What a corker!

It used to be a truism that when an English footballer retired from ‘the game’ he either bought a pub or became an alcoholic. And in many cases both.

If ever there was a sign that football has changed it comes with the news that Barcelona and Spain’s midfield maestro Andrés Iniesta has his own wine company.

As reported in Decanter this week, Bodegas Iniesta is a €9m project based near his home town of Fuentealbilla in the province of Albacete.

Red, white and rosé wines will be available from the 2010 harvest with local grape variety Bobal used for the red wines, and Macabeo and Chardonnay for the whites.

And how about this for a mission statement:

I want the wine to be a reflection of who I am. The standards are set high, but so are the key pieces to meet them: hard work, family support and knowledge… wine is destined to be one of my great motivations

Oh Andrés. My footballing god becomes a wine god. WineOfTheWeek worships your every incarnation.

The aim is to sell the wine in Spain and for export to the UK, Germany and Japan with early reports suggesting a restaurant price of EUR40 a bottle.

Meanwhile here in England, we’ve got Gazza. Dionysus help us.

A cast of wine bloggers, digerati, Tool fans and film distributors gathered at London’s Royal Society of Arts on Wednesday night for the UK premiere of the new wine documentary ‘Blood Into Wine’.

Just a couple of regular guys trying to make a living off the land...

The event represented this blog’s first foray into event hosting and things were looking a bit hairy when, with less than an hour before showtime, the film had yet to arrive at the venue. Oh my.

But fear not, dear readers, the bluest of blue-rays arrived all the way from Arizona in the safe hands of the film’s producer, Chris ‘Topper’ McDaniel along with a bag full of goodies.  Everything just felt good from there on in.

The story of Tool frontman Maynard James Keenan’s determination to grow wine in the harsh terrain of Arizona is reviewed well elsewhere and I’m certainly no Mark Kermode but there were a couple of corks in this film that hit me in the slurper.

Firstly, the Arizona landscape. For me it shared top billing in this movie. Many moons ago, I drove coast to coast across America. It was in Arizona where I really swallowed the Kool-Aid of this most extraordinary of continents.

The film took me back to an overnight stay in Sedona laying on top of my hire car watching satellites streak across the sky like never ending comets. A truly extraordinary land and skyscape.

The man who shared top billing with this shaman filled outback was, surprisingly, not Mr Keenan. The true human star of the show was Eric Glomski, the winemaker that Maynard hired to be his mentor. And I get the feeling Maynard is more than happy that Eric’s star shines brightest here.

Eric’s description of wine-making had the same effect on me as Virginia Madsen’s ode to pinot noir did in Sideways. I am now in love with them both. Although in different ways, you must understand.

For those that couldn’t be there in person here are a couple of clips from the Q&A featuring Topper and my good self.

This film has taught me one valuable lesson. If I want to own a vineyard I need to form a rock band and sell 40m records. Right, now where did I put that Fender…

WineOfTheWeek has been slurping on about the lack of innovation in the SmartPhone sector when it comes to wine brands for some time now.

Just as we were planning on opening up the iPhone SDK to create our own Frankenwine’s monster, along comes this super concept from Veuve Clicquot.

The idea is simple. If you are attending an event sponsored by Veuve you can use your iPhone to order champagne and have it delivered to your exact location.

You enter the type of fizz and the number of bottles you require and GPS does the rest. Within minutes, a Veuve branded golf buggy bounces it’s way to your destination and a lovely lady hands you your Champagne.

They call it their ‘concierge’ service and WineOfTheWeek witnessed it’s debut at the Gold Cup Polo finals last Sunday.

Yes, ok. You read that correctly. In what can only be described as a complete betrayal of our value system WOTW attended a Polo event. Can I offer up ‘we go to these events so that you don’t have to’ as a justification? Someone help me out here!!!

Putting my class prejudices aside, the concierge service is a good example of how to use the iPhone’s geo-location services to good effect during event marketing so we’ll give them a thumbs up.

The app also contains an events calender and invite friends function however the latter requires friends to also have the app installed for it to make it any use.

And the Polo? Didn’t understand a single minute of it. Although some bloke told me that, just as in football, there aren’t any decent English players. Very reassuring.

Now, where did I leave the latest edition of Tatler? Is that it there underneath my Boden catalogue…?

The iPhone4 may be a cr*p phone but it takes nice pictures

Ad agency meeting, somewhere in Manhattan…

Beer Brand: We’re really worried about these stats that say people are drinking more wine than beer
Ad Agency: Relax! Wine is for pussies.
Beer Brand: So what’s your idea?
Ad Agency: OK, so we open in a laboratory. A sexy ‘intelligent’ scientist type chick conducts an experiment on mice. She lets some of the mice drink wine and some of them drink beer
Beer Brand: Er, where is this going, exactly?
Ad Agency: Well the mice that drink wine just slouch around doing nothing.
Beer Brand: And the mice that drink beer?
Ad Agency: Well they get off their faces and totally lose it.
Beer Brand: The point being?
Ad Agency: Wine is for pussies and beer is for parties!!
Beer Brand: Put down 10 mill on the media campaign. Let’s do it!

Makes me glad to be a pussy.

David. Let's talk wine. I can save you millions. No, billions.

We here at WineOfTheWeek wear our political allegiances on our sleeves. There is no hiding our full commitment to the first political party that will ban supermarkets from selling wine while simultaneously forcing Blossom Hill and Ernest & Gallo to remove the label ‘wine’ from all their products.

As a single interest group, getting a share of voice in the corridors of power has not been easy. So, imagine how encouraged we were to be listed by The Guardian as one of the Top Ten Election Tweets.

In an article written by the lovely Jemima Kiss (we haven’t actually met her but we are assuming she must be lovely) called ‘How the internet really affected the election’, WineOfTheWeek was recognised for the following tweet from the first leaders debate:

@WineOfTheWeek I think this would be a good time for Gordon to take his eye out. Just because he can and Cameron can’t

I think we can all agree that this was pure gold. Right out of the top drawer.

It could be argued that this tweet did nothing whatsoever to advance our vinous cause but you have to start somewhere. And we decided to start by making fun of a Scottish man with one eye.

Jemima we salute you for the recognition and we welcome you back after the birth of your child. Parenthood is the gift that keeps on giving, it’s utterly brilliant.

You can read the full article and see the rest of the Top 10 here.

I’m chuffed to announce that WineOfTheWeek will be hosting the UK premiere of the new wine documentary Blood Into Wine next week at a secret central London location.

I’m doubly chuffed to confirm the attendance of the film’s producer, Chris “Topper” McDaniel, who has agreed to do a Q&A after the screening.

WineOfTheWeek wants as many wine bloggers, tweeters, diggers and ‘foursquarers’ to attend as possible.  The producers have been deploying a grass roots marketing strategy in the US by encouraging private screenings in bars, restaurant and clubs to create word of mouth.

Our London venue is an intimate private screening room at a top Covent Garden hotel and I’ve got 30 places up for grabs.

The screening will be on 21st July at 7pm. If you fancy coming along then email me directly or DM me on twitter @wineoftheweek and I’ll send you full details.

The film has received really good reviews stateside. Here’s a synopsis of the film (click on the link below to view the trailer):

“Maynard James Keenan is known as the front man for Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer. In the mid—1990’s, on a whim, the reclusive rock star left Los Angeles and moved to an Arizona ghost town (population 300). A wine enthusiast, Keenan began to envision a world class wine region on the Verde Valley’s craggy slopes and with wine mentor Eric Glomski (former David Bruce winemaker and current owner of the award—winning Page Springs Cellars), Keenan began the long road to bringing credibility and notoriety to Caduceus and Arizona Stronghold Vineyards amidst wine industry prejudice and the harsh Arizona terrain. Take a look inside the life of one of rock music’s most mysterious figures.”

View the Trailer

The iPad has been out in the world for a couple of months now so we thought it time to make an early assessment of the first wave of wine apps to hit the iTunes store.

Let’s start be saying that “best” is an extremely relative term when it comes to describe the early contenders. ‘Least worst’ would be a more appropriate measurement. Researching this post was a thoroughly miserable experience. Read on and enjoy our misery and remember – we do this so that you don’t have to!!

1 – Berry Bros and Rudd

As with all things digital, Berry’s are the first wine merchant to get in on the act. Berry’s consistently leave their rivals eating mulch when it comes to new technology and Simon Berry deserves great credit for putting innovation at the forefront of their marketing.

That said, this app is underwhelming. As with their iPhone offer the iPad app is simply a re-rendering of their website content. You get the wine list  and the usual navigation options but there’s a real lack of rich content or interactivity . The videos for the virtual wine school link out to their You Tube channel and this contributes to an overall feeling that the app lacks a sense of togetherness. It’s a mish mash of design that doesn’t reflect their high end values.

2 – Wine HD

WIne HD is a really, really odd thing to behold. It’s pitching itself as a comprehensive guide to wine, so you have sections dedicated to tasting buying and serving alongside an uninspiring list of wines from each region (when I selected ‘California Central Valley’ and was confronted with an image of Ernest and Julio Gallo I almost un-installed the app right there and then!).

The fundamental issue with this app is that it just hasn’t been designed with the iPad in mind. To navigate the app is to walk through treacle while being pursued by a swarm of bees. It feels like a series of PDF’s scans stitched together with the most rudimentary application of the iPad’s touch capability. This app manages the extraordinary feat of tuning Apples intuitive device into a Windows Vista like quagmire

Did I also mention that the design looks like it was put together using clip-art? Avoid.

3 – Wine Pass

As a concept, Wine Pass, promises much. The creators claim that the app ‘delivers restaurant wine lists directly to your iPad in real-time’. Choosing wine in restaurants can be a real chore, not just because of the choices available but also the mark-ups we have to endure as consumers. Wine Pass is ambitious but the success of such a service depends on comprehensive content.

In the case of Wine Pass, they is absolutely no content whatsoever. That’s right, not one single restaurant appears in my version and you are just left thinking, ‘why on earth have these guys gone live with this?’.

The model is dependent on restaurants signing up to the service and publishing their own lists but a better option would be for users to upload their own choices/recommendations.

4 – Wine Ratings

Wine ratings comes with something of a fanfare based on it’s iPhone version. ‘#1 wine app’ is the claim in the iTunes description. So, surely these guys have got it right? Wrong.

I downloaded the app just before I set off to a wine tasting in Kent and was looking forward to adding ratings and new wines. In practice I couldn’t do either task.

I tried to add a wine using the ‘suggest a wine’ feature and all that it allows you to do is send an email to the app creators. I then navigated to a product page, was confronted with a perfunctory list of attributes (but no tasting note) and then was invited to add a rating. Except no matter how hard you push your fleshy digits on the touch screen you simply can’t do what it’s asking you to. Wowzers.

As a last throw of the dice I touched the ‘share’ icon, at least expecting to see options to post to Facebook and Twitter. You can guess what happened next?

WineOfTheWeek Rating: AVOID

5 – WineNoggin

WineNoggin positions itself as a ‘new way to find, rate and share wine you love’. The service is a web based application that allows you to search a database of wines. Again, the app is drawing on the data from it’s namesake web service. As such you can search by name, winery, type, varietal and rating. There’s a social element in that you can also search by friends reviews.  Crucially, you can add new wines and review/rate existing wines  via the app.

So far so good. The down side though of all these types of social aggragator apps is that without content they are limited and without friends they are lonely places to inhabit. At the moment WineNoggin doesn’t have either for me. Until it achieves critical mass it’s really not much fun and on that front it’s surprising that there are limited social sharing tools to ensure content can be seeded to your own networks.

The other risk with data oriented apps is that unless you have an excellent user interface you end up overwhelmed by lists of data. This is the case with WineNoggin. It just doesn’t feel fun.

So what would we like to see on the iPad of wine?

1 – Snooth. The best social wine site on the web is sorely missing from the iPad. Come on guys, get your act together!

2 – More merchants with innovative apps that fully utilise the technology rather than simple versions of their existing websites. Here’s an appeal to Oddbins and Majestic – come and talk to WineOfTheWeek, we know what you need to do!

3 – Rich Content guides rather than boring PDF scans. Imagine how Hugh Johnsons Pocket Wine Book or World Atlas of Wine would render on the iPad. Gives me goosebumps just thinking about it.

Any more ideas, dear readers?

Ollie leaves Stan in charge of bottling their home-made wine. Another fine mess ensues.

Oh dear.

Info-graphics, it seems, are all the rage. To you and I they are simple graphical representations of information. To hyperbolic web marketers info-graphics are are a revolutionary new paradigm that will change the way we look at data forever (substitute ‘info-graphics’ in that sentence with any web development you choose and you too can become a web marketer – it’s easy!)

But what has all this to do with wine?

Well, I stumbled across this rather good ‘animated info-graphic’ (is there such a thing?) that shows the process of winemaking within six steps in less than 2 minutes. Bloody marvelous!

Maynard James Keenan is my kinda man. By day, Keenan works the soil in the service of Bacchus the god of wine. By night he kneels at the alter of the rock gods as the frontman of Tool and the hydra-headed Puscifer.

Over the years WineOfTheWeek has been guilty of sneering at the long list of  celebrities who adopt vineyards as vanity projects or allow their name to used by profit seeking corporate initiatives. In Maynard, WineOfTheWeek has found it’s celebrity salvation.

In the documentary ‘Blood into Wine’ Keenan shows that he’s a committed oenophile. He’s learnt his vini and viti and has a real passion for the vine. The documentary charts the determination of Keenan and his winemaking partner Eric Glomski to produce something beautiful in the harsh terrain that is Arizona.

Take a look at the trailer below to get a feel for the tone of the movie and find out more about Keenan’s wines at their (pretty damn spectacular) website.

WineOfTheWeek isn’t sure when and where this movie will get a UK screening but rest assured, we’re on the case to be the first to get a hold of it.