. When I listed my 10 Perfect Foods, Kobe beef made the list. I have waxed poetic over wines that most folks, outside of the circle of wine geeks (and yes I consider myself one), will never taste as well.

With nearly every wine writer writing about wines that regular folks will never taste, it just perpetuates the wine industry’s failures to effectively market their wines to a wider audience. If you venture from Oregon to Napa, I’ll look forward to reading your review of the 2007 Dana Estates Lotus Vineyard Cabernet. Your prose is solid, and, as I am a self-professed wine geek, it would be interesting to read your review of a wine no one I know will never taste.

Handcrafted beers, and even Kobe beef, are available to the average consumer. Many of the wines I read reviews of are not.

You seem to be likening the wines I would recommend regular folks try with their meals, over the beer or iced tea they currently drink, to a 24 ounce can of Budweiser. It is just that attitude, dare I say snobbery, that puts so many people off ordering wine.

I love quality. I acknowledge that many more $20 wines will appeal to my palate than $10 wines, and there is a great likelihood that I will enjoy a $40 wine more than a $20 wine; but I’m not writing for myself, or for a circle of other wine writers. I have chosen to write for my friends, most of whom are just just regular folks, most of whom too rarely drink wine. I will write try to find “value” wines that taste good, or pair well with food, review and recommend them. I’ve taken on the job the industry doesn’t do, trying to get regular folks to drink wine now and again.

I think I’m on the right track, this was my most read blog entry by far.

Thanks for the comment. I love your blog and I’m adding it to my blog roll.

John

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John Vitale, editor & publisher of Washington Tasting Room Magazine, Dec 29 2009 1:48 PM

I read your post “So, you don’t get wine writers or the wine industry?” with a big grin on my face.

Cheers, keep up the good work on your blog!

John Vitale

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Scott Casey, Man of Mystery, Dec 29, 2009 9:59 PM

Love your Blog John. I agree with you 1000% wine beats all drinks when it comes to food.

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Nancy Cameron Iannios, Oregon’s best tasting room and wine club manager, Dec 29 2009, 10:10 PM

I’m definitely not trying to get into any debates, but I’m 100% behind John on this entire subject. I’m not convinced that a high priced bottle of wine is a guarantee of “quality”. I personally prefer red wines that have been fermented in New French Oak rather than American Oak. The cost of New French Oak is much more expensive than American Oak so wine producers have to cover their costs by pricing their wines accordingly. New French Oak aging is my personal preference but it’s not an indication of whether or not the wine is of higher “quality”. From my experience there are lots of marketing ploys involved in determining price points. For the most part, these price points have absolutely nothing to do with the actual quality of the wine and have more to do with a marketing manager’s opinion about what is going to make their product move at the best percentage of profit. Some people automatically see value in something with a higher price tag on it, but wine is no different than any other product…it’s about supply and demand and impressions left through marketing efforts. Most “impressions” in the wine industry are created with a sense of snobbery that appeals to a specific market. I think the point that John is trying to make is about industry “impressions” that leave the ordinary person feeling that wine is unapproachable. The “ordinary” person accounts for a much higher percentage of the buying population. So, purely from a numbers standpoint, the wine industry could probably sell more product to a wider audience if they were to take the snob appeal out of their product.

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John Cesano, blog author, Dec 29 2009, 11:37 PM

Nancy, I always welcome your comments. You have a viewpoint I respect, and as the best Oregon tasting room and wine club manager I know, your opinions enrich this blog.

To be fair, I am thrilled with Tamara’s comment as well. I would love people to look at my entries as the beginning of a conversation. I welcome comments, and mine is not the only valid viewpoint. It is entirely possible, perhaps probable, that I will be completely wrong in something I write. Tamara’s thoughts were so well presented that I added her to my blogroll immediately.

As Tamara’s blog is about visiting every Oregon tasting room in a year, it is more than likely that the two of you, Nancy and Tamara, have met.

I tried to taste wines at Fetzer’s tasting room in Hopland today, only to find it was closed about 3 years ago. Instead, I tasted some delicious wines from Topel Winery of Mendocino County at their tasting room in Healdsburg. While I’ll be putting up a new entry tomorrow recapping my visit to Topel’s tasting room, I can say that getting out to taste inexpensive wines looking for some jewels will be hampered if large wine groups are closing their brand’s tasting rooms.

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Denise Slattery, triovintners.com, Dec 30 2009 8:00 AM

Hi – This is a great summation of what’s screwed up in this industry. I like what I have read here. Thanks very much. Couple of things to add: I make wine and have a small winery which is holding on financially but a bit stressed at this time (who isn’t?) I would say the hardest job I have (besides cleaning barrels and tanks!) is marketing my wine. It’s not just about pouring samples in a tasting room. It’s really a 360 degree process that requires me to have everything buttoned up in terms of marketing and communications. Fortunately I really enjoy this part and like the challenge, but I am stunned at how stupidly the industry has organized itself, especially with regard to the point scale / medal winning / incomprehensible review system that we are all (consumers and trade alike) forced to contend with. I loathe kowtowing to the point-people and therefore do not send wine to WS or WA for review. But I second guess myself on this decision with each new release….”What if we actually got a high score on a wine from WS? That’s good for business. Right?”

Most of the wineries in this county (and there are something like 6,000 +) are small, family-run operations that are thriving because they are focused on small lot productions and a hand-crafted product. Making only 250 cases of a particular wine for me is mostly a matter of economics, not about creating an aura of exclusivity. Is the wine better because there’s less of it? Not necessarily. Does it cost more to make because there is less of it? Of course. But I think the point should not be lost on consumers that when it’s gone, it’s gone. So, pay attention and try it because it’s going to provide an experience for you. Not because so-and-so gave it 100 points. Right?

Finally, the craziest obstacle to promoting more everyday wine consumption is the insane restrictions that states apply to the sale of wine. As long as these hold-over restrictions from prohibition continue, and the three-tier system is protected, wineries are prevented from direct to consumer trade in many states. I can deal with the TTB compliance issues (which are also tedious and arcane but primarily there to capture tax revenue) but I loathe the three-tier system and believe this is a restriction of free trade. I think it’s down right anti- American!

To each and every one of you, thank you for writing this blog entry. Your opinions and viewpoints, uniquely yours, benefit us all when shared, and enrich my blog tremendously. Keep reading, keep commenting, keep sipping. Consider signing up as a subscriber of the blog too, Thanks! -John

 

So, you don’t get wine writers or the wine industry? I know why.

I have a friend named Rob who isn’t really a wine guy. Rob isn’t alone, many people aren’t into wine.

The wine industry has allowed a perception that wine is more special than beer to permeate society. Working guys drink beer. Fancy pant elites drink wine.

I don’t know of any other industry that would purposely allow barriers to purchase to exist like this.

With wine, we’re not talking about unattainably expensive status symbol luxury items like Rolex watches, but there are many people who would more willingly buy a Rolex watch than a bottle of wine. With the Rolex, you know what you bought, an expensive, investment grade, time piece.

People just don’t know about wine, and not knowing are afraid to order it.

By allowing wine to be perceived as complex, a beverage for learned experts, the industry has fostered a fear in consumers. “I’m not James Bond, I don’t know a good vintage, or even a wine type; I’ll just have a beer, or a shot of tequila, or a Mojito, or a coke, or iced tea…anything but wine. I don’t want to look stupid in front of my friends or the waiter or the shop keeper.”

At the same time that Bacardi was marketing their rum through aggressive Mojito promotion, and selling more rum than ever, the wine industry was allowing fear to continue to be a wall most people won’t climb to try their product.

I could scream.

I read the blogs of many wine writers, pick up the wine magazines, keep up on marketing trends. 100 point wine ratings, 5 star ratings, indecipherable wine speak, Frasier Crane-esque reverence paid to a handful of producers of wines not available to the general public or too expensive to justify buying. Open a door or window and let’s get some air in here; most of what you’ll read about wine is from writers who have bought into the failed marketing of the industry – of absolutely no interest to anyone outside of the community of wine cognoscenti. Yawn.

Wine is so much better with most meals than beer, or iced tea, or coke, or just about any other beverage, but the industry is not getting that message across; it also hurts that restaurant wines cost triple what they would in a store and wine service is generally poor.

The next time you are in a nice restaurant, you will see many if not most people drinking beer or iced tea instead of wine. I can assure you that given a wine recommendation that would suit their meal better, and offered a glass of that wine at a reasonable price, most everyone would be drinking and enjoying both their wine and their meal more. I blame the wine industry for poor marketing.

Rather than be one of thousands of other wine writers bleating about the same unattainable cult wines, effectively bragging to my fellow wine writers about the wines I am drinking, I want to write about wine for the guy that would rather have wine with his meal but doesn’t want to feel like an ass.

Although wine knowledge is never ending, wine is simple. Let me say that again; Wine Is Simple.

Take the wine I drank my Christmas meal with, a 2008 Menage a Trois from Folie a Deux winery in Napa County’s St. Helena; while the wine goes for $12 a bottle, I just found the same wine on sale at Lucky’s supermarket for $8.99, so price needn’t be an obstacle to having good wine with food.

I appreciate that there are a wealth of wines in supermarkets that run from $8 – $20 per bottle, and some are good and some aren’t. I’ll try to taste a number of them and give you my recommendations.

Menage a Trois is a playful way of saying that the wine is a blend of three grape varietals, Cabernet Sauvignon, the king of reds, big, structured, dense, with black berry and currant notes, Merlot, Cab’s softer sister red, rounder, fleshier, with cherry notes, and Zinfandel, a brash, in your face red, with raspberry notes.

You have heard, “red wine with meat.” With three red wines in one bottle, this wine is a great wine for pairing with a host of meat dishes from hamburgers and hotdogs to pork shoulder and flank steak. Pasta in an Italian red sauce, Caesar salad; heck, I could drink this wine with just about anything and be happy.

Wine shouldn’t be about inviolable rules, but I will share a few “wouldn’t be a bad idea”s with you along the way.

The “wouldn’t be a bad idea” for today is not overfilling your wine glass just because you have the room to do so. My wine glasses are large, either 16 or 20 ounces, and I pour no more than 4 ounces in my glass. I get to swirl the wine, let it breathe, let the bowl of the wine glass collect wonderful scents, bury my nose in the glass, and inhale all the aroma and bouquet the wine has to give. A sniff and a sip, can change a bite of already good food into something almost transcendent. Doesn’t always, but, oh is it nice when it does!

I can get about six glasses of wine from a bottle at 4 ounces per glass. That means my $8.99 sale bottle of 2008 Menage a Trois is costing me about a buck and a half per glass.

The wine industry should be telling you that you can get a great wine to pair with food at home for about a buck and a half a glass.

That’s a lot more valuable information to most consumers than knowing about another garage winery whose entire release is sold out but just got a 10 page write up in a major wine publication after scoring a perfect 100 points in a possibly not blind tasting.

I’ll be visiting Fetzer and Bonterra in Mendocino County, doing some wine tasting close to home this week, hopefully I will be able to make some more recommendations. I also want to taste some of Topel Winery’s wines, they are also from nearby, but their tasting room is in Healdsburg, so tasting for me will have to wait a bit. I also should be seeing some wine accessory samples arrive this week that a distributer said they would send; I’ll try those out and let you know what I think. I’m also going to try cooking polenta a different way, and I’m going to make another batch of involtini this week. Lots of things to write about, I hope you’ll keep checking in.

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If you do have the time, and are near Healdsburg, CA stop into the Topel Winery tasting room and taste some wines before year’s end. They have a 2007 Sauvignon Blanc, Grace at $130/case ($1.80/glass) , 2004 Hidden Vineyard Cabernet at $190/case ($2.64/glass), and 2005 Cuvee Donnis Syrah at $150/case ($2.08/glass). These prices are discounted 43 – 51% per case, promo codes are “Grace”, “Hidden”, and “Donnis”, and the sale only runs through the end of December.

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Edited to add: A friend, and reader of my blog, Shannon let me know that the 2008 Menage a Trois was $6.99 at Costco. Seriously, at $1.16 a glass, this wine costs less per ounce than the bottled water I bought at the Fairplex in Pomona, CA at the beginning of this month. Buy it, pair it with meat. Thank me later.