Archive for the ‘Rating Wine’ Category
A Cautionary Tale What’s the impact of building a winery marketing strategy that relies on receiving only great scores and ratings from the most important wine critics? Consider this cautionary tale. A few years ago a very fine winemaker decides it’s time to make their own wines, rather than make someone else’s wine. So the winery is born. Well, actually they lease space at another winery to make about 400 cases of wine. They get fruit from great vineyards and…
It’s not unprecedented but it is unusual. Robert Parker’s agreement to write a weekly column for Business Week Magazine is a fairly rare even for the most powerful wine critic on the planet. Since beginning publishing his Wine Advocate newsletter he has taken up very few gigs outside that venue. He wrote fleetingly for both Wine Enthusiast Magazine and for Food & Wine Magazine. But most of his efforts have gone into his newsletter. So bringing on Parker to write…
I can recall the era when the emergence of a new wine growing region, while somewhat exciting, was also met with a bit of skepticism by the wine trade and the hard core consumer. The issue was 1) can the new area producing anything of merit and is there any talent making wine in the region. It was also the case that getting out the word on wines from an emerging region was also a difficult task. The wine media…
Taj at Cork & Demon has apparently finished her notorious Western Wine Tour. It was, as far as I know, "on the road" wine blogging event to hit the blogosphere. Taj started in Texas, made here way through the southwest, up through California, Oregon and Washington, then back home. Along the way she stopped and visited wineries, talked to owners and winemakers and blogged it all. I envy Taj. Who doesn’t really. There is something very substantially American about the…
From the "Be Careful What You Say" File: Decanter reports that a maker of Portuguese wine Vida Nova was provoked by his host on a British TV show to denounce his own wine as "That’s rubbish. I wouldn’t pay for that, it’s tainted, it’s insipid. It tastes like vinaigrette. I’d never buy that." Ouch. Of course it was a blind tasting. The winemaker, Cliff Richard, should have known better. But what’s more interesting is how this episode in self emulation…