In a world of shameless SEO tactics, I could have entitled this post “Porn Comes over Above Everything” – but instead I’ll resist the popularising statement and rather, would like to demonstrate a trend over the past 12 months.

There is no better way to gauge public interest online than to look at the web and information provided by Google Insight, Google Trends and Google Analytics; there are obviously more advanced tools such as Hitwise and Comscore – but for directional information something like Google Insight is good enough: http://www.google.com/insights/search/#

‘Porn’ is just in because of the old Avenue Q song ‘the internet is for porn‘ – and it’s an authoritative bench-marks for public interest considering the recent court case where a high-court used Google as a measure of common values and interests. The interesting trend we see is that online there is demonstrably more interest in wine than in beer over the last 12 months. As a bench-mark of public interest – oddly enough at the time of the Iowa caucuses both Obama and Porn see a simultaneous spike in interest, which is the first time that Obama becomes more popular as a search query than both beer and wine combined. Disturbingly, porn becomes increasingly more popular throughout 2008 – and encouragingly Obama’s popularity online remains ahead of both beer and wine; whilst McCain’s only ‘More Popular than Beer and Wine Combined’ moment is only for a brief time at the end of January and then for a little tiny bit in August.

So it stands to reasons then that outside of a presidential year, politics takes a back seat and all people are interested in is porn, beer and wine… you animals!

When one looks at a vineyard – you’re not looking at it in the same way as you would look at an orange orchard. Instead one sees a multitude of experiences past and of moments yet to come - moments of intimacy, memorable occasions, conversations and treasured friendships. Since time immemorial, vineyards have not only been the touchstone of certain regions, but have often been the lifeblood of local communities and the cornerstone of entire generations of families. Every vineyard contains a family, a history, a culture and a purpose. This was at least, the sentiment I had before embarking on a mission to New York City, where I would promote and sell wine’s connected to my family in some ways, and more importantly – wine from my country. During that time – having spent much time in preparation for the mission, I left with those stories and sentiments of culture and family fresh in my blood. But with every sales-call and wine event I began to feel further and further from the vineyard. Soon it was about laid in cost, case-discounts and what kind of Point of Sale material was on offer. I travelled the country in a rental car with a case of wine, a corskrew and a power-point presentation along the way having people from Westchester Wine Warehouse cruelly spit wine on my shoe after having left me waiting for an hour, sitting in cold-rooms of cellars in Maryland, helping do stock-takes in Ohio, presenting to Wholefoods buyers in North Carolina and pushing on-premise retail in Atlanta: and with every step I became a bit more confused and lost the focus of what I was doing. Having believed that wine was so important to my country and stepping into the States to tell the story of South African wine, it was very dispiriting to suddenly be faced with the fact that no one really cared so long as they could make a profit.

Read the rest of this entry »

On a recent trip to the Benicassim Festival in Spain, I purchased a pair of quick-dry camping pants from Titanium for the trip. Walking to outside the festival grounds and sitting on our back-packs whilst waiting for the campsite to open, we took the opportunity to crack a bottle of Rioja we’d got on RENFE (a quick note on RENFE – if you’re on the site and can’t select English you need to select the drop-down labelled Seleccione su Idioma to make it so, which means you have to speak Spanish to get the site into English, go figure!)

Red Wine is a perfect libation for festivals – primarily because it doesn’t need to be kept cold; it doesn’t lose its fizz and if you’re drinking wine locally produced its dirt cheap and super-good. Within minutes of popping the cork however I’d managed to spill the Rioja on my new pants and was questioning the merits of wine in a situation where a shower is hard to find… when suddenly, with a splash of from my water bottle – the wine was gone. Brilliant! Wine proof pants – what more could a young millennial wine-lover at a music festival wish for? I reckon marketing the pants specifically as wine-proof and selling it at Bonnaroo could be a good gig.

Read the rest of this entry »

The East end of Long Island is surrounded by an array of wine vineyards unknown to many. With open doors and no reservations necessary, these vineyards make it possible and accessible to sample and enjoy their love and hard work. The Hamptons have a reputation of being overpriced and I’ll agree on that for the most part, except when it comes to wine. Here is one way of coming out to the Hamptons and being able to indulge.
Read the rest of this entry »

“The big brands will destroy the world if left to continue along their current course unchecked.” The future of the world thus depends on the little guy, the independent store and the niche label – and thus whilst the big brand peddling baby-boomers have been the antithesis of what the world needs, the mass label eschewing millennials will save the world.

The crux of the problem lies in what Robert Reich in his book Supercapitalism labels ‘socialised capitalism’: which is ultimately a form of capitalism that allows the rich to get rich with no obligation to share their wealth; and then when the rich go bust (ala Bear Stearns) then socialism kicks in and everyone shares in the losses. The essence of the open-source industry is akin to the blogosphere in that it is a platform upon which ideas are shared with no restriction. Ultimately, wine shares much in common with this ideology in that its wealth is often shared out along the supply chain more evenly than in say, the motor-industry where practically everyone from the production line workers to the environment gets a raw deal. Read the rest of this entry »