Randall Grahm of Bonny Doon vineyard fame has been announced as the star attraction at this years ‘Digital Wine Communication Conference’.

The conference is to be held in Turkey so promises to be a jolly nice junket.

Why Turkey? Well, the theme of this years conference is “Source’ and there is apparently a hypothesis that Turkey is the birthplace of vitas vinifera.

Seems a bit of a tenuous reason for a holiday but I hear that Turkey is nice at this time of year and the hotel where the event takes place looks splendid.

The press release that I’ve just received from the organiser states:



The only international event dedicated to the convergence of wine and the web, the EWBC provides a platform for the global wine community to address today’s online communication opportunities.

I can’t help but think that maybe a Google+ Hang Out have been more apt?

Berry Bros. & Rudd have posted some impressive online numbers this week as they continue to reap the rewards of their investment in tech and the web.

In 2011 the 300 year old fine wine retailer sold over £25m of wine online and, among the stat ladled press release Wineoftheweek just received, is this gem:

During 2011, the company recorded its biggest social media sale, with a customer ordering £20,000 worth of wine following Sales Director and Bordeaux Buyer Simon Staples’ Twitter-based advice.

I think that comes under the headline “ROI Success’ for all you digital marketers out there fretting about such things.

However, the real story relates to the success of the “Berrys’ Broking Exchange’ (BBX) where sales  were up 54% on the previous year. Berry Bros. themselves playfully label the BBX service ‘the eBay for fine wine’ but  they deserve enormous credit for launching and perservering with a pretty audacious scheme.

To explain. BBX allows customers to buy and sell privately stored wines in Berrys’ bonded warehouse and the merchant takes a small commission on the sale (in effect getting a little bit more cash for wine they’ve already sold to you in the first place!). Last year wines worth a market value of £13.2m were traded through the BBX scheme.

Wineoftheweek is a huge fan Berry Bros and Rudd. Where brash online wine start-ups thrash about the PR scene claiming to be innovative and different (yes, you know who you are) Berry Bros quietly go about delivering some of the most exciting and engaging online initiatives. We doth our cap to them!

I’ll leave it to Simon Berry to deliver it his way:

 “In Georgian times, our shop windows were famous for their size and the range of products they displayed, today, our shop window is our website and we’ve become the internet’s biggest specialist wine retailer. Technology may change, but we’ve always believed in using it to answer changing consumer demands.

“We recognised early that, if we were to take the internet seriously, we had to become in part a media and content business. I think we’ve shown that, even at the age of 314, you’re never too old to get to grips with the web. More recently, social media has allowed us to use our expertise to deliver quality advice and information about our wines online – and that has paid off. We now regularly have people coming into our shops asking for wines they’ve seen recommended by the team on Twitter or on one of our blogs.”

. Oi, Lazurus! Wake Up! Image from www.thecolour.com

One of the amusing aspects of wine blogging is the challenge of deconstructing PR puff.  Fancy a go? Let’s try this press release title:

“Oddbins is back on a high street near you… Unique initiative allows Oddbins’customers to choose the price of wine…”

Except, of course, Oddbins has never really been away and there’s nothing revolutionary about their new approach to wine selling.  And lets not talk about the ellipsis.

Many were sad when Oddbins went out of business earlier this year but the brand was quickly snapped up by European Food Brokers, owners of Whittalls Wines and 40 stores have remained trading ever since.

WineOfTheWeek REALLY want Oddbins to succeed but content of the press release we received yesterday felt awkward and out of touch.

“From 20-23 October, consumers will be able to blind-taste wines in-store and then provide a price that they would be happy to pay for that bottle. The wines will then go on shelves at the Customer Recommended Price (CRP)”

Sounds like Naked Wines to me.

“We’re taking the old cliché of ‘the customer is always right’ and actually demonstrating our belief that this is the case. The new Oddbins will put the consumer at the heart of everything we do, so it makes sense that we have a conversation about our pricing with our customers to explain our value based pricing model, while at the same time taking their opinions on board.

Sounds like Naked Wines to me.

“For a long time the noise around wine has been about discounting and price cuts. It is time we have a mature conversation about price and what constitutes value.

Sounds like the conversation all wine retailers have been having for the past 12 months.

We all want more decent wine stores on the high street but Oddbins need to be careful. Laying claim to revolutionary ideas that are already established could come back and bite them in the Amarone unless their execution is first class.

Oddbins are now the underdog and need to forget what went before. I hope they have the team to execute this – it doesn’t come easy and it needs to be in the DNA of the organisation not just in the marketing department.

They need to be careful too that they don’t throw out the discount model that has proofed so successful for Majestic AND the new online players. What Oddbins need is a lifetime value approach to customer acquisition not a weekly ‘feet and cash’ approach that crippled their previous bricks and mortar operation.

I shall be on the sidelines shouting encouragement. Oh, and the website still says ‘coming soon’… (there’s those dreaded ellipsis again).

The REAL Chardonnay. Of the Lane-Pascoe vintage

When WineOfTheWeek lived in Camden Town, only desperation would lead me to buy wine from the local Costcutter. During the summer months a lack of air-conditioning would see bottles leaping off the shelves with sheer heat exhaustion – ‘Wine dies in Hot Shops’,

So it comes as little surprise to learn that the aforementioned ‘supermarket’ has been stocking bottles of counterfeit Jacob’s Creek ‘Shardonnay’ in its Caledonian Road store in Islington.

It’s not just the name that didn’t pass the spellcheck. The label describes the liquid as a “Wine of Austrlia” and helpfully informs the purchaser to “Drink Responsibily” as it directs them to the “Drinkoware” website.

The London Evening Standard  reports that the wine is being manufactured in Eastern Europe and sold into stores at £2 a bottle for re-sale at £6.

Islington council has prosecuted 40 businesses this year for selling fake goods or evading tax. 111 bottles of fake wine and three bottles of Bollinger were found at the Caledonian Road Costcutter

Counterfeit wine has become a real concern in the United Kingdom. In the most recent example, Trading Standards officers raided a shop in Liverpool and seized a stash of 50 bottles carrying the name of such well brands as Echo Falls, Blossom Hill, Kumala and Hardy’s.

The plastic seal and poor condition of the labels were clear warning signs that something was not quite right. It appears that the counterfeiters found empty used bottles and screw tops, refilled the bottles with ‘liquid’ and then secured them with a plastic seal.

Councillor Tim Beaumont said unwittingly:

At this stage, until we have the results of the analysis, we do not know if the substances in the bottle will have any effects on people’s health – hopefully it will prove to be just unpleasant but harmless

Well said Mr Beaumont. I speak for anyone who has drunk either Echo Falls, Blossom Hill, Kumala or Hardy’s when I say that I too find these wines to be just unpleasant and harmless.

Rumours that the inclusion of the chewing gum improved the taste of some of the wine have yet to be confirmed.

Hello their China - wan't to buy some snake oil?

In these austere times London’s auction houses must be thanking their lucky tax havens for the new wave of Chinese buyers. The Chateau Latour 1961 was sold at Christies for £135,000.

The latest absurdity to come from the land of the rising Renminbi is a purchase that represents more than five times the average UK wage. Clearly the value paid has nothing to do with the quality in the bottle, so what is behind this new wave of stupidity? Well, Gary Boom of Bordeaux index puts it this way:

“The prices were encouraging but not surprising and shows how important the provenance is and how essential it is to buy from trusted and immaculate sources…Quite simply, when you have perfect provenance and a squeeze on supply then it’s no surprise that prices reach these levels.”

Gary Boom Boom would say that wouldn’t he? But what utter tosh.

The truth is that this latest purchase represents the ugly side of trophy acquisition from new markets. This has nothing to do with wine and everything to do with a rich man’s ego.

What a wonderful world we live in.

I said Ponzi not Fonzi!!!

Bernie Madoff is a crook who made off with billions of dollars from charities, banks, actors, media moguls and so called financial guru’s.

Last week his wine and spirits collection was auctioned off for $41,530, with all proceeds going to a support fund for those he conned out of money.

There were 59 lots in the auction of which the highlight was a case of 1996 Chateau Mouton-Rothschild that sold for $6,800.

However other items included small bottles of ‘mini-bar’ wine which prompted the auction company to provide this priceless announcement:

As artefacts of history they are unique, which is why we have chosen to offer all of the bottles seized, including those which normally wouldn’t pass muster and make it into our auction.

‘Some of the bottles are better viewed as conversation pieces rather than valued for their contents, but conversation pieces they are.

Quite. Bernie is due for release from prison on November 14, 2139.

Wineoftheweek returned from an enforced absence this week wondering how we might resume hostilities in the war against vinous pomposity.

So a big thank you for @HarpersWine for this magnificent tweet from last weeks London Wine Fair. It seems that Tesco’s Dan Jago thinks that Naked Wines’ Rowan Gormley is Nigel Farage.

Tesco's finest contribution to wine tripe

Just so we have this clear. Dan Jago is the Head wine honcho at a corporate monolith that sells low quality branded wine on permanent discount. Rowan Gormley is an innovative online wine entrepreneur who wants to put wine buyers in direct contact with wine makers.

I guess the choice for the wine consumer is: Choose a wine merchant who appeals to you passionately or choose a supermarket that can sell you Blossom Hill in boxes for a few quid and 100 club card points.

So if Naked Wines are UKIP, what does that make Tesco? Best answer receives a week’s worth of Tesco Pet Insurance*

*Not

In these difficult times, we’re all used to passing by ‘closed down’ stores on our high streets.

Here is what a closed down online shop looks like. Poor old Oddbins.

Professor Richard Wiseman, author of Quirkology and other popular science books that expose the frailities of human perception, has lead a study to show wine drinkers can’t distinguish cheap wine from expensive.

The experiment, at the Edinburgh Science Festival, challenged 578 members of the public to distinguish between the good stuff and £5 bottles for both red and white.

The subjects got it right 50% of the time – in other words, they only picked the quality wine randomly, and not through taste.

The learned Professor advises that, in these hard pressed times, wine drinkers should heed the results and go for the plonk.

WineOfTheWeek is aghast at such claims of label snobbery, and will bet his Tommy Hilfiger jeans that contradictory evidence will soon follow.