When I first read Tom Friedman’s ‘golden arches theory’ it just struck me how beneficial trade relationships and liberal democracy are to international relations. If two countries, no matter what their differences, are doing trade with one another, and benefiting from the relationship then there’s really a huge disincentive to go to war. We’ve already explored the fact that wine reduces your carbon footprint - but imagine a world where wine made the world more peaceful…

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What a weekend. Wimbledon Tennis final (go Federer and welcome back Venus); the Tour de France starting for the first time ever in London and of course Live Earth all over the world. As for Greg and I, amidst it all we were rooting for our man Al Gore as he continues to launch his book ‘The Assault on Reason’ and spread the good word about the need to conscientiously and actively protect our environment. How he manages to remain so calm and composed in the face of such stubbornness and obstinacy is beyond me - but I really think that these ideas are beginning to take root, and as Gore says, if the Internet had been as powerful as it is today, 5 years ago, Bush wouldn’t be in power and America would have stayed in Afghanistan and not gone on to invade Iraq. But, as a consolation prize to all we reasonable beings - at least we live in interesting times.

Do you read www.treehugger.com - if not, I seriously recommend visiting it on a weekly basis. It’s packed with well informed and easily digestible factlets, and is a good way to not only keep informed - but to learn how to make a difference.

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One of the things I like the most about wine is the small shops that sell it. Yes there are big distributors and outlets, but it is amazing how important and interesting the network of small shops can be. While they may not have the selection of the larger stores, the small shops are communities that prove invaluable when it comes to learning about, talking about, or finding wine. If you are looking to learn more about wine, visiting your local merchant is a great way to do it and maybe make some friends in the process.

Perhaps this is one of the reasons that wine has been so slow in coming to the online table, is that it has always had the feel of a small and networked community in the real world. Much like the social communities now found on the web, this wine shop network is one of the few places in business today where they will make every effort to go out of their way to help you. As someone who is relatively new to the depths of wine, I’ve found it incredibly important to pick the collective brains of the owners of a small network of shops around where I live. Sure, some shops are better than others and you do have to experience a lot (visiting a lot of wine shops might not be the most terrible thing in the world), but by frequenting the shops near me I have been able to pick up on the knowledge of the staff and this has helped me accelerate my learning curve a great deal. I’ve also been pleasantly surprised by the recommendations of wine store staff.

Typically I’m skeptical when a store employee recommends a product to me. Perhaps it is the entrepreneur in me that wonders why they are telling me to buy this specific product and what’s in it for them. I can honestly say, though, that most of the people I’ve met who work in or own a wine shop do it out of love or passion, they genuinely love to share their experiences and their new finds; much like members of today’s online communities. Sure, some shops may get special benefits from pushing a certain wine (that’s good business) but on the whole I’m rarely disappointed by wines that the shops recommend to me.

When it comes to the wine shop I think it is important that a wine newbie find one they’re comfortable with. The shop can become a knowledge resource for you as you learn and the experienced staff there can become friends and mentors on your journey into wine. While you might pay a little more at your local shop than you would at a big box outlet, the knowledge you can gain and the people you can meet more than makes up for the money you would save by shopping elsewhere. The next step of course is to successfully transition this wonderful real world community to the world of web 2.0. Thankfully advances are being made with the advent of sites like Corkd, Calwineries, and Tastevine, which approach different segments of the younger market.

Now if someone were to ask me for my opinion on how the small wine shop could do a better job of staying in business, I’d take them back to my previous post. The details I’ve previously outlined apply as directly to the wine shop and the entire wine community as they do to the producers themselves. If any members of the wine community are still a bit unsure of how to make the leap or are interested in making the leap, feel free to contact us.

If I didn’t already know an industry legend who had the alias ’silver fox’ - then I’d bestow the title on Jay ‘North-Slope’ Youmans. If one generally thinks of the term MW ‘Master of Wine’, perhaps there is the inclination to think of the caricature portly connoisseur in a bow tie, with a red nose, spouting forth pomp, bombast and arrogance as he lords his knowledge about wine like a Vet with a Purple Heart above everyone he encounters.

Of course this is an outdated vision and though many patrons of the wine industry may fit the above description, by and large the industry is rife with cool, open minded, centred and all round amicable characters - and Jay Youmans is certainly no exception.

In the first hour of meeting Jay we didn’t talk about wine for a second - and instead he gave me the what’s-what about college basketball (which faired me well in many future conversations); chatted about the team he coached and told me about his children. It was only a little later that I learned about the arduous and rewarding path one must travel en route to being worthy of having the title ‘Master of Wine’ bestowed upon them. Jay is one of a handful of Wine Masters in the United States - which puts him in a unique position, the saying ‘in the land of the blind, the man with one eye is king’ comes to mind - and by this measure, MW’s have two eyes. To this end, there can be no doubt that all MW’s carry a depth of the industry that few of us can even fathom (Wine Spectator journalists included.)
If Gary Vaynerchuck is a poster-boy of the potential for wine critics that pack as much enthusiasm and charisma as a national radio-jockey; then Jay Youmans is the perfect example of the youthful and princely sophistication that exists in the industry.

His bi-monthly magazine, I-winereview.com is packed with objective and unbiased wisdom - and it would be a great honour if Jay (who runs much sought after wine education courses in DC) could weigh in on Grape Thinking from time to time to share some valued insite.

To the Wine Community at Large:

I write to you as a firmly established member of what is typically called “Generation Y” and I have a bone to pick. Mainly it is a result of a recent phenomenon in the community, one I like to refer to as the “dumbing down of wine.” It seems to be an increasingly popular opinion that in order to bring wine to younger and newer audiences, wine needs to be brought down to “our level”. Unfortunately for the marketers it is almost instinctive by now that we will reject most things that people attempt to target to us. We like to adopt things ourselves. Look at the successes and failures in mainstream viral marketing. Most things that succeed do so because young people want to have them, not because they were told they need to have them.

Wine doesn’t need to change the way it is, but it does need to change the way young people are told about it. Some believe that wine has to be trendy or cool or fun or marketed like beer and hard alcohol to become popular with young people. They point to trends in marketing in music and magazines and tech gadgets and tailor their wine approach to these same tactics. The problem is that they are missing the ways in which wine has a competitive advantage.When it comes to young people, wine will never win a competition with beer or hard alcohol on trendiness or shock value or sex appeal. It’s like marketing a horse by telling people its a cow because you think cows are what people want.

I’d like to let you in on a little secret about young people. Just around the time we reach legal drinking age we also start to have a desire for sophistication or a desire to be seen as an adult. We’ve done a lot of moving on from our teenage years and, contrary to popular belief, the majority of us are not a bunch of binge drinking, hard partying, pierced, and tattooed hooligans as we are portrayed in the press. The majority of young people today are smart, ambitious, inquisitive, and above all we’re sophisticated and discerning consumers (even if we’re not yet, we like to think so). This is where wine can compete. Make us feel sophisticated, after all this is one of the ways it is marketed to adults. Wine is a complex and beautiful drink with a great history and a great culture. This is something a lot of the Millennial Generation would love to learn about but the marketers don’t think we want to learn the story. Sure we have our idiosyncrasies and like cool stores, but most of all we want to be treated like the adults that we are. We don’t like to be talked down to, we are willing to ask if we don’t know something, and we certainly don’t like it when older people feel they have to dumb stuff down for us.

Truthfully, members of Generation Y shun wine because:

1. the price point of good wine is a bit high
2. no one has really attempted to market wine to us in the middle ground (Meaning someone needs to meet the Millennials with a good wine at a decent price and speak to us at a level somewhere between wine kindergarten and hoity-toity wine college).

I feel I may be getting a bit drawn out, but for now I’ll leave you with this:

• We hate when marketers treat us like we have no attention span or sophistication. Speak to us like the adults that we are and please please stop the race to the bottom when it comes to marketing wine to Millennials.
• Stop dumbing it down to broad-reaching food pairing suggestions and one flavor wine descriptions. We are interested and we want to learn. If you want to sell us wine then be willing to teach us and to take time with us. Part of wine’s appeal is it’s complexity, let’s not lose that for the sake of selling out.
• Finally, if you want to integrate some of the things we enjoy like social networking and other technological concepts, why not get a member of our generation to help you. Please don’t have a member of an older generation try to create products for us without our input. Remember how cool you thought some of the things your parents created were?

I would like to say that I do appreciate the strides that are being made in the wine world. Hopefully with a little input from young people the incredible culture that is wine can spread even further.

-Vino Bandito