. 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 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?

Yes, the World Cup kicks off today and wine retailers across the land are surely trying to find a way to drive sales through any kind of footballing link they can think of. Right? Actually no.

Take a cursory look across the online landscape and you’ll see no mention of the World Cup at Majestic, Oddbins, Laithwaites or Nicolas. Even Naked Wines has nothing to say on the matter, and they are owned by a South African boy – come on Rowan, where’s the love?

The problem is, packaged sporting wine deals rarely sell. The clever direct marketers sit around and plug the numbers in to their very clever counting machines and inevitably conclude that it’s easier to sell coals to Newcastle. When it comes to football, it’s all about the cheap beer I’m afraid.

We gave huge kudos to Berry Bros for their simply brilliant Fantasy Wine World Cup so let’s not blow smoke up their proverbials yet again..

…instead it’s left to he august Wine Society to invite us to ‘Raise a glass to this year’s football World Cup hosts’ through a  characteristically straight ‘Discover South Africa case‘.

Such a paltry offering is dwarfed by Tesco who have dedicated a whole section on their website to South African World Cup Fever. There’s a competition, a full selection of South African wines,  a map of key vineyards and some info on history and climate. Reithian values from Tesco then.

And finally amongst the big boys is Marks and Spencer who, like Tesco, have gone down the highly unimaginative “25% off all South African Wines” route. Yawn.

Can I fess up? I’ve only written this post so that I can shoehorn the John Barnes Rap into this blog. Please forgive me and enjoy the greatest footballing contribution to music since Waddle and Hoddle.

October’s Top 10 deals from Majestic Wines

1 – Fairleigh Estate Sauvignon Blanc 2009 Marlborough – Only £7.99 (Buy 2 bottles save £4 = £5.99)
This is a benchmark Sauvignon Blanc which is exclusive to Majestic. It is a balanced, fruit driven wine with good acidity and a clean and gooseberry fresh finish.

2- Argento Malbec 2009 Mendoza – only £6.49 (Buy 2 bottles save £3 = £4.99)
An excellent Malbec made from grapes grown in the foothills of the Andes, one of the most favoured areas for cultivating grapes in Argentina. Ripe bramble and spicy blackberry notes on the nose are echoed on the richly textured palate, with hints of vanilla oak and balanced acidity on the finish.

3 – Mâcon Villages ‘Les Pierres Blanches’ 2009 Cave de Lugny – only £6.99 (Buy 2 bottles save £2 = £5.99)
This is a great value white Burgundy from one of the regions most reliable and well-reputed producers. Crisp, smooth and elegant, with citrus, apple and pear fruit characters, finishing with a lovely streak of minerality. Enjoy with butternut squash and roast garlic soup.

4 -Rioja Reserva 2005 Berberana – only £7.99 (Buy any 2 still Spanish wines £5-£25 save 25% = £5.99)
A perfectly made Rioja with at least two years ageing in oak. Delicious vanilla overtones backed up by juicy soft strawberry flavours.

5 – Boschendal Chenin Blanc 2009/2010 Coastal Region – only £7.49 (Buy any 2 South Africian Wines save 20% = £5.99)

From one of South Africa’s original wine farms comes this fruity, well-balanced and full bodied wine, distinguishable by its exotic mango and honey aromas. The palate has a core of tropical fruit flavours with hints of nuts and honey, the result of weekly lees stirring in a process called ‘battonage’, which allows for greater richness in the wine.

6 – Rioja Reserva 2005 Marqués de Riscal – only £13.32 (Buy any 2 still Spanish wines £5 -£25 save 25% = £9.99)
A classic Rioja with complex aromas of vanilla and toasted oak combined with summer fruit flavours. 90% Tempranillo was sourced from vines aged between 15 and 30 years, and oak-aged for 24 months.

7 – Lindauer Brut NV – only £6.99Consistently one of the most sought-after sparkling wines. Predominantly made from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, the Champagne grapes, it shows fresh citrussy fruit and a zingy finish.

8 – Jacquart Brut Tradition NV – only £15.00
Showing delicious notes of marzipan, yeast and freshly baked croissants. Elegant and balanced with a lively mousse.

9 – Heidsieck Gold Top Vintage 2004 – only £20.00
Deliciously soft and rich with subtle vanilla hints and bags of elegance.

10 – Bollinger Special Cuvée NV – £28.00
The famous house of Mme Lily Bollinger produces a mighty, full-bodied Champagne of great class. Delightfully pale gold in colour, the mousse is light and persistent. Densely packed apple and pear fruits give way to a noticeably creamy, caramel-like finish. An ‘Absolutely Fabulous’ Champagne!

Question: What do Laithwaites, Sunday Times Wine Club, Telegraph Wine Service, Natwest Wine Club, British Airways Wine Club, Warehouse Wines, Avery’s, and (pause for breath!) Virgin Wines have in common?

Answer: They are all owned by Direct Wines, the behemoth of the UK wine by the case market.

Founded upon one man’s passion for Bordeaux in the 1970′s, the company rose triumphantly into a £250m business, effectively writing the rules for delivering wine directly to peoples homes. It was an amazing success story.

But in recent years the company hasn’t found life so easy. Cost cutting, a recruitment freeze and a management cull leading predictably to this years posting of a £5.5m loss.

They remain a privately owned business so do not need to stand in front of a pack of blood hungry shareholders at an annual AGM. But if they did, they would no doubt explain away their malaise by pointing towards the recession, the weak pound and increasing prices.

All of which are valid but they do not tell the full story.

Having spent some time with the business in 2004 it was clear then that the company was at a turning point as it struggled to come to terms with a new competitive and technological environment.

The decline of Direct Wines boils down to three simple truths.

1) The business model that has served them so well for 30 years is now broken.

Direct Wines are a traditional direct marketing operation. They get you to buy an introductory case at a ludicrously low price and then try to get you to buy another case at a higher price.  If enough customers convert to the higher priced cases, they then make a profit.

Unfortunately, not enough people are “trading up”. Not surprising considering that, through their omnipresent marketing, they’ve educated the public into believing a deal is always available.

In this sense they are no better than the supermarkets who they claim to stand apart from. They’ve done as much to commodatise wine as say, Tesco, have.

2) Their wines might not be quite what their customers think they are.

Laithwaites sing proudly about the exclusivity of their wines and the fact that the products cannot be found in the supermarkets.  They invite you to believe the notion that their buyers travel the world to find real wines from real winemakers.  Direct from the vineyard.

However, could it be the case that customers have got a little wiser to what’s actually in the bottle?. Take the recent qualification added to the video of  Il Papavero on their website -

Because Giuliani (winemaker) sources grapes from all over Italy, national wine regulations demand that Il Papvero be labelled a “Vino De Tavola” however “hiding behind its humble Vino de Tavola status is a red full of the warmth of Italy” (Sunday Times)

So, each year they find the some grapes at the right price from wherever they can get them and then make the wine in any given location and ship it to England. Nothing wrong with that at all, but is it really what Laithwaites customers have been led to believe over the past 20 years?

I wonder how many other wines on Laithwaites best selling list would reveal similar stories to Il Papvero?

3) Somewhere along the way it lost it’s love of wine

Direct Wines is first and foremost a direct marketing operation. The model was genius, but it became all about the model and they forgot about the product. In recent years they might as well have been selling widgets.

The company now has a new management team in place, with much of the old guard making way for new kids on the block.

Can it survive? Of course it can. But it needs to demonstrate innovation pretty soon. The brand is an irrelevance to the next generation of wine drinkers but has enough equity in it’s existing customer base to provide a platform for either regeneration or a slow painful death.

So how do they turn it around? Over to you…

Deals, deals everywhere! It’s the run up to Christmas and wine sellers all across the land are offering Christmas Cases, Winter Cases, Party Cases and Lions and Tigers and Bears. Oh my!

But what to buy? You need quantity, you’d love quality and value is important too. Right? 

Well here’s my 3 tips on what not to do when buying wine by the case this Chrimbo followed by a short list of current deals for “every day drinkers” that are worth taking a punt on.

1 – Avoid falling for “£50 off when you buy 2 cases – Only to New Members”. DON’T DO IT! Chief culprit for this type of masterful 1990′s style marketing are Direct Wines (You’ll know them as Laithwaites, Sunday Times Wine Club etc)

These guys use Christmas to harvest new “recruits” in order to mail them relentlessly for the next 24 months. Some of you will give in and become “active” while others will rightly resist until next Christmas when they’ll seek to “re-activate” you. 

Of course this wouldn’t matter if the wine was any good. But, you’ll get offered a limited range of mixed cases where a few of the wines will be quite nice, a few OK and the remainder rubbish.

To paraphrase Patrick Mcgoohan in the Prison “We are not Numbers. We are free men”

2 – Supermarkets like to offer you a choice of three price points, or as Tesco likes to put it “Good, Better, Best”. A quick re-calibration of this will give you “Bad, Good, Better”. 

Always go for the middle option.

3 – It’s 2008 and Global Capitalism has started it’s long decline but it won’t go down without a fight, hell no. It’s gonna try to make some money while it still can. So, when you come across any marketing carrying the phrase “Credit Crunch Busting” ignore it. It’s sad and a tad pathetic.

Here are 6  deals from the High Street that are worth taking a punt on - 

Mixed Cases

Modern Classic Reds
12 x 75cl Bottle
£74.88
Save £15 = £59.88
www.majestic.co.uk 

Modern Classic Whites
12 x 75cl Bottle
£74.88
Save £15 = £59.88
www.majestic.co.uk 

Red

Concha Y Toro Casillero Del Diablo Cabernet Sauvignon, Chilean 75cl
Save £2.00 was £6.99 now £4.99
www.sainsburys.com

Cono Sur Pinot Noir Reserve 75cl
Per case: £34.14
Case of 6 x 75 CL Bottles (equivalent to £5.69 per bottle)
www.tesco.com/winestore

White

The Ned Waihopai Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc 2007/08 Marlborough, New Zealand
Christmas Special Offer – Save 33%
Case of 12 £75.84 equivalent to £6.32 each 
www.waitrose.com

d’Arenberg ‘The Hermit Crab’ Marsanne Viognier
£8.99 each
Buy 12 for £7.19 each
www.oddbins.com