After reading the latest issue of Practical Winery & Vineyard and seeing the term “trading down” misused by an un-named CEO no less than three times in one paragraph, I wanted to gouge my eyes out with my Dixon Ticonderoga 1388.

Stop using it. Just stop. Saying that consumers are “trading down” right now betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of what the entire “Trading Up” phenomena actually was. Silverstein, Fiske and Butman deserve better!

Here is the authors’ own definition of the term (emphasis mine):

“consumers who selectively trade up to better products and trade down to pay for other premium purchases“.

Consumers aren’t spending less on wine right now so they can pocket the savings and spend it on another luxury good. They are cutting back across the board. The economy sucks, and this happens every time we have a recession. We don’t need a hip new term to describe it.

Moreover, by using the term trading down, you show just how little you understood the forces that drove the massive shift to luxury that occurred during the 5 years leading up to the recession.

You come off like a parent trying to score street cred with their punk rock loving teenage son by telling him about how you and his mother totally used to rock out at the James Taylor concerts.

The sad thing is this CEO is not alone. People seem to think they can absorb important marketing concepts simply by osmosis.

Not true. You have to put in the time and actually read the books. Reeks of effort, I know. But it’s better than looking like a complete tool.

Photo by JanneM

My second review starts with the following words:

A gorgeous dry white that was so aromatic and balanced that I thought it was an excellent example of Gewurtztraminer from Alsace, one of my favorite wine regions.

Was I right? Click here to find out.

In my first lengthy missive on wine criticism, I went over the various flaws I see in the current system. In this post I’m going to outline a system that I believe takes the best of what has come before, and adds to it in innovative ways to create what I think is a more complete wine review. One, as I mentioned before, I’m certain that no one will ever use.

The Über Wine Review System!

Points

The 100 point system is an elegant summation of a complex review process. Folks that don’t care, or that don’t have time for a lengthly review, can check a score and understand instantly whether a reviewer liked or disliked a certain wine.

But there are many problems. Most have been discussed nearly to death, but here is a short, and slightly redundant catalogue: points project a false sense of precision; there is a tendency toward grade inflation; only the 70-100 point range is actually used; there is no real difference between an 89 point wine and a 90 point wine. I’m sure there are other problems. All of this is trumped, however, by one overriding fact: consumers love points.

The Über Wine Review system utilizes the 100 point system a little differently than most, and in doing so addresses at least some of the concerns critics of the system have.

1. Wines are graded in context. That is, they are graded according to their variety and their style. It doesn’t make sense that there are no 100 point Rosés in the world. They are a category unto themselves, and they deserve to be judged based on their particular merits. We don’t often compare a Honda and a Ferrari. Obviously, one is a sedan and the other is a sports car. They are designed for different purposes. They have different price points, and completely different customer bases. The same, I think, is true for wines.

One implication of this approach is that a wine in one category may get a higher score than a wine in a different category (a dry white versus a Pinot noir for instance), and yet the reviewer (me) may prefer the lower scoring wine more. This is to be expected when wines are judged based on their relative merits instead of on an absolute scale.

2. Wines will get 50 points for showing up – remember the 100 point system is successful because it mirrors our educational grading system with which everyone is familiar – but every point of that remaining 50-100 range will be used. If a wine does poorly, if it has a flaw that isn’t a result of bottle variation but a macro-level winemaking practice or mistake, then it will be reflected in the score. Poor performers will be judged fairly so that the top performers will get the recognition that they deserve, free from accusations of grade inflation.

Summary Note

To accompany the score at the top of the review, there will be a summary paragraph outlining the sensory characteristics of the wine, as well as a note on what I guessed the wine was when tasting it double blind.
The benefit of having this all up top, at the beginning of the review, is so that casual wine drinkers can get in and get out with the information they need to make a purchase decision quickly and easily. Pretty standard stuff.

Regional Context and Producer Backstory

This will be the bulk of each review. Arguably the most interesting thing about wine isn’t what is in the bottle, it’s the stories of people who make, grow, and enjoy it. Alder at Vinography has perfected this aspect of wine criticism, combining excellent wine writing with his critiques. W. Blake Gray and Jancis Robinson also both give tremendous regional and producer context. Each review will strive to reach the bar set by these luminaries.

Double Blind Tasting Note

Double blind tasting means that the wine reviewer knows nothing about the wine in the glass in front of him except the color. In my case, Michael and Bill Traverso at Traverso’s in Santa Rosa pick the wines for me to review, my wife picks them up and serves them to me. I take notes and guess at the variety and region.

The goal of the double blind note isn’t to gauge a critic’s ability to correctly guess variety, producer or region. No one is very good at that game, not even the world’s best critics. Double blind tasting is used instead to remove any confirmation bias from the review and focus as much as possible on what is in the glass.

Double blind tasting is risky for reviewers. It puts them on the spot and a particularly poor guess might reflect poorly on their palate or wine knowledge. So be it. Reviewers shouldn’t be passive spectators in this game. They need to get on the field and play just like the producers and the consumers who are risking their hard-earned cash based solely on a reviewer’s recommendation.

To emphasize this sense of drama, each review will be linked to via a post teasing the sensory attributes of the wine tasted blind, along with the my guess as to the variety and region. Readers will have to click through to see if I was right (not likely) or wrong (quite likely). I’ll also keep a running tally of correct guesses in the sidebar of the blog as a goof.

Scores for each wine are determined after the wine has been revealed.

Labs

Labs entail additional expense, require technical knowledge to interpret and do not explain why a wine is great.

Despite these shortcomings, labs do provide a crucial check on both the reviewer’s palate and the producer’s stated claims about alcohol and other properties that influence the taste of a wine. Wines that lack balance and wines with faults both benefit from an analysis of their chemical properties. Best of all, the data obtained are objective, which is a nice addition to an otherwise completely subjective exercise.

Frankly, that this basic level of fact-checking doesn’t take place is astonishing for a $250 billion global industry.

In Page Contextual Pop-Ups

Each review is sprinkled with pop-up links to wikipedia articles on technical aspects of wines, wine regions and wine varieties to give extra context for readers who wish to learn more. Best of all, the reader never has to leave the review to do so.

Gorgeous Creative Commons Photography

Flickr and the internet in general is rich with great creative commons photography. It would be a shame not to take advantage of it.

Sound good? Cool. My latest review is here.

There is a better way to review wine. It’s costly, time consuming and potentially embarrassing. No one will ever use it. Except me.

I’ve always felt that wine reviews were lacking. Not because I’m sensitive to criticism, and not just because of the power of Parker or anything similar. What has always bothered me is that most reviewers take what I believe to be an indefensible stance when it comes to wine criticism.

It starts like this:

1. Wine can be objectively reviewed, and good wine is good wine. Therefore my review, and score, is a valid critique of said wine.

Then, when confronted with the fact that a high-scored wine in one publication got a much lower score in another, most critics will respond thusly:

2. Wine is subjective and therefore the fact that my review doesn’t correlate with another critic’s review is evidence only that people have different palates and preferences.

That #2 kind of cancels out #1 is rarely discussed, or if it is, it’s only by a bunch of no-nothing bloggers. Natch.

Some argue that it is the score itself that’s the problem. Perhaps, but it’s also hugely popular. People love them a score.

The popularization of the 100 point system is Parker’s greatest gift to wine consumers and producers, whether we like it or not, since it enrobes a very complex assessment in an elegantly simple package. If readers are made aware of the limitations of such a score (for those who care) I see nothing at all wrong with it.

The #1 issue I have with wine reviews is that publications simply don’t take the assessment of a wine seriously enough.

What do I mean? Take alcohol content. Lots of reviewers will note the ABV reported on the label and, if it’s a California wine, snicker and snidely note that it is probably anywhere from 1 to 1.5% higher than stated. Fine. That could very well be true. But: did you have it tested?

The answer is universally: “No”.

Despite the fact that there are aspects of wine that are objectively quantifiable and that aid in the understanding and appreciation of a wine, no wine magazine, blogger or other reviewer in existence (that I know of) attempts to capture and provide context for the things we can say for certain are true about a wine.

It’s like Car & Driver test driving the new Audi and not independently testing the 0-60 time. It’s like consumer reports neglecting to verify the energy efficiency of the latest freezers.

The list of things that you can measure and that have a sensory impact on a wine include amounts and types of acid; tannins; alcohol; Brett; aldehydes; volatile acidity; ethyl acetate; sulfur levels and many others. If a wine is out of balance, and this lack of balance warrants a lower rating, a reviewer can quantify and put in context for the consumer why the reviewer came to that conclusion.

Ah, but what about the soul of the wine? Isn’t the beauty of wine that it is more than the sum of its parts? Quite so. Appreciation of what’s in the glass is the most important thing, and it is subjective. But doesn’t it make sense to remove as much bias from the evaluation as possible?

Which leads to issue #2: Wines are not tasted double blind. Double blind means that the reviewer isn’t aware of the producer or any other aspect of the wine’s provenance. The only thing they evaluate is what is in the glass. It’s how the Masters of Wine, WSET and others conduct their evaluations, and it’s simply the best and most objective way to assess a wine.

Why? Because you bring no preconceptions to the wine in the glass. If I know it’s a pinot from Russian River, I know to expect more robust flavors, higher alcohol and more body than, say Burgundy. These biases will color my assessment of the wine. Confirmation bias is a very, very powerful thing.

Moreover, it’s much more interesting to read that a reviewer mistook a wine with humble origins for a pedigreed Chateau. Or that a relatively obscure variety was mistaken for one of the noble vinifera.

Conversely, it’s always good sport to see pillars of the wine world mistaken for plonk.

It’s great drama and really interesting reading, assuming the writer is competent and a decent taster. And if they aren’t, the labs and the double blind reveals will show them for what they are. Or not. After all, it’s completely subjective :-p

Before your cornhole puckers too tightly (if you are a reviewer that is) please note that getting the variety or region – much less the vintage – correct blind isn’t a reflection on your tasting ability. Don’t believe me? Ask Clive Coates. Correctly assessing what’s in the glass and making a compelling argument for your guess, however, most definitely is.

Plus your failures will encourage others to join in the fun, since they will see that even well educated and knowledgeable reviewers often get it wrong. This is no mystery worthy of fear. Just the joy of discovering what’s in the glass.

There is a better way to review wine. It combines objective assessment with subjective preference in a compelling way, while providing story, context, and accountability. I’m talking scores out of 100, producer and regional story and commentary, double blind tasting, labs for insight and accountability, contextual pop-ups for technical and wine specific information, and beautiful creative commons photography. Pla-dow!

But you know what? No one will ever use such a system. Too risky. High potential for embarrassment. Too costly. Too time consuming. The list is endless.

No one will use it. Except me.

In part 2 I’ll further explain my vision of the Über Wine Review and detail the first example of what will be a year-long foray into wine criticism for me. I still won’t be reviewing my peers’ wines – or at least not my US peers. All the reviews will be of foreign producers. But it will be epic. It will be fun.

And it will be Über! Here’s a sneak peek.

Photo by xyldes.

Funky intro and outro music by indie band Binaerpilot, Destroy the Popollution. Used with permission.

I haven’t written about marketing in a long while. Know why? Nothing, and I mean nothing new is being said.

But there has always been one guy who has consistently thought differently about “word of mouth marketing” in general and social media marketing in particular. His name is Jim Novo, formerly of Home Shopping Network, and his blog, Marketing Productivity, has long been my sekret weapon.

In his latest post Jim talks about some recently released research he reviewed for the Web Analytics Association. The paper in question is titled Firm-Created Word-of-Mouth Communication: Evidence from a Field Test. It was published in Marketing Science, Vol. 28.

His takeaways from the research are powerful and counter intuitive. In his review he asks and answers two important questions any winery marketer needs to consider before she can conduct a successful paid social media campaign:

1. What kind of WOM maximizes incremental Sales?

and

2. Which people are most effective at creating the WOM above?

Head on over to his blog to find the answers to these important questions.

They’re probably not what you think.

UPDATE. See also: 84% of social media programs don’t measure ROI

My PalatePress.com article on Brett in White Burgundy.

Funky intro music by indie band Binaerpilot, Destroy the Popollution. Used with permission.

Caddyshack is © 1980 Orion Pictures Corporation.

Two Sonoma County chefs take the same main ingredients, interpret them based on their own personal style, come up with completely different dishes, and then share their recipes.

That’s the premise of the new cookbook Down Home: Downtown, published by Rodney Strong Vineyards.

The two chefs, Jeff Mall from Zin restaurant (Down Home) and Josh Silvers of Syrah Bistro (Downtown) with the help of Linda Murphy do a very nice job of explaining not only how to cook each dish, but also why certain components were chosen and how they went about assembling the flavors on each plate.

There are even sections on where the chefs source some of their key proteins, cheeses and veggies, which is a boon for local Sonoma County foodies like me. The wine pairings in the book are serviceable, but I would have liked to see more Pinot noir recommendations (Dry Creek Zin with Duck Breast? Whaaa? Pinot, baby!).

My good friend Alan Campbell took the photos, a selection of which are shown below. His work is top notch, and what I like best is that every single dish is photographed. Too often cookbooks skimp on the photography, leaving home cooks wondering about things like presentation. Not so here, and that alone makes the book a keeper.

You can purchase Down Home: Downtown at The Cookbook Marketplace for $25 here. Get it for the Butternut Squash and Apple soup recipes alone (hint: bacon). Really good times.

Two winemakers have their noses buried in white Burgundy. One says: “Brett?” Other says: “Bet!” Who won, and why does it matter?

Just a quick note to direct you over to PalatePress.com, the new collaborative online wine blog-o-zine, where my article on Brett in white Burgundy was just pushed live.

PalatePress is an experiment in wine writing that is the brainchild of David Honig and WR Tish. Tish has done an amazing job keeping me and the other writers on point, and David deserves kudos for the time he’s spent getting the entire project organized and functional. Your readership would mean a ton to them, and all of us taking part in the fun.

The opening salvo of articles include a piece on Randal Grahm’s new book, a critique of shelf talkers, an ode to Zinfandel, and more.

Head on over, dive in and leave a comment or two.

Blending. The Dark Art. I think you could go your whole life and not really master it. Which makes sense since art is like that; perfection is unattainable.

During blending trials you’re always worried: Am I capturing the best of this vintage? Or am I covering up distinctiveness? Am I using enough of my juice to make this financially viable? Would this clone have been better with another barrel? Can I beef this one up with some press fractions? Can I lean this one out with some early pick free run?

The options and combinations, assuming you have more than a few lots and more than a few barrels, can be nearly endless. It’s fun – but daunting.

Keefer Ranch

Which is why I jumped at the chance to head over to Freeman Winery and taste some sample blends with Keefer Ranch winemaker Craig Strehlow.

Keefer Ranch has, in the past 25 years, become known as one of the very best vineyards for Russian River Pinot and Chard. Marcy Keefer, Craig’s mom, sells her 30 acres of pinot and 20 acres of Chard to folks like Siduri, Kosta Browne, Freeman and Failla. You know, decent brands.

A few years back in 2006 they unveiled their own Keefer Ranch label. You can read a Wine Spectator article profiling them (and scoring the wine 90 points) on their site here.

The blends I tasted were from juice barreled down in ‘08. Craig’s style as winemaker is restrained and elegant. On the nose and palate the fruit is red and pure but, unlike a lot of Russian River pinot, it is picked a little earlier and acid and freshness is a huge part of its appeal.

Clones include Swan, Dijon 115 and Pommard 4 barreled down mostly in Cadus, Remond and D&J. Total production for ‘08 will be around 300 cases.

We tasted each wine in barrel separately, noting the differences that each clone and barrel gave. The Swan clone was savory, and the Pom 4 was packed with fruit and surprisingly floral. The 115 was picked later than the rest. Craig thought it was a little flabby, but I thought it was delicious. Keep in mind that he keeps his pH around 3.45 whereas most CA pinots live in the 3.6 – 3.7 range. So his definition of “flabby” may be different from yours or mine.

When we finished with the barrel samples, we dove into the blends.

Stir It Up

We started with a blend of equal parts of all the free run barrels. It was really good stuff. Laser-like, precise aromas and flavors with a good long finish. But Craig didn’t have any doubt about that. He knows he’s got some awesome wine.

The challenge was that he had three barrels of press fractions to work with and wanted some feedback on which blend we preferred from the following:

A. Free run with just the first press fraction barrel added

B. The above with the second press fraction barrel added.

C. The above with the third press fraction barrel added.

Each barrel you reject costs about 25 cases in production, plus the oak you’ve extracted over the elevage which depreciates the not inexpensive barrels. Sometimes better can be the enemy of good. At least in terms of the bottom line.

We tasted through each of the blends and gave our opinions. By far blend A, the one with just the first press fraction, hewed closest to Craig’s style. Alan (Craig’s and my mutual friend, and the photog responsible for the iPhone shots you see here) and I both agreed that blends B and C were both delicious as well, and might even get better with some age on them. What the blends lost in terms of the floral nose would eventually come back, we reasoned, with time in bottle.

Still neither of us could argue with blend A which was amazingly pure, elegant and, as I mentioned, a perfect example of the Keefer Ranch style. Since Craig is a pretty uncompromising bugger when it comes to quality, he wasn’t at all concerned with the lost 50 cases like I might have been.

All in all, very good times. I’m looking forward to tasting the final blend soon at our monthly tasting group, The Order of Meat and Wine. If you want to try the ‘07 vintage you can order a bottle or three here.

Thanks to Craig for the hospitality and the opportunity to help, and thanks also to Alan for snapping the shots for the post.