Man, there are a lot of household name wineries out there! There are a lot of wineries from California that made their mark in the years between 1975 and 1993 or so, and have done, basically nothing since. A lot of wineries relying on steakhouses and corporate placements to get them through another year. A lot of 30-70,000 case producers that just sort of continue to slog ahead. About half of them have sold off to another entity somewhere along the line, if their kids didn't want to take over. A lot of old, tired names, making okay, but never great wines, just sort of hanging on to the name they established while most of the people that drank their wines were still young. Now those people are nearing retirement age, and what are these wineries to do? They have gotten, fat and complacent through the years. They have relied too much on the name recognition and haven't evolved to meet the times. Now that the people that drank their wines are retiring or dying, and the stores that bought their wines are switching to concierge/ in house wine steward sommeliers, who is their audience? Their success thus far was set in motion years ago, but failing to articulate a true marketing plan, has placed an expiration date on their success that coincides with the expiration date of their clients. If you continue to make world class wine, like Ridge, Heitz, Chateau Montelena, you will live on through generations If you once made world class wine, but the world caught up to you, you are forever doomed to be a footnote. On some level, we are just enabling these wineries. If we, as a wine drinking society, continue to reward mediocrity, we will be met with mediocrity. We will be doomed by dead, tired, artifact wineries that are here only because they are recognizable.
An open letter to Randall's marketing mojo
In response to Randall's Blog Post:
Dear Randall,
2009 Contra-is a stunning wine. Could the same be said in 2011? Perhaps, but to a lesser degree. While we have certainly grown to love this wine, this wine has grown to be loved and perhaps is not yet even peaking. I know that the topic of the timing of this wine's release is in certain circles, contentious, but this was Problem 1 against raging success. Not that the wine wasn't or isn't great, but it didn't know who it was yet. And based on our chats about the oft-misunderstood grape, Carignane, this wine was totally symbolic of everything that grape is.
Problem 2: Contra is a great name, a mysterious name. It's a name that allows it to be whatever you want it to be. In certain (surprisingly large) circles, it refers to a NES game of the 80's. The visual irony of the couch, while hilarious when recognized, loses it's hilarity when explained by anyone aside from you. This label also lacks the artistic flair that you have become known for.
Problem 3: This wine falls into the hot hot new trend of "red blends". Even trying to place this wine amongst the swill that currently populates that category and drugstore circular ads is going to end up disappointing the hell out of someone expecting Apothic Red. Similarly, falling into that category, sticks you in a section that anyone that has even heard of Carignane, avoids like the plague. That group of buyers, that you are attempting to appeal to understands how preposterous a category like "red blends" is. It's akin to having a car dealership that categorizes cars based on manufacturer of the chassis. this is the part of the world that is entirely unfix-able, so get that idea out of your head.
Problem 4: People don't entirely understand what this wine is (this is sort of problem 3.5). Old Vine Field Blend didn't necessarily help or hurt. This wine is Carignane driven which brings certain responsibilities. It has Rocks and Raspberries it has soul, it lingers. as I think about it right now, I can taste it.
Further muddying your clarity on the matter is the Schrödinger’s Cat phenomenon. It's worth re-iterating that you are a bit of a celebrity (in many circles). People recognize you on the street. This carries with it a bit of a cult of personality that sells wine in a manner that sometimes overwhelms the senses. In many situations, when I take a winemaker around, the trade is impressed enough, but not to a point of nervousness or neurosis (no, I don't think neurosis is infectious). It is because you are, for all intents and purposes, a celebrity within this niche. The process of meeting someone and tasting them on your wines, overshadows the merits of the actual wines. They would buy the wines from you regardless of the quality or the state the wines are in. Sometimes, the tasting resonates, more likely, the stories they tell will be about meeting you, and less about what the wines actually tasted like (assuming they can even remember). If you were anonymous, you get your point (s) across much easier. So the Cat thing: The cat is not dead in the box, it is certainly alive, but inside the box, it stops being a cat altogether. It becomes something else that is really dependent on who is presenting the wines, the mood of the buyer and a thousand other factors. In other words, Darwinian evolution is determined by the market. Whereas, with you around, it's always a cat, alive and predictable. So you can never suitably observe the "cat" it's natural state.
So what's the solution? To paraphrase you: Maybe you're asking the wrong questions.
Solution 1: You are the category. Bonny Doon is well branded and identified in the market. Contra is a good name. The category of this wine is: a Bonny Doon wine for everyday consumption. Period. Even selling it within a category will hurt it. Retailers and wine list category Nazi's will do this on their own. Its unavoidable. By keeping it separate of the category, buyers are compelled to market it on your terms if they love it. You occupy a space on shelves in minds and in hearts that most producers couldn't if they tried. Rather than being something for everyone, be that wine geeks favorite Wednesday wine. Screw mass-appeal. Big House will not be repeated.
Solution 2: The label: I would simply print (maybe screen print) the "Contra" name in a die cut defined font (the one you use is great) right on the glass with a back label that features Bonny Doon Vineyard prominently. Put the blend on it too.
Solution 3: The distributors: Ah yes, the distributors. I tend to think of distributors as a sometimes okay delivery service (they do own trucks). Sometimes, one of their employees, when not buried with goals and imperatives from quite unlovable North Coast based wineries that spend more on shiny shoes on the street than quality ingredients, discovers that Bonny Doon is in their portfolio. Bonny Doon is fun to sell and fun to represent. It brings levity and joy to often joyless tie wearing widget-schillers. You mentioned the "black" in the balance sheet. Continue that thread down to the salesperson. If refined in concept, Contra can become something that is both joyful to sell and drink, but also nourishing to the wallet and psyche (the latter of which you endeavor towards, always). After avoiding continued lashings at the hands of well-fed sales managers, a salesperson next aspiration is to try to pay for the car they're beating into the ground. Making a wine that sells through, makes salespeople very happy and success in the form of confidence in the product, amplifies.
Randall-You are asking why you haven't caught lightening in a bottle. Maybe it's time to look at this problem as a new and a good one. Your wines have never been better and now you're faced with a wine whose quality exceeds it's marketing. This alone is a not so subtle metaphor of the changes you have aspired to. Perhaps you've subconsciously sabotaged or reigned in aspects of the marketing on this wine based on it's merits and potential. Maybe with the help of a brilliant National Sales Manager and witty (and snarky) accomplices in the Great Lakes Region, you can refine the concept to a point where the sales are worthy of the quality in the bottle.
Then again, perhaps you're just over-thinking it...
What it feels like to switch teams
Almost inevitably, as time passes, our resumes build and competition notices, we eventually are asked to consider representing a new portfolio of wines. This could be at the supplier level or at the distributor level. For some, this doesn't matter, it's the same as selling Brand "X" vs Brand "Y". For me, personally, and most of you that bother to read a wine sales blog, it may feel as traumatic as giving your dog away and replacing him with a different, less loveable dog.
In every career, finding purpose is important. If you are a wine geek, you love wine and wineries. Your "book" is your sports team. Rooting for that team and singing it's praises is a natural inclination. It's that collection of players that complement each other and that you know so well. You probably build personal relationships with the wineries through workwiths, social media and maybe even a visit to the winery. Eventually, for any number of factors, but usually it's either financial or personal, you may consider jumping to another book. This choice is a deeply complicated decision. It's personal, and sometimes it works out great and sometimes, it's a soul crushing disaster. I've personally had one of each.
When it's positive, you look ahead at the new book and spend the bulk of your time excitedly learning about this new and exciting range of producers. When you see the old producers in the market, you have much love for them and have nothing but great things to say, and you mean it. When it's wrong, and believe me, you know right away, you realize that the marketplace perception of the distributor and the internal reality are pretty far apart. You may find you have a hard time loving the wines, and you find yourself longing for the old producers.
Further complicating the situation is the very strange dynamic of: " I know I used to tell you these wines are the best, but now, maybe you'll believe me when I say I've found an entire set of wines that are better." That isn't really a viable approach, but damn if it doesn't feel that way. The best approach is to acknowledge that there is a whole world of great wines in the first place. My personal take has always been that each book has an assortment of great producers, but most sales reps for the big companies are a little too dim, or have had all critical thinking beaten out of them, to recognize this fact.
Jumping companies, particularly laterally, is a tough choice. If the book you sell is important to you, that can be one of the most important considerations while making a jump. You have to balance that with the personal and the financial, but don't underestimate how hard it can be to forget about that first team.
In every career, finding purpose is important. If you are a wine geek, you love wine and wineries. Your "book" is your sports team. Rooting for that team and singing it's praises is a natural inclination. It's that collection of players that complement each other and that you know so well. You probably build personal relationships with the wineries through workwiths, social media and maybe even a visit to the winery. Eventually, for any number of factors, but usually it's either financial or personal, you may consider jumping to another book. This choice is a deeply complicated decision. It's personal, and sometimes it works out great and sometimes, it's a soul crushing disaster. I've personally had one of each.
When it's positive, you look ahead at the new book and spend the bulk of your time excitedly learning about this new and exciting range of producers. When you see the old producers in the market, you have much love for them and have nothing but great things to say, and you mean it. When it's wrong, and believe me, you know right away, you realize that the marketplace perception of the distributor and the internal reality are pretty far apart. You may find you have a hard time loving the wines, and you find yourself longing for the old producers.
Further complicating the situation is the very strange dynamic of: " I know I used to tell you these wines are the best, but now, maybe you'll believe me when I say I've found an entire set of wines that are better." That isn't really a viable approach, but damn if it doesn't feel that way. The best approach is to acknowledge that there is a whole world of great wines in the first place. My personal take has always been that each book has an assortment of great producers, but most sales reps for the big companies are a little too dim, or have had all critical thinking beaten out of them, to recognize this fact.
Jumping companies, particularly laterally, is a tough choice. If the book you sell is important to you, that can be one of the most important considerations while making a jump. You have to balance that with the personal and the financial, but don't underestimate how hard it can be to forget about that first team.
So, where are the guys from "High Fidelity?"
I was listening to a podcast yesterday, specifically: The Nerdist interview of JJ Abrams. In the interview, JJ implied that we miss the days of bookstores and record shops, and have tried to replace those with other things, like restaurants. I never thought about it in those terms. There is no doubt we have seen a surge in "foodie-ism" over the last decade or so, and we have also seen the disappearance of record shops and bookstores. Is this possible? Have we taken the vacuum that was created by amazon and itunes and filled it with bacon and pinot?
It's certainly possible.
There was something about the feeling of community, being in the record shops or bookstores all those years ago. They offered a personal, yet shared tactile experience. Now that the tactility of media has practically vanished (save a movie or concert experience), apparently, we need that sense of a shared tangible experience. Since food and wine is an experience that begins visually, we can share amazing photos of our foodie journeys throughout the inter-tubes. Some people don't get this and think that it's about gloating or showing off. Maybe that's a hidden part of it, but people that are into great wine and food love to share experiences both ways.
Not only do you have the shared e-meal (I like this term!), you also, probably, physically go to restaurants to share the experience with patrons around you. It's almost like an unspoken common energy, so reminiscent of the Saturday morning visits to the record stores with coffee in hand.
As I'm sorting all of this out, I also realize that something else has changed: restaurants look and act more like those record and book stores from back in the day. The wait staffs wear "chucks" and are tatted up, something that would have only been seen in the aforementioned shops 15 years ago. The music is hip, and the best food doesn't necessarily come served on a tablecloth. Picnic tables and rolls of paper towels are just as likely. Convention has been broken by the needs of the people to have this progressing conversation about the art and love of food and wine. One that has outgrown the boundaries and expectation of the privileged and has found itself squarely in the lap of the literate, art loving, thoughtful bohemians.
While I'm sad that record stores and bookstores have largely gone the way of the dodo, music and books haven't disappeared, they've just jumped mediums. Next time you wax nostalgic about the disappearance of these places, celebrate the restaurants and food culture that have risen from their ashes, subconsciously replacing that need.
It's certainly possible.
There was something about the feeling of community, being in the record shops or bookstores all those years ago. They offered a personal, yet shared tactile experience. Now that the tactility of media has practically vanished (save a movie or concert experience), apparently, we need that sense of a shared tangible experience. Since food and wine is an experience that begins visually, we can share amazing photos of our foodie journeys throughout the inter-tubes. Some people don't get this and think that it's about gloating or showing off. Maybe that's a hidden part of it, but people that are into great wine and food love to share experiences both ways.
Not only do you have the shared e-meal (I like this term!), you also, probably, physically go to restaurants to share the experience with patrons around you. It's almost like an unspoken common energy, so reminiscent of the Saturday morning visits to the record stores with coffee in hand.
As I'm sorting all of this out, I also realize that something else has changed: restaurants look and act more like those record and book stores from back in the day. The wait staffs wear "chucks" and are tatted up, something that would have only been seen in the aforementioned shops 15 years ago. The music is hip, and the best food doesn't necessarily come served on a tablecloth. Picnic tables and rolls of paper towels are just as likely. Convention has been broken by the needs of the people to have this progressing conversation about the art and love of food and wine. One that has outgrown the boundaries and expectation of the privileged and has found itself squarely in the lap of the literate, art loving, thoughtful bohemians.
While I'm sad that record stores and bookstores have largely gone the way of the dodo, music and books haven't disappeared, they've just jumped mediums. Next time you wax nostalgic about the disappearance of these places, celebrate the restaurants and food culture that have risen from their ashes, subconsciously replacing that need.
Wines of the The Uncanny Valley
For those of you uninitiated in general geekdom, the uncanny valley is (wikipedia): when human replicas look and act almost, but not perfectly, like actual human beings, it causes a response of revulsion among human observers. The "valley" refers to the dip in a graph of the comfort level of humans as a function of a robot's human likeness.
In other words, it's so close, but you know something's not right. You may even be able to analyze the robot or humanoid (or rinoplasty patient), and decide that everything individually looks right, but there's something off. For more on this ability, check out Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, pretty great read.
As humans, we are trained our entire lives to notice this weird quirk in other humanoids, because we spend our entire lives looking at millions of other specimens making silent, involuntary notes about behaviors, expressions, movements, etc.
I propose that there is now an uncanny valley of wine. This is a theory that I've vetted amongst a handful of wine theoreticians (is there such a thing?). The consensus seems to be that, after you really refine your palate, you begin to notice, not necessarily flaws, but seams in wine. Having never made or aspired to make wine, I can't tell you what the tricks may be to cover shortcomings of wine. I know you can add a ton of ingredients to wine to fix color, acid, etc. I've seen wines I know have been watered back that have this weird quality. Sometimes, and seemingly more often as of late, I'll taste a wine, and it almost creeps me out. It's not flawed, nor does it possess anything out of whack, it just doesn't seem right. The closer it gets to being like actual wine (made from generally natural processes), the stranger it feels.
It would seem that this is not readily identifiable to the vast majority of the population. I would also suggest that I see this most often with larger producers from the U.S..This sensitivity, at least in my world, probably stems from 2 things-a) I have tended to gravitate towards Old world wines produced somewhat naturally as well as the domestic wines in the similar style b) my seeming addiction from ages 8-14 to Ferrara Pan Candy, which calibrated my palate to artificial flavors, and am now hyper sensitive to.
So, now we live in an age where even bad wine is still pretty drinkable for most, but for me, that is an uncanny valley red flag. Better drinking through chemistry? Maybe. It's not for me to say whether this is a good thing or not, but I definitely get the heebie-jeebies from these concoctions.
In other words, it's so close, but you know something's not right. You may even be able to analyze the robot or humanoid (or rinoplasty patient), and decide that everything individually looks right, but there's something off. For more on this ability, check out Blink by Malcolm Gladwell, pretty great read.
As humans, we are trained our entire lives to notice this weird quirk in other humanoids, because we spend our entire lives looking at millions of other specimens making silent, involuntary notes about behaviors, expressions, movements, etc.
I propose that there is now an uncanny valley of wine. This is a theory that I've vetted amongst a handful of wine theoreticians (is there such a thing?). The consensus seems to be that, after you really refine your palate, you begin to notice, not necessarily flaws, but seams in wine. Having never made or aspired to make wine, I can't tell you what the tricks may be to cover shortcomings of wine. I know you can add a ton of ingredients to wine to fix color, acid, etc. I've seen wines I know have been watered back that have this weird quality. Sometimes, and seemingly more often as of late, I'll taste a wine, and it almost creeps me out. It's not flawed, nor does it possess anything out of whack, it just doesn't seem right. The closer it gets to being like actual wine (made from generally natural processes), the stranger it feels.
It would seem that this is not readily identifiable to the vast majority of the population. I would also suggest that I see this most often with larger producers from the U.S..This sensitivity, at least in my world, probably stems from 2 things-a) I have tended to gravitate towards Old world wines produced somewhat naturally as well as the domestic wines in the similar style b) my seeming addiction from ages 8-14 to Ferrara Pan Candy, which calibrated my palate to artificial flavors, and am now hyper sensitive to.
So, now we live in an age where even bad wine is still pretty drinkable for most, but for me, that is an uncanny valley red flag. Better drinking through chemistry? Maybe. It's not for me to say whether this is a good thing or not, but I definitely get the heebie-jeebies from these concoctions.
The wine road less traveled
There is a soothing and predictable hum to the machinations of wine sales. We are all trained to approach the task with a certain autonomy, and with very little deviation from the scripted dance. This forms our wine business sensibility that affect everything from our routes to the events we organize. "5 Course wine dinners" or "pour behind a table" seem to be the only approaches that are used. Once in a great while, we see someone try something new, and it may strike a chord. What we don't see is the inability of many of the people in this business, to adapt and support creativity. Those intoxicated by the dull rhythm resist anything unique at all costs. Their resistance to change can be demoralizing for everyone, and thereby, contagious. Wine people on the whole are striving for that predictability, perhaps born out of the aversion to risk.
Remember the Apple campaign called "Think different"? Different isn't automatically better, but different changes the world. Approaching events and this business differently, can change this part of the world. I have been involved in a few things that have broken convention, and in the end, enjoyed tremendous success from these projects. Success, in this case, not necessarily acutely monetarily. Instead, along with partners and evangelists, we created a couple of events that were among the most memorable wine events in our region's history. Nobody got rich off of the endeavors, but what we did was to create the elusive "I had this wine on vacation phenomenon"1. Wine dinners can blur together. Once you create a unique event, you have the ability to forever connect the thing you are marketing to a very specific memory (hopefully it is a great memory).
The other challenge I have recently encountered has been my counterparts' desire to keep wine programs simple and predictable. As I often do, I thrown down the wine education gauntlet. I'm not an MS by any stretch, but I believe that we can raise the general education of the population by challenging them to select and sample wines outside of their comfort zone. Seemingly naively, I also subscribe to the belief that actually pairing food and wine together can create an elevated experience. Some reps would much rather work in the Cab/ Chard world and believe that the success of this corner of a wine program is your path to business success, as if they have never heard the term "self-fulfilling prophesy".
What separates us from our competition may not be as simple as how many hours we work or how passionate we are, instead it may be about breaking convention, rewriting rules and forging the path yet to be traveled. If we are constantly working on new approaches, not only to our sales, but more importantly to the way we promote our clients while challenging convention, the better we differentiate ourselves from the guy who makes the donuts.
1 This is phenomenon that occurs whenever a person travels and has a bottle of wine while on vacation. It will always be the best wine ever. This is observed to be more a function of the moment than the actual quality of the wine. See "Hot dog in a ballpark syndrome"
Remember the Apple campaign called "Think different"? Different isn't automatically better, but different changes the world. Approaching events and this business differently, can change this part of the world. I have been involved in a few things that have broken convention, and in the end, enjoyed tremendous success from these projects. Success, in this case, not necessarily acutely monetarily. Instead, along with partners and evangelists, we created a couple of events that were among the most memorable wine events in our region's history. Nobody got rich off of the endeavors, but what we did was to create the elusive "I had this wine on vacation phenomenon"1. Wine dinners can blur together. Once you create a unique event, you have the ability to forever connect the thing you are marketing to a very specific memory (hopefully it is a great memory).
The other challenge I have recently encountered has been my counterparts' desire to keep wine programs simple and predictable. As I often do, I thrown down the wine education gauntlet. I'm not an MS by any stretch, but I believe that we can raise the general education of the population by challenging them to select and sample wines outside of their comfort zone. Seemingly naively, I also subscribe to the belief that actually pairing food and wine together can create an elevated experience. Some reps would much rather work in the Cab/ Chard world and believe that the success of this corner of a wine program is your path to business success, as if they have never heard the term "self-fulfilling prophesy".
What separates us from our competition may not be as simple as how many hours we work or how passionate we are, instead it may be about breaking convention, rewriting rules and forging the path yet to be traveled. If we are constantly working on new approaches, not only to our sales, but more importantly to the way we promote our clients while challenging convention, the better we differentiate ourselves from the guy who makes the donuts.
1 This is phenomenon that occurs whenever a person travels and has a bottle of wine while on vacation. It will always be the best wine ever. This is observed to be more a function of the moment than the actual quality of the wine. See "Hot dog in a ballpark syndrome"
Fête d’ Été
Anne Amie Vineyards, a small, family owned winery in Willamette Valley, Oregon, will be visiting our region for their annual sales call. This year, will offer a twist on the traditional winemaker dinners. Instead of 5 courses in 1 restaurant, they will host a series of progressive bicycle winemaker dinners. In each city, Anne Amie will travel between 4 or 5 restaurants in general proximity, atop bicycles, with the entire group in tow. This should offer not only a unique and incredibly joyful experience, but a fresh look at the fabric of each city. Kimberly McLeod (National Sales Manager) and Thomas Houseman (Winemaker) wanted to bring an element of Portland, Oregon, to the Great Lakes.
This event has been embraced by each of the restaurant communities, and everyone has worked together to bring a youth and energy to a format that can often seem stuffy or intimidating. Each dinner is $75 all inclusive and comes with a t-shirt with the Fête d’ Été-logo for the event and the “tour dates”.
Fête d’ Été (literally means summer party)-so named, as we are on the cusp of Summer here in the Great Lakes, and there is a sort of magic in the air this time of year, and a hunger to be outside. Each ride, very casual in nature, will encompass no more than 7 total miles round trip. Guests are expected to provide their own bicycle. The event details are as follows, each event begins at 6pm:
Monday May 14th-Ann Arbor, MI-Stops include: Vinology, Sava’s, The Earle and Palio- a beautiful ride through campus and downtown
Tuesday May 15th-Toledo, OH-Stops include: Toledo Museum of Art, Mancy’s House, Real Steak Seafood Company, Rockwell’s at the Oliver House and Registry Bistro. This is a ride through the largest contiguous Victorian Neighborhood and over the Maumee River.
Wednesday May 16th-Cleveland, OH-Stops include: Flying Fig, Fat Cat’s, Ginko, Noodlecat and SoFo. This ride will give a great look at 3 of Ohio best restaurant neighborhoods: Downtown, Tremont and Ohio City
Thursday May 17th-Columbus, OH-Stops include Barrel and Bottle, Alana’s, Till and Rigsby’s Kitchen. The Olentangy river trail is one of the most beautiful rides in Ohio and we will include several miles of this trail on our ride.
Reservations can be made at anneamie.com/biketour. No more than 30 slots are available on any date, so early reservations are encouraged.
It's Hard out Here for a Pimp
I was watching the Oscars on Sunday, cheering wildly for "Man or a Muppet". I was considering how Jason Segel made a great Muppet movie, in large part, because of his enthusiasm and passion for the Muppets. You may laugh, but that film is brilliant. I think so, my kids think so, the critics think so, and even rottentomatoes.com thinks so. There are a thousand reasons why he shouldn't have even tried to make this movie, among them, The Muppets haven't been relevant for 20 years, nostalgia rarely hits the right tone, no CGI, and many more. Segel persisted, and made this successful largely because he was so passionate, sincere and enthusiastic. In fact, that was the only way he could have made this successful.
Then, I remembered the rap song in the title of this post, and while the song is ok, and the film from which it came was pretty good (Hustle and Flow), the 2 songs made me think about wine. Huh? Well, they made me think of how we approach our job of sales in the wine industry, or more to the point, the 2 contrasting approaches to sales.
How many of you are slogging through your day, waiting to be done, turn your phone off, put your feather duster away and escape? You hustle through your day, working your ass off, sitting in meetings, waiting in line, opening boxes, begging for placements to hit your quota, getting yelled at by accounts, picking up a case of wine and delivering it to the other side of town all while trying to transmit your orders. Wine and your love for wine rarely enter into the equation. You are pimpin' and hustlin', and it's a damn hard way to make living.
Your life should actually be like this:
Well, not exactly, but you get the idea. spending a day talking to your friends about something you love, wine, is a great job. If you bring enthusiasm and passion into your day, life's a piece of cake. Seriously, if you love wine, then you need to remind yourself that your are TALKING ABOUT WINE ALL DAY LONG, that's how you get paid! If you're really good, you get paid well. If the company you work for has sapped all of the joy out of your day, then you need to either fix your situation or update your resume. There isn't any room for the joyless in this business, because the people with passion and enthusiasm will flatten you and your feather duster. Like I always say, you may as well be selling widgets.
a new approach to competition
At our most Darwinian, we are competitive. It's natural, we can't escape it, and it's always there deep down. We are often at our ugliest when we are competitive. We aren't great neighbors, we're not great advocates, and we're certainly not a trustworthy resource.
There are sales managers that approach this business with a Cobra Kai mentality. they want nothing less than domination. They want to write the wine list, print the wine list and then walk into the restaurant like they own the wine list. Then, they become territorial when the buyer even considers buying from another distributor. I've even seen them get angry when the buyer (the customer for god's sake!) wants to replace the item that is important to the distributor with a different item from the same distributor, but of less importance. That's getting off track though, apologies.
The point is, distributors, top to bottom, often forget who their customer is, and as a result, turn themselves into untrustworthy resources for their customers. The approach that blocking your competitors will generate greater sales is a flawed concept. While you may dominate market share in certain accounts, you will fail in areas where you could succeed if you were credible and trustworthy.
Good wine programs buy from a number of sources. while they may prefer to deal with a small group, it will always be in the buyer's best interest to buy from multiple outlets. Assuming, as a rep, that you are getting a piece of the pie, don't you want to be the one that the buyer leans on for candid and trustworthy experience and advice? If you can demonstrate that the customer's best interests are your best interests, you can build a reciprocal relationship. Going against nature, you may need to compliment, or even show professionalism to your competition. You may need to work with them to help find the best combination of selections to make your client the most money. your disparaging remarks, maneuvering and jealousy won't help you sell more wine.
It really comes down to some sage philosophy that's been floating around for some time "You only need to worry about you, the rest will take care of itself". So true, your competitors are out of your control, but if you are better than them, smarter than them, work harder than them, and are nicer than them, guess what you have mastered? The crane kick.
Time to Think about Pink
This is the time of year when importers, distributors and ultimately retailers forecast and commit to their Rosé purchases for the warm months of 2012. We have seen a steady increase in the sales of rosé for as long as I can remember, and we are now at a point where every fine wine shop and restaurant in the country is doing something with this category. The mantra is: Rosé is brought in right after the wine is finished and sold out before it hits 1 year old. Rosé is seemingly held in the same regard as Beaujolais Nouveau, if you don't drink it, it will be dead wine in 2 years. This is absolutely absurd. Rosé lives longer than many similarly priced white wines, and unlike it's white counterparts, actually could use a bit of time to develop. I'm not talking about cellaring these wines, but I certainly would think that a 2 year old Rosé isn't the kiss of death we have come to believe in this industry.
I not sure how we got this way. The demand for early arrival dry pink is so great that many producers have prioritized it's bottling and release before that of many white wines. Who decided that was a good idea? And who decreed that 2 year old rosé is the kiss of death? My theory is it is the mentality of the people taking the risks of buying and selling the wines. If they place some sort of hard and fast parameters and metrics on these items, they are held less accountable for taking risks. Unfortunately, they are setting themselves up for some degree of disaster. Purchasing agents groan when confronted with having to buy in on rosé, and many feel like they get burned every year because it isn't all sold out by August 1. Then they need to discount it, sometimes at a great loss, and then the cycle starts all over again, because the market does demand rosé. Admittedly, rosé has become closely associated with Summertime, and rightfully so. We all know that rosé does quite well year round though especially at Thanksgiving and Easter. It's a breakable cycle if we as a wine community can teach and learn just two thing about rosé: it improves in year 2, and we can and should drink it year round.
Not too many generalizations work in wine. I am pretty confident about this one. I would estimate that 95% of dry rosés out there will peak in the 18 month- 24 month window, 6 months after many have been closed out. I'm not suggesting buying these and sitting on them for 2 years as that's pretty bad business. What to do, and now is a great time to do it as rosé continues to gain popularity, is to educate the wine community, starting with consumers, sommeliers and retailers as to the durability and year round drink-ability of rosé.
Perhaps if we band together, we can help out those poor purchasing agents staring at their rosé offerings with dread right now.
Who's the Boss?
The customer is always right. Duh. That's like rule number one of business. For some reason, the beverage business blurs this line a little bit (or a lot). Theoretically, each lower tier of the distribution model becomes a customer for the tier directly above it. The distributor is the customer for the supplier, the retailer is the customer for the distributor. These are both true, but the lines can go both ways. The distributor, since they are the single outlet for the supplier, often receives pressure from the supplier. The supplier always has an option to find another customer. That just sounds weird. The supplier can fire their customer and find one that will buy more of their product. Does this happen anywhere else? The dynamics of this possibility make this relationship strange. In many instances, the distributor and the supplier are on the same page and partnered up. If not, the supplier needs to gingerly apply pressure on the distributor to buy and sell more product. When push comes to shove, who wins out? Well, no one. It's sort of a dance to see if each others abilities, pocketbook and priorities are even in the same ballpark. If not, lawyers step in, then everyone loses in the short term.
Ordinarily I'd try to insert some nugget of wisdom or perspective into the proceedings, but today, I have none. It's a strange dance, built around strange laws and everyone I know has battle scars to show for it. I'm lucky to be with like-minded distributors who are largely on the same page. I have no illusions that it will stay this way, but today it is, so all is good.
Quit talking about yourself, and start being yourself (another social media lecture)
Most of you are creating noise. I follow tons of wineries, distributors and wine people in general. Most of you are selling, or trying to sell. Instead, you are selling out. Social media is the wrong medium for selling (directly). As a member of the community, your obligation is to show yourself or your brand as being candid and authentic. Be you. This is why you have followers, because people want to hear what you have to say. They want a rallying cry. They want your unedited opinion. They must already like you or your brand. It's the difference between selling cars and working in a restaurant. Cars, you have to make sure the customer doesn't leave, so you sell them on everything. In restaurants, they're already engaged, you don't need to sell them on how great your food is anymore. Your followers are already in your restaurant. Now that they're there, you have a chance to engage them, inspire them, humor them, or make them think. Nothing is more authentic or effective than you being you.
Escape or Contribute?
Growing up in Toledo, I was trained to say that "this town sucks", that "I can't wait to get out", "There's so much more to do in other cities". This was the anthem of the youth in the 80's (maybe today too, for all I know). Well, I got out. And I really enjoyed my time in California. And I got some perspective on the Midwest. Ohio remained, home. For several years, I had a conflicted perspective on how I felt about Ohio. I missed the little things, but I could never imagine myself placed back in the gray and gloomy backdrop, with the backwards culture, and depressing politics. Eventually, my desire to be surrounded by family got the best of me and I submitted, we returned.
Upon returning, I regretted the move almost immediately, I felt like, I had really overestimated how much I missed the place. Time went on, and the wine business worked pretty well for me here. I eventually discovered that, I wasn't alone. There were many talented, and experienced food and wine folks returning to their hometowns. The cost of living on the coasts and the relatively meager existence that this business sometimes offers made people grow up and re-calculate their life choices. Maybe it was the family heartstrings. These weren't people that failed in New York or Chicago and were now in their parents' basements, these were people that made a conscious decision to continue their career progressions in cities that weren't necessarily synonymous with food, wine or culture, but that they wanted to be a part of building that. What was seemingly a move of necessity or convenience has turned into reverse migration with a noble common purpose, to make the most of what we're given.
I'm not going to delve too deeply into why we felt that the big city held the life satisfaction. We all agree that there is no shortage of things to do, or culture in the biggest of cities. While that may be what lights your fire, I'm here to tell you that the Midwest, and certainly my little corner of it has something that the big cities have a hard time offering-chance to build something together.
Thanks in large part to a litany of chefs from Cleveland returning to their roots, and hometowns in the last dozen or so years after success in L.A, Chicago and New York, Cleveland has undergone a Food and Wine Renaissance quite unlike any American City I can think of. The national food media has begun to pay attention. That idea that we, as Ohioans, or Michiganders (cue the Chrysler Eminem commercial), can get together with our friends and families and with a twinkle in our eye and with the nearly forgotten histories of what our cities were like long before we were born, make this, our homes and hometowns, the place that satisfies our wanderlust. Bring the proverbial Mountain to Mohammed.
This movement is not limited to chefs. Living in the breadbasket of America, we grow stuff, and the growers have all changed. We now have cheese-makers, dairy farms that follow their own strict guidelines, cattle, hog and chicken farmers raising free range, naturally fed livestock, and entire markets devoted to nothing but locally grown and produced products. The Midwest as an artisan mecca is becoming a reality. People that left or would have left a dozen years ago are opting to be a part of the movement here at home.
I've seen varying levels of this movement in all of the major cities I call on, whether it's Detroit, with the incredible ethnic food and underground wine and supper clubs or Cleveland with the Celebrity chef fueled downtown and surrounding neighborhood reinvention to Cincinnati and Columbus's burgeoning food scenes, change is happening right here, right now. I say this with all sincerity- I've never been more professionally satisfied or inspired than I am right here, right now.
There are no "bear and bull" vintages
Thanks to Global warming and modern winemaking techniques, we have fewer poor vintages than in the past. We also seem to have more of the "great" vintages handed to us as well. I touched on this before. Time has passed, and now, I have dealt with the 2008 Rhone fallout.
The Southern Rhone has experienced a string of easy vintages. In the last 10 years they have had 9, really great years. With the consensus exception of the 2002 vintage, they were all vintages worth buying. The 2008, sandwiched between the 93pt-2009 Vintage and the 98pt-2007 vintage (heavily overrated in my opinion), received a measly 86 points. Looking down to the bottom of the erobertparker page, that translates to "very good to excellent". I agree, completely. 2008 was a good vintage. The wines are generally very good. This was not the vintage of the century, but I thought it was very much like the classic 2006 vintage, which scored lower than the 2005 (90 vs. 95pts), but has proven to be a better and more age-able wine. Warmer vintages tend to get higher scores, and show well younger, but don't seem to hold up as well, generally.
It is within every wine buyer's nature to buy when the vintage is good and pass when it's not. It is their responsibility to buy selectively and in the best interest of their clientele. The other force, the wineries and the wholesalers, say that they have wine to sell from the vintages that are not as well received. This creates a logjam and in many cases, creates turmoil for the brands. Wholesalers and wineries plead with the retailers to keep buying in and out of the vintages and sometimes try to tie next year's allocations to the purchase of the "off" vintage. This usually just creates ill will.
Back to the Rhone problem. I have dealt with many, many buyers that were passing on the 2008 vintage because it wasn't very good. Parker thought it was good, just not as good as the surrounding vintages. We have now created a wine buying society that takes these cheat sheets and mistakes this for being savvy, at the expense of the very producers that they covet in the great vintages (which seem to happen 8 of every 10 years). I had these buyers passing on the 2008's, tasting them and agreeing they were great, but that they would be a tough sell. I don't want to marginalize the impact a consumer with just enough information to be dangerous can have on your sales. These vintage charts made a fair amount of sense in 1970, when you didn't really know if you should buy the 1966, 1967, or 1963 vintage of Chambolle Musgny for $18. For the record, they were all bad years-see how much times have changed? It is these pocket vintage charts plus the expectations of 94pt vintages every year that are dampening our collective sales.
It would seem that a compromise is available. When a less than 95-point vintage comes along, there must be a way for a retailer to explain to the consumer that they "hand select" each of the wines from these "off" vintages. This could potentially offer some killer deals for the consumer as many Old world wineries discount these vintages to move through them. This is the buying savvy that we all need.
A solution to the blisteringly easy target that is Marvin Enterprises and the Wine List Award Company.
I represent a pretty specialized group of wineries. Wineries that largely make sense in an interesting restaurant program. Therefore, I see an awful lot of those "Award for Excellence" plaques hanging beside the bars of my clients. When I was a somm, I coveted these distinctions. I felt like it validated everything I was working for. I worked hard to achieve the 2 glass award. I spent hours assembling the most attractive package to send in, with beautifully written verbiage about the passion behind our wine program, to only receive, 1 glass, again. Frustrated, I stopped submitting, writing them off as tools, accurately albeit prematurely.
Then, I traveled. I traveled many parts of the country, seeing these signs, and looking at lists, and here's what I've concluded: Wine Spectator doesn't care about your wine list. Hilarious individuals have completely debunked this entire process and proven as such. This is obviously (partially) a moneymaking scam for Wine Spectator. Here is the math: If you employed 1 full time employee to read every submission during their 150 day submission period, it would add up to about 20 minutes per wine list assuming an 8 hr work day. Heck, double it. Lets say you have 2 full time employees, and you pay them each $50k per year. What would you need to bring in in order to justify that? Last year, they gave 2827 Awards for Excellence (1 glass), 833 Best of Award of Excellence (2 Glasses) and 74 Grand Awards (3 Glasses). It also costs $250 for every submission, regardless of what or if you win. So that makes $933,500 in revenue from this program. Yeah, that probably justifies 2 full-time employees (but I bet they use interns).
So now that that we acknowledge that this process has been corrupted by money, what does Wine Spectator want to do? They want to keep you happy and receiving awards, so you keep handing a $250 invoice to your restaurants accountant each January. The tragedy is that, the people that run these wine programs could use a legitimate award. The majority of the people that receive these awards probably deserve them. People that care enough to send in for this sort of thing tend to run pretty legitimate operations. Wine Spectator has parameters and qualifiers, and I've even heard that they visit every Grand Award winner each year (that would certainly increase the cost of running such a program). But the flip side is that anyone with a passing knowledge of wine can throw together an award winning list with no interest in developing a dynamic and interesting wine program. They just want the hardware.
Beyond the critique of the motivation behind these awards, I have a huge issue with their parameters. They set large and arbitrarily high numbers of selections, with too much emphasis on holding older vintages of wine and collecting verticals. I'm much more interested in restaurants that are focused and always changing their selections. I believe that creativity should be awarded, and exposing people and educating them to new wines, and especially new wines in interesting contexts should be lauded. Flights, pairings, glass pour depth, events and staff education have no bearing on the criteria. A wine list never lives in a vacuum, it always depends on the people within the program and the interactivity in that dining room.
Here is what I offer to you, restaurateurs. I will give you my own award. No one has ever heard of it, but I'll give you something with your name on it, that gives my professional opinion that you have a kick ass wine program. It won't cost anything. There are no parameters. You don't need to buy any of my wines. You just need to care. send me an email, FB or Tweet me (follow the links to my sites). Tell me about what you do. If you really rock, I'll talk about it out there. All I care about is that you have a passion for your wine program, you have really interesting wines, and you are showing some sort of creativity. Bonus points for spreading the gospel out there via interweb.
Good Luck, and suck it Wine Spectator!
Then, I traveled. I traveled many parts of the country, seeing these signs, and looking at lists, and here's what I've concluded: Wine Spectator doesn't care about your wine list. Hilarious individuals have completely debunked this entire process and proven as such. This is obviously (partially) a moneymaking scam for Wine Spectator. Here is the math: If you employed 1 full time employee to read every submission during their 150 day submission period, it would add up to about 20 minutes per wine list assuming an 8 hr work day. Heck, double it. Lets say you have 2 full time employees, and you pay them each $50k per year. What would you need to bring in in order to justify that? Last year, they gave 2827 Awards for Excellence (1 glass), 833 Best of Award of Excellence (2 Glasses) and 74 Grand Awards (3 Glasses). It also costs $250 for every submission, regardless of what or if you win. So that makes $933,500 in revenue from this program. Yeah, that probably justifies 2 full-time employees (but I bet they use interns).
So now that that we acknowledge that this process has been corrupted by money, what does Wine Spectator want to do? They want to keep you happy and receiving awards, so you keep handing a $250 invoice to your restaurants accountant each January. The tragedy is that, the people that run these wine programs could use a legitimate award. The majority of the people that receive these awards probably deserve them. People that care enough to send in for this sort of thing tend to run pretty legitimate operations. Wine Spectator has parameters and qualifiers, and I've even heard that they visit every Grand Award winner each year (that would certainly increase the cost of running such a program). But the flip side is that anyone with a passing knowledge of wine can throw together an award winning list with no interest in developing a dynamic and interesting wine program. They just want the hardware.
Beyond the critique of the motivation behind these awards, I have a huge issue with their parameters. They set large and arbitrarily high numbers of selections, with too much emphasis on holding older vintages of wine and collecting verticals. I'm much more interested in restaurants that are focused and always changing their selections. I believe that creativity should be awarded, and exposing people and educating them to new wines, and especially new wines in interesting contexts should be lauded. Flights, pairings, glass pour depth, events and staff education have no bearing on the criteria. A wine list never lives in a vacuum, it always depends on the people within the program and the interactivity in that dining room.
Here is what I offer to you, restaurateurs. I will give you my own award. No one has ever heard of it, but I'll give you something with your name on it, that gives my professional opinion that you have a kick ass wine program. It won't cost anything. There are no parameters. You don't need to buy any of my wines. You just need to care. send me an email, FB or Tweet me (follow the links to my sites). Tell me about what you do. If you really rock, I'll talk about it out there. All I care about is that you have a passion for your wine program, you have really interesting wines, and you are showing some sort of creativity. Bonus points for spreading the gospel out there via interweb.
Good Luck, and suck it Wine Spectator!
preplanning will save you from a snowball?
Being a wine sales rep is easy right? Your job is so glamorous, all you do all day long is listen to music in your car in between quick friendly back and forths with your friends/ buyers, who also happen to give you glorious orders on a regular basis. Well, at least it feels that way about 2% of the time. The rest of your days are filled with dread trying to get ahead of all there is to do without making any major mistakes. If you forget one thing, it will snowball and bury you in an instant. Music in your car? Maybe in between deliveries on a Friday, otherwise, car time is phone/text/email time. Feeling helpless within the machine is de rigueur in the wine biz. So, how is non-sociopath supposed to deal with this constant dread and feeling of drowning? Organization.
This is not a 10 step, motivational, "what I learned in business" post. I am just telling you the one thing that any decent manager has already told you, that pre-planning is key. I ride with about 50 different sales reps on a semi-regular basis, I like to think I've seen it all. The best reps, without question, are the reps that have great organizational skills. In such a bohemian industry, where we are all peddling expressions of art/ intoxicating elixir/ natural products, it would seem that listening to "the man" would go against all of the rebellious intuition that landed us in the business in the first place. It does go against our instinct. It feels like a corporate, commodity driven approach to such a romantic product. Fight against that stigma. Here's the clichéd expression I'll trot out for this: "If you're not ahead of it, you're behind it". There's no way around it, all the charm and good intentions won't save you.
So, you may ask, how am I supposed to change? I'm not an organized person, my car is a mess, I'm a right-brainer for god's sake! That's fine, that's why you get excited about sherry and "a little" bret. You don't need to change you DNA. You need to do just 2 things: preplan and take notes.
You know how it's awesome how you can't even see your first account before 10am? That only means that you need to get all of your day's planning done before that first appointment. What do you need to plan? You need to have a quick outline of everything you need to talk to everyone about, written down. You need to remind them about old business(that taking notes thing), follow up on things they've asked you about previously, inform them of product updates, etc and scout new opportunities. Then there's note taking. While you are working your day, your accounts will invariably assume that you are their secretary. It's your role to keep them on point and reminded of all of the things they asked you to remind them about. They have a dozen sales reps, you have 80 accounts. They aren't expected to remember stuff, how are you supposed to? Write it down! Figure out a way to plan things forward, look back at notes, figure out your best method. Maybe you use a tablet or a computer. Whatever works. Just stay ahead of it.
You know how they say that showing up is half the battle/ well, your competition shows up too. I guarantee, if you are the most organized rep, you will sell the most wine.
a word about the tomato
Tomato season is winding down very quickly, and I feel like I have tomatoes on the brain. I've recently noticed that I seem to have a perpetual debate among people that know a thing or 2 about wine, regarding wine and tomatoes. A majority of Americans seem to think of tomatoes as an Italian staple, and therefore automatically look to Italian wines for pairings. This is a hazardous tact, and one that needs needs a bit of discussion.
Italians have only had tomatoes since the 17th century (possibly 16th), the fruit is actually indigenous to South America, and first introduced into Spanish Cuisine about 100 years before Italian. Until 1800, tomato sauce was known as alla spagnuola, "in the Spanish style." Today, India eats 5x as many tomatoes as Italy, which is actually 5th in worldwide consumption. Why do we think of Tomatoes as Italian? Probably because of the "Sunday Gravy", the immigrant version of a Neapolitan peasant dish. Naples was one of the first places in the world to perfect preserving tomatoes, making tomatoes affordable, available year round, and a major ingredient in peasant food throughout Northern Italy in the 19th and 20 centuries.
Unlike, say, Loire, where the best pairings for foods grown there, are from the neighboring vines, tomatoes cultural significance in Italy has more to do with food production and preservation science than natural integration.
So, let's hit the reset button for a second. Tomatoes, Culinarily speaking, end up in 2 forms-cooked and raw. Raw, it is often fresh off the vine with high acidity and sugar. Cooked, the acids turn a touch more bitter, and the sugars become richer and more caramelized. These both pose challenges for pairings. acid +acid is a minefield. wines that lead with acidity are automatically out. Wines that have acid, but are buoyed by minerality, rich (not overwhelming) fruit or a touch of sweetness may work well with fresh tomatoes, and further do well with the the oils, herbs and vinegars we use with the fresh tomatoes. For cooked tomatoes, specifically sauces, high acid reds are typically poor pairings. This can refer to the sour acids, but it also refers to tannins. Both behave similarly in the presence of the sugars and acids in tomato sauce, they become astringent and intolerable. The better tact is to look to low acid reds, of which there are a multitude of choices from Italy, ironically though, not really from the regions of Italy from where tomatoes sauces have become famous.
To bring this full circle, think about where fresh tomatoes have excelled in the last 300 years: Warm, Mediterranean climates. The wines that do well with tomatoes? Also from warm climates: Languedoc, Rhone, Southern Italy, Spain, California are all great places to start. What to avoid? Burgundy, Bordeaux, Piedmont, Tuscany, and Veneto. Total generalizations I know, Dolcetto is pretty decent, and some Barberas are ok too. This is just an exercise to demonstrate how we need to take a fresh look at how we think about some clichéd wine and food pairings.
You're not selling wine
Sales people are notorious for feeling like they just don't have control of their sales and growth. Every single day, you are selling 2 things, and it's not as small minded as the wine in your bag or the wine on program: It's your book and you. Think about that. You are selling you as a person and as a rep, and your book, the quality of the wines your represent, the company behind them and your knowledge about them.
You are in the customer service industry. There are a thousand boring and few inspirational books out there talking about excellent customer service. You shouldn't have to read them to know that every opportunity you have to help your customer is an opportunity to raise the value of your stock as a salesperson. The most beloved salespeople are the ones that will go above and beyond to act as a resource to their accounts regardless of whether or not it will directly result in an order. This definitely includes finding out who carries a competitor's product. Want to own a wine list? Throwing deals, smack talking and bullying is cruel mistress. There's no loyalty in that tact. If you want to own a wine list, you need to be the greatest, most honest, dependable resource for your account. This demonstrates that you place their success ahead of yours (you should). Everything else is just petty.
Selling your book is a little more nebulous. It's not just sampling (although this is part of it). You really need to go back to the beginning of your relationship with your employer. Did you choose the book because of the quality of the company? Quality of the wines? Hopefully both. If you believe in both, you should be proud. 3/4 of the reps out there work either for a crappy company, a crappy book or both. Being a distributor is difficult. There are a million details that need to happen correctly for your accounts to receive their order correctly each week. Every distributor makes small mistakes once in a while, it's impossible not to. In order for your account to love you and your book, you need to defend your employers inevitable mistakes up to a point. You also need to do your best to help your employer succeed at programs and projects, even if you don't agree. This will help your employers to improve your book and work environment. Don't air your laundry to your accounts either. They don't want to hear about commission rates or goals. Discussing these details with accounts is petty, and lowers your stock. You can't truly be successful if your account doesn't think your employer is successful. If you don't like the way things are going, give feedback to your boss. If they don't improve, update your resume.
As a sale rep, you are all at once a Promoter, P.R., delivery driver and E.R. Doctor. doing all of these tasks well will help you to make the most of every opportunity. If you place a priority on a) helping your account be successful b) helping your employer be successful-you will be successful.
You are in the customer service industry. There are a thousand boring and few inspirational books out there talking about excellent customer service. You shouldn't have to read them to know that every opportunity you have to help your customer is an opportunity to raise the value of your stock as a salesperson. The most beloved salespeople are the ones that will go above and beyond to act as a resource to their accounts regardless of whether or not it will directly result in an order. This definitely includes finding out who carries a competitor's product. Want to own a wine list? Throwing deals, smack talking and bullying is cruel mistress. There's no loyalty in that tact. If you want to own a wine list, you need to be the greatest, most honest, dependable resource for your account. This demonstrates that you place their success ahead of yours (you should). Everything else is just petty.
Selling your book is a little more nebulous. It's not just sampling (although this is part of it). You really need to go back to the beginning of your relationship with your employer. Did you choose the book because of the quality of the company? Quality of the wines? Hopefully both. If you believe in both, you should be proud. 3/4 of the reps out there work either for a crappy company, a crappy book or both. Being a distributor is difficult. There are a million details that need to happen correctly for your accounts to receive their order correctly each week. Every distributor makes small mistakes once in a while, it's impossible not to. In order for your account to love you and your book, you need to defend your employers inevitable mistakes up to a point. You also need to do your best to help your employer succeed at programs and projects, even if you don't agree. This will help your employers to improve your book and work environment. Don't air your laundry to your accounts either. They don't want to hear about commission rates or goals. Discussing these details with accounts is petty, and lowers your stock. You can't truly be successful if your account doesn't think your employer is successful. If you don't like the way things are going, give feedback to your boss. If they don't improve, update your resume.
As a sale rep, you are all at once a Promoter, P.R., delivery driver and E.R. Doctor. doing all of these tasks well will help you to make the most of every opportunity. If you place a priority on a) helping your account be successful b) helping your employer be successful-you will be successful.
Allocations are dead
Once upon a time, a decade or so ago, the word allocation struck both enthusiasm and fear into the hearts of the world of wine. You see, there were wines that were so sought after, that wineries and wine distributors would deem whom to be worthy to be doled out in bottle quantities, often after fulfilling other obligations. So egregious were these allocations, that they were sometime linked to completely disparate products from suppliers that have no relationship. Others were so unrealistic that only a few could really ever earn these allocations. It was a time when a high Parker score on a relatively inexpensive aussie wine sent buyers into a fervor. Allocations were once so crazy that large wineries didn't sell, they just handled allocations. Then the wine industry changed forever. Some people like to think that it didn't, but it did. It changed forever and will never be the same again.
Without reliving the economy, 9/11, housing bubble, etc. What has really happened is that buyers have rebelled against the allocations and told wineries and distributors to shove it. They don't need the wines that they were allocated. They have learned that being a good wine merchant is not determined by how much you can bully your rep and distributor into increasing your allocation, it is about finding the road that is perhaps, less traveled. It is about forging your own path, on your own terms, not being beholden to sell anything you don't want to just because they have something you do want. Most importantly though, consumers have stopped (although not completely) seeking out these rare, highly rated prizes. The ratings don't matter so much anymore, and the droning white noise of the greatest vintage ever proclamations has long since stopped shaping anyone's cellar.
It has been replaced by an egalitarian-merit based wine buying populace, that is more concerned about the opinion of the guy in the wine shop that some douche-y wine writer (thank you internet). The feeding frenzy has subsided.
How would you feel if you were on the other side of that equation? Where you don't get allocated something? You wouldn't take real kindly when the well dried up and you got your crack, would you? That's where we are now. Now, when people say allocation, I worry that this will set off some latent response that they wish they would have said to their distributor in 1999. Suppliers need to de-emphasize the idea of allocations (assuming there are many left that still need to do this). Distributors need to switch over to the old-school method of an offering. It's a much more humble tact, and more appreciated. allocations implies that only these people are going to be "offered" these wines. Take everything you get, say thank you for every order, and if you can only offer a finite amount of wine, be courteous and tactful, it will go a lot further.
Jean Louis Chave Hermitage
One of the greatest mountains I have to climb is giving a brief explanation of what makes Chave so special. "Scoreboard!" Is neither respectful, nor accurate. I've bought or sold Chave practically my entire wine career. I've tasted the wines countless times. I've probably tasted every vintage for the last 20 years, not to mention a respectable smattering of 60's, 70's and 80's bottlings. Yet, even after all of these years, I am just now beginning to be able to articulate what makes these wines quite unlike anything else the world of wine has ever produced.
History
Let's get this one out of the way first. Chave has been passed down father to son since 1481. 500+ years. To put this in perspective, They were old when Galileo was born. When they first planted Syrah in this family at this site, Columbus had not yet left for the New World. That's pretty old, and they've been an elite producer as far back as the books go. 16 generations. Although, if you speak to people in Hermitage (a scant 326 acres), you'll learn that Syrah has been grown here since about 500 B.C.
Varietals
"More than anything Hermitage is great, in the sense of Grand Vin, and quite unusually, it is great for both the white and the red wines. It is very rare to have an appellation where you can make both red and white at the same level of quality." -JL Chave
In my (probably controversial) opinion, you can make a claim that Syrah is France's one true Nobel red grape. Pinot Noir is a close second, however, Pinot Noir is a little too fickle in tough vintages. It's many things, and not to downgrade Pinot by any measure, but it just doesn't quite compare to the upside of Syrah. These wines are tremendous in off vintages and age beautifully. It is a varietal that grows well seemingly everywhere, but nowhere else does it become what it is in Hermitage. There is no mono-varietal wine in the world that reaches the heights of Hermitage. The whites on the other hand are remarkable in how they elevate 2 grapes that cannot stand alone, but together, make what many believe to be be the greatest white wine in the world. Roussanne and Marsanne are difficult and unruly. They can get out of whack very easily. When they are done right, it's like suspended animation, these wines don't age, they slowly accelerate. They live seemingly forever without even turning color.
Hermitage
"When you look at our bottles you see what you need to know about us. We don't want to be Chave, we want to be Hermitage. That's where the wine comes from. It just happens to be Chave. Our vineyards are on the hills because they need to look for the sun. Hermitage is Hermitage because it faces south. If there is a place that ever was supposed to be a home for grapes it is Hermitage. I thank my history and my family for finding it. We are very lucky to have these vineyards." -JL Chave
Jean Louis Chave and Hermitage are synonymous. Chave will go to great lengths to keep the conversation about Hermitage rather than about Chave. It is these 326 special acres that is so unique, and Chave is fortunate to own about 10% of the AC including parcels of 9 of the 18 vineyards in Hermitage. Granite hillsides and a very cool climate encourage minerality and slow development. 75% is planted to red 25% is a field blend of Roussanne and Marsanne. The vines are very old, many over 100 years. So old that when they were planted, they didn't realize that Marsanne and Roussanne were different grapes. Chave does not know the percent of the white varietals only the percentages from each of the vineyards.
Grand Vin
What can be said that hasn't already been said? The critics have always (rightfully) fawned over both the red and the white. The red can show: black raspberries, creme de cassis, camphor, acacia flowers, tobacco, truffle, cocoa, braised fig, warm black currant, crushed plum, black cherry, incense, iron and black olive. all with a balanced acidity and silky tannin structure. The white, is something altogether different: Aromas of white flowers, quince, and honeyed citrus, zesty acidity, truffles, white peaches, honeysuckle, marmalade, and crushed rocks. The white is a clinic in both weight and acidity.
Winemaking
It's obviously sacrilegious to even use that term when the wine gods have given you something as rare and special as Hermitage. Manipulation is not only out of the question, it is unnecessary. Hermitage gives a bounty every year, only the great vignerons can find that bounty.
"We make each parcel separately, and we keep them that way. You have to wait until the very end to see each wine express its personality, and then to finally be able to answer this question: what is Hermitage? There are different answers to that question, but as we like to say, we don't propose more than one each year. Making wine is not our job, it is our life. So this blending every year is not something to do on the day you go into your cellar and say "I feel well, I'm going to blend today." You think about it all the time. You blend in your mind, all the time. It is definitely emotional, and the emotional is important. But you can't be entirely emotional about it, because it is also your livelihood. You need to be objective sometimes, too."
While this may be a decidedly hand's off winemaking (perhaps elevage-ing?) approach, it is not a task that is taken lightly. The composition of the art is dependent on the color palate each vintage. Chave is blessed by having more to choose from than anyone. 500 years of intertwined DNA between the vines of Hermitage and the Chave family has brought both wisdom and humility with one pursuit: to showcase the very best that Hermitage can be, every single year.
History
Let's get this one out of the way first. Chave has been passed down father to son since 1481. 500+ years. To put this in perspective, They were old when Galileo was born. When they first planted Syrah in this family at this site, Columbus had not yet left for the New World. That's pretty old, and they've been an elite producer as far back as the books go. 16 generations. Although, if you speak to people in Hermitage (a scant 326 acres), you'll learn that Syrah has been grown here since about 500 B.C.
Varietals
"More than anything Hermitage is great, in the sense of Grand Vin, and quite unusually, it is great for both the white and the red wines. It is very rare to have an appellation where you can make both red and white at the same level of quality." -JL Chave
In my (probably controversial) opinion, you can make a claim that Syrah is France's one true Nobel red grape. Pinot Noir is a close second, however, Pinot Noir is a little too fickle in tough vintages. It's many things, and not to downgrade Pinot by any measure, but it just doesn't quite compare to the upside of Syrah. These wines are tremendous in off vintages and age beautifully. It is a varietal that grows well seemingly everywhere, but nowhere else does it become what it is in Hermitage. There is no mono-varietal wine in the world that reaches the heights of Hermitage. The whites on the other hand are remarkable in how they elevate 2 grapes that cannot stand alone, but together, make what many believe to be be the greatest white wine in the world. Roussanne and Marsanne are difficult and unruly. They can get out of whack very easily. When they are done right, it's like suspended animation, these wines don't age, they slowly accelerate. They live seemingly forever without even turning color.
Hermitage
"When you look at our bottles you see what you need to know about us. We don't want to be Chave, we want to be Hermitage. That's where the wine comes from. It just happens to be Chave. Our vineyards are on the hills because they need to look for the sun. Hermitage is Hermitage because it faces south. If there is a place that ever was supposed to be a home for grapes it is Hermitage. I thank my history and my family for finding it. We are very lucky to have these vineyards." -JL Chave
Jean Louis Chave and Hermitage are synonymous. Chave will go to great lengths to keep the conversation about Hermitage rather than about Chave. It is these 326 special acres that is so unique, and Chave is fortunate to own about 10% of the AC including parcels of 9 of the 18 vineyards in Hermitage. Granite hillsides and a very cool climate encourage minerality and slow development. 75% is planted to red 25% is a field blend of Roussanne and Marsanne. The vines are very old, many over 100 years. So old that when they were planted, they didn't realize that Marsanne and Roussanne were different grapes. Chave does not know the percent of the white varietals only the percentages from each of the vineyards.
Grand Vin
What can be said that hasn't already been said? The critics have always (rightfully) fawned over both the red and the white. The red can show: black raspberries, creme de cassis, camphor, acacia flowers, tobacco, truffle, cocoa, braised fig, warm black currant, crushed plum, black cherry, incense, iron and black olive. all with a balanced acidity and silky tannin structure. The white, is something altogether different: Aromas of white flowers, quince, and honeyed citrus, zesty acidity, truffles, white peaches, honeysuckle, marmalade, and crushed rocks. The white is a clinic in both weight and acidity.
Winemaking
It's obviously sacrilegious to even use that term when the wine gods have given you something as rare and special as Hermitage. Manipulation is not only out of the question, it is unnecessary. Hermitage gives a bounty every year, only the great vignerons can find that bounty.
"We make each parcel separately, and we keep them that way. You have to wait until the very end to see each wine express its personality, and then to finally be able to answer this question: what is Hermitage? There are different answers to that question, but as we like to say, we don't propose more than one each year. Making wine is not our job, it is our life. So this blending every year is not something to do on the day you go into your cellar and say "I feel well, I'm going to blend today." You think about it all the time. You blend in your mind, all the time. It is definitely emotional, and the emotional is important. But you can't be entirely emotional about it, because it is also your livelihood. You need to be objective sometimes, too."
While this may be a decidedly hand's off winemaking (perhaps elevage-ing?) approach, it is not a task that is taken lightly. The composition of the art is dependent on the color palate each vintage. Chave is blessed by having more to choose from than anyone. 500 years of intertwined DNA between the vines of Hermitage and the Chave family has brought both wisdom and humility with one pursuit: to showcase the very best that Hermitage can be, every single year.