Have you ever thought about these tasteless tomatoes you find at the supermarket ? Why are they for sale? Because consumers want to buy tomatoes that have regular shapes, are easy to cut, and not floppy. Tasteless apples? Same, they have to have regular shapes, must be crunchy, and not have any imperfection in their pigmentation.
Pre-conclusion: people are actually ready to pay for tasteless veggies because they are more convenient.
Or maybe there is something else (out of the economical situation of supply and demand, let’s not get into that as it’s not at all the purpose of this note). For example - Why do some people prefer peaches to nectarines? A simple observation: these two fruits have a very similar taste, people would eventually say they like both, however you have the peach against the nectarine addicts.
If this is not the taste, then what? The texture of the flesh: one soft, the other crunchy; the texture of the skin: one naked and waxed, the other velvety and smooth; the colour : one shinny and bright, the other pastel with a vale.
Conclusion: Texture and colour are complete components of the “taste” factor, and can easily win over the flavour itself.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Our helpful wine writers
Here you are at the wine shop, unable to make the slightest choice. You’ve been there 10 minutes, hanging like a ghost in front of the many bottles. No matter how much you actually know about wine, you always get lost when it is about making the purchase decision. To a certain level of understanding, as for example one would know that if he decides to buy a Gouttes d’Or, he will be buying a chardonnay from the AOC of Meursault in Burgundy which would most certainly have seen oak, whereas another person will understand it as a white wine with prestige from Burgundy, and another will see it’s a french white wine but seeing the high price it should be a good wine. In the end though, you just have to trust either the name, the appealing label or the price indicator. Apparently, you should also change wine shop, because a proper wine shop wouldn’t let you hang around for that long without giving you the proper advice – but okay, maybe it’s the closest to your home.
Anyway, there comes one of the wine writer’s role. With this little “shelf-talker”: 91pts, a nice list of flavours you will find in this wine, drink until 2010. That’s helpful. No matter what we think about it, and how un/accurate this can be. Have you ever realised that once you’ve bought the wine, you don’t even try to find any of the flavours described on the shelf-talker? And if you ever try to, you rarely find them anyway (ah, yes, the wine writer doesn’t have your tastebuds or your taste memories/library!).
So the wine writer helps you make the right choice. If you are happy, you might listen to his advice again next time you are in this shop, or maybe you would have forgotten his name – there will be another 91 pts ranked anyway.
Fortunately, the wine writer’s role goes further than that.
Anyway, there comes one of the wine writer’s role. With this little “shelf-talker”: 91pts, a nice list of flavours you will find in this wine, drink until 2010. That’s helpful. No matter what we think about it, and how un/accurate this can be. Have you ever realised that once you’ve bought the wine, you don’t even try to find any of the flavours described on the shelf-talker? And if you ever try to, you rarely find them anyway (ah, yes, the wine writer doesn’t have your tastebuds or your taste memories/library!).
So the wine writer helps you make the right choice. If you are happy, you might listen to his advice again next time you are in this shop, or maybe you would have forgotten his name – there will be another 91 pts ranked anyway.
Fortunately, the wine writer’s role goes further than that.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
A matter of quality
Let’s talk for few minutes about the american market. More than any other market, your wine needs to be well positionned and you need to have media coverage. If you have the right price, the right points from the influencial magazines or wine writers, then you’re on stage!
After that, whatever the quality in the bottle. Not saying that if you have great ranks means that you have great quality, but it doesn’t mean the contrary either. I am not talking about great names of grand cru and other of the sort, or reknown wineries – but of the others. Now, the hard part is for the wines that are actually delivering quality but have not been discovered by the writers.
For these, no matter the quality in the bottle, they’d better have a very good price positionning. Well, if the wine is not known, the winery is not either, even if the appelation is recognised, you’d better be at a middle or low price range. You are asked for these ranks from wine writer or magazines, and you are asked for an eye catching packaging.
Basically, and I think it’s been the greatest lesson I learnt in the USA: the quality doesn’t matter.
Tough luck for the wineries who always thought they just had to produce quality, and they would always get recognition for it. It doesn’t work this way. More precisely, I should add quality alone doesn’t matter. It is important, but it’s not enough when it’s time to sell your wine, great quality without sales and marketing strategy doesn’t sell. Quality will help to sell that second bottle, but not the first one.
So unfortunately quality alone is not relevant when you talk sales. Sad when you believe in your wine, but this is the market reality.
After that, whatever the quality in the bottle. Not saying that if you have great ranks means that you have great quality, but it doesn’t mean the contrary either. I am not talking about great names of grand cru and other of the sort, or reknown wineries – but of the others. Now, the hard part is for the wines that are actually delivering quality but have not been discovered by the writers.
For these, no matter the quality in the bottle, they’d better have a very good price positionning. Well, if the wine is not known, the winery is not either, even if the appelation is recognised, you’d better be at a middle or low price range. You are asked for these ranks from wine writer or magazines, and you are asked for an eye catching packaging.
Basically, and I think it’s been the greatest lesson I learnt in the USA: the quality doesn’t matter.
Tough luck for the wineries who always thought they just had to produce quality, and they would always get recognition for it. It doesn’t work this way. More precisely, I should add quality alone doesn’t matter. It is important, but it’s not enough when it’s time to sell your wine, great quality without sales and marketing strategy doesn’t sell. Quality will help to sell that second bottle, but not the first one.
So unfortunately quality alone is not relevant when you talk sales. Sad when you believe in your wine, but this is the market reality.
Monday, August 11, 2008
“Wine is history, emotion”…
How does one get to put meaning behind words…
How many times have you heard that wine is history, that wine is emotion?... More than you can remember. Obviously, after a while you get to understand this ‘romantic’ part of the wine in all the history/story sense and all the emotional ways. And indeed, this romantic part of wine is very charming, if not deep and fascinating.
Well I recently learnt the lesson… the hard way, or more precisely the tearful way. I am no ‘cryer’, but it has been stronger than me. Here’s the story – and you will not cry because it’s not sad, but I did because it was emotion and history: I deeply got into wine recently, however in my home wine has never been present on the table (contrary to all good French family) until 1991. My father was a sparkling water drinker, and my mother always thought he had to add up a bit of fun alcohol in society but he loved his water bubbles. I don’t know which bug bit him; but in 1990 he began to buy magazines about wine, and finally began to buy wine and all the necessary equipment. Rapidly, he got to know all the Bordeaux secrets and used to talk me through his growing cellar. I guess that’s when wine began to interest me, even though I couldn’t understand it, I was around 11 years old and red wine used to taste like pine forest leaving a rough feeling on my tongue. Well, my father loved his wines, and got some beautiful labels – L’angelus 94 (not one of their best vintage though), Ducru Beaucaillou 95, Lynch Bages 90, Chateau Pape Clement 90 … and more. Never crazy enough, he’s always bought beautiful wines, but never the 1er crus or so. Anyway, with time it’s always been one of my great expectations: to one day be able to open one of these bottles and try them.
But for cash matters (my father hates the idea of a loan, so cash is his solution), he discovered he could sell his wines in auction on internet. Evidently, wines are gone very quickly! And he told me the news. I listened quietly, felt tears rolling down my cheeks, finally hung up the phone and exploded in tears. This made me understand that although I had been waiting for years to taste these wines, I was profoundly sad not because I would miss the tasting, but because they were part of my story; they were the beginning of my passion. And I have lost a part of my history as well as a part of my future, because if they were still in the cellar at home, I would still be expecting to drink them one day with people I love to share good moments. So these few bottles were charged of huge emotions, and somehow even tough they are not mine anymore, they will always be that story, part of my wine life. I might actually have the opportunity one day to taste these same wines, but it will never be the same since the emotional charge will be completely different.
More emotions will come, for sure…
How many times have you heard that wine is history, that wine is emotion?... More than you can remember. Obviously, after a while you get to understand this ‘romantic’ part of the wine in all the history/story sense and all the emotional ways. And indeed, this romantic part of wine is very charming, if not deep and fascinating.
Well I recently learnt the lesson… the hard way, or more precisely the tearful way. I am no ‘cryer’, but it has been stronger than me. Here’s the story – and you will not cry because it’s not sad, but I did because it was emotion and history: I deeply got into wine recently, however in my home wine has never been present on the table (contrary to all good French family) until 1991. My father was a sparkling water drinker, and my mother always thought he had to add up a bit of fun alcohol in society but he loved his water bubbles. I don’t know which bug bit him; but in 1990 he began to buy magazines about wine, and finally began to buy wine and all the necessary equipment. Rapidly, he got to know all the Bordeaux secrets and used to talk me through his growing cellar. I guess that’s when wine began to interest me, even though I couldn’t understand it, I was around 11 years old and red wine used to taste like pine forest leaving a rough feeling on my tongue. Well, my father loved his wines, and got some beautiful labels – L’angelus 94 (not one of their best vintage though), Ducru Beaucaillou 95, Lynch Bages 90, Chateau Pape Clement 90 … and more. Never crazy enough, he’s always bought beautiful wines, but never the 1er crus or so. Anyway, with time it’s always been one of my great expectations: to one day be able to open one of these bottles and try them.
But for cash matters (my father hates the idea of a loan, so cash is his solution), he discovered he could sell his wines in auction on internet. Evidently, wines are gone very quickly! And he told me the news. I listened quietly, felt tears rolling down my cheeks, finally hung up the phone and exploded in tears. This made me understand that although I had been waiting for years to taste these wines, I was profoundly sad not because I would miss the tasting, but because they were part of my story; they were the beginning of my passion. And I have lost a part of my history as well as a part of my future, because if they were still in the cellar at home, I would still be expecting to drink them one day with people I love to share good moments. So these few bottles were charged of huge emotions, and somehow even tough they are not mine anymore, they will always be that story, part of my wine life. I might actually have the opportunity one day to taste these same wines, but it will never be the same since the emotional charge will be completely different.
More emotions will come, for sure…
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Who I am in few words…
27th of December... I had just turned 27, and decided to start a blog. Things leading to another, work over my head, trips here and there, and finally my poor blog ended up with 2 posts after some 8 months. Ah, working on this blog requires some time. So there I am again, with new objectives. But first, a little description of who your devoted blogger is:
I have been acquainted with wine for just a few years, 5 exactly. I began drinking sweet white wines - nice, easy and for a woman slightly more elegant than drinking beer out of a bottle. (Nothing wrong with beer, I actually love them too.) Little by little I began asking myself questions about it, without ever being able to understand it. Always very studious at school, this was a subject I couldn't get through books, no matter how small and easy these were. I should also probably mention that I’m from France, which is certainly not the easiest country when you want to start understanding wine.So 5 years ago, after a business school, I decided to specialise myself in wine marketing, and this has been the greatest decision of my life, so far (leaving room for some more is certainly a good idea…). I started a year of travel around more than 20 countries from Sweden to Hungary, through Germany, France, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, USA, Australia etc... and all this while studying – basically a concrete education based on daily tastings directly from the source. Stopping from time to time in universities (very rarely though), meeting the different actors of the wine industry and most of the time going from wineries to wineries wisely listening to the winemakers, viticulturist, sales and marketing people, or owners and catching every possible answer to my questions. Sounds like a dream? Indeed it's been great.
Books would have taught me about theories, but I got to feel wine in every sense: with my nose and palate, but also through the stories and the people. I got to feel wine from Where it was from, from Why it tasted a specific way, from Who were the people behind the wine and What it was made with and from. The wine in a glass always brings up these 4 W questions to me, some wines will answer more than one of them, but only a beautiful wine answers these 4 questions truly. That was actually the name of my first blog – wineandthe4w.over-blog.com.
Fresh start.
Before I end this introduction up, I’m here to share information and don’t pretend knowing everything since I actually know such a little compared to what I still have to learn, and that’s why I love so much wine!
All this being said, so many of these blogs or websites already exist! Why creating another one and most importantly how different will that be? …
I have been acquainted with wine for just a few years, 5 exactly. I began drinking sweet white wines - nice, easy and for a woman slightly more elegant than drinking beer out of a bottle. (Nothing wrong with beer, I actually love them too.) Little by little I began asking myself questions about it, without ever being able to understand it. Always very studious at school, this was a subject I couldn't get through books, no matter how small and easy these were. I should also probably mention that I’m from France, which is certainly not the easiest country when you want to start understanding wine.So 5 years ago, after a business school, I decided to specialise myself in wine marketing, and this has been the greatest decision of my life, so far (leaving room for some more is certainly a good idea…). I started a year of travel around more than 20 countries from Sweden to Hungary, through Germany, France, Portugal, Brazil, Argentina, USA, Australia etc... and all this while studying – basically a concrete education based on daily tastings directly from the source. Stopping from time to time in universities (very rarely though), meeting the different actors of the wine industry and most of the time going from wineries to wineries wisely listening to the winemakers, viticulturist, sales and marketing people, or owners and catching every possible answer to my questions. Sounds like a dream? Indeed it's been great.
Books would have taught me about theories, but I got to feel wine in every sense: with my nose and palate, but also through the stories and the people. I got to feel wine from Where it was from, from Why it tasted a specific way, from Who were the people behind the wine and What it was made with and from. The wine in a glass always brings up these 4 W questions to me, some wines will answer more than one of them, but only a beautiful wine answers these 4 questions truly. That was actually the name of my first blog – wineandthe4w.over-blog.com.
Fresh start.
Before I end this introduction up, I’m here to share information and don’t pretend knowing everything since I actually know such a little compared to what I still have to learn, and that’s why I love so much wine!
All this being said, so many of these blogs or websites already exist! Why creating another one and most importantly how different will that be? …
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