When I started working in the wine business in the summer of 2007 I knew a few things about wine. First it was exponentially better to drink than the Natural Light my contemporaries were imbibing at the time. It provides a great way to meet women and convince them you’re more sophisticated than you actually are. And finally there was something I desired to learn about wine culturally, historically and socially; anyone can order a martini and look good doing so but in the world of wine you are constantly finding out new and interesting things. Yet for all the knowledge I thought I had gathered nothing was more humbling than going to work in a wine store, where the people above you spent most of their lives buying, selling and learning about wine. From my time with them I’ve learned a lot about spotting good wines.

First of all, labels mean absolutely nothing, so when you go to buy wine don’t even look at the front label ignore it, there is more useful information on the back like a good importer. In this era of opulence and visually stimulated purchasing, Louis Vutton and Cadillac, take a more refined and dare I say classier approach. I am reminded of the movie Tommy Boy with the late great Chris Farley. Tommy is selling Callahan Break Pads; one of his retailers says there isn’t a guarantee on Callahan’s box. Tommy says you can put a guarantee on shit and its still shit, same thing with wine - creative picture means the winery spent all the money on a design and not the juice. Like a guarantee vs. the actual product. There can and often will be a cute picture on the bottle but the juice, more times than not, is still absolute Swill (a colloquialism used to describe wine not worth drinking). Read the rest of this entry »

Most brands these days are a clever name and good looking label that an advertising department can run a campaign around and a distributor can push down the pipe. Nobody really thinks about the idea of building a brand by changing the way you actually market and sell the wine. If you could approach these tactics differently and appeal to the consumer and trade in a way that makes their lives easier, this new vehicle would become the brand in itself more so than the pretty label and tasty juice. Stormhoek, Twisted Oak, Pinot Blogger, and Sacre Bleu have pioneered direct marketing for a wine brand and have found some success doing it this way. However, the next generation of wine brands will learn how to break down the barriers of the industry and start actually selling the product in a unique way.

Here are a few steps that we plan to follow: Read the rest of this entry »

LABEL CONTEST - whoever submits the best photograph or personal design that serves as inspiration for the next Grape Thinking Selection will win an iPhone.

Fill in your contact info and submit a photo that you think captures the essence of a certain country or place. See examples below.

Examples:

This article is ridiculous… Wall Street Journal (requires a subscription, so I put a clipping at the end) the WSJ has the most interesting articles on wine. Anyhow… check out the bottom article ‘man buys $700,000.00 of wine in one shot’, basically for anyone in today’s society, if they save a little bit of money or live close to China-Town, almost anyone can get their hands on designer labels. In fact you can get lookalikes that are as good aesthetically as the real thing… from Rolex to Tag Heuer, Diesel to Armani, designer labels don’t command the respect they used to. My friend who works for a Hedge Fund in New York (he’s the one I drank Zinfandel with in Central Park) says that most of the hedge fund managers (these guys are like 26, they worked for Goldman Sachs or Lehman Group for 4 years after going to Wharton, and then started managing their own funds, they’re all , intelligent, self-made and loaded and 3 years away from being 30) don’t use any brands. Its all about going back to the roots, they purchase antique solid gold watches and get their furniture at Sotheby’s.Capitalism has made luxury brands so accessible, that the only thing left for people to do if they want to stand above is to go backwards. These guys are looking for unique and rare… and they’re not a minority. Practically any male or female over 25 with a graduate degree in commerce (usually capped by an MBA) that works in LA, New York, San Francisco, Atlanta or Boston fit into the group. You don’t need any knowledge to purchase a label, you just need to be a sucker for advertising on the front pages of any glossy. Designer brands are passé. Wine is the new bling. Read the rest of this entry »