Spain: the wine brand problem
Monday 7 December
Spain has a problem: it needs stronger brands but the system is hindering them.
Cross regional brands are not permitted: if you are a strong brand in Rioja – say Campo Viejo – you can’t have a Campo Viejo white from Rias Baixas. While one of the country’s most successful brands Torres has operations in many different regions including Catalonia, Priorat and Ribera del Duero, the Torres name is relegated to second place by the wine’s name like Salmos in Priorat and Celeste in Ribera.
Speaking to Ricardo Aguiriano, Rioja’s director of marketing and communications said: “If you sell a Rioja brand like Faustino, you can’t sell a wine under the same brand name from Ribera del Duero. The top 15-20 DOs (Denominacion de Origen) don’t permit the commercialisation of the same brand.”
Marques de Riscal is the one exception – it sells wine under its brand in both Rueda and Rioja. Aguiriano explained it had already done its brand extension into Rueda before this law was created.
It is clear the law has been created to protect the brand names and their provenance but it does make things more difficult for those with strong brand names who wish to strengthen their position in an increasingly competitive and branded marketplace.
Does wine need vintages?
Tuesday 17 November
Do we really need vintages? Most Champagne don’t and they’re doing quite nicely.
This was the challenge laid down by Robert Joseph at Winefuture last week and he left listeners mulling over it.
He asked producers why they thought they could get away with being so inconsistent. He has a point. While most wine geeks are interested in the vintage and how the rain/sun/hail affected the taste and structure of a wine; most couldn’t give a monkeys. They want consistent quality year in, year out. If the 2009 isn’t as good as the 2008 and they are the same price, how can that be understood by the average punter?
OK, many wine laws require the vintage to be stated on the bottle but it really wouldn’t make any difference to the consumer if Casillero del Diablo or Hardys had the vintage on the bottle or not. Plus, if you had a poor year then blending from older stocks (like they do in Champagne and in some parts of the new world), you would be able to deliver greater consistency. That’s all consumers want and what they expect from a brand. Joseph said: “The wine industry has no idea at all about brand identity…Consumers like simplicity and consistency: everything that wine doesn’t stand for.”
What do you reckon?
Winefuture finally gets into gear
Friday 13 November
It took half of the conference to get going, but finally Winefuture is looking to the future with some interesting insights and opinion. However, there’s still terrible wifi access and, unsurprisingly, things aren’t running to time. Next time, I’d like to see this gig held in Switzerland.
This morning’s session on emerging markets really gave us food for thought. Don St Pierre Jr, CEO of ASC fine wines gave us his insight into the Chinese market, which is the next big thing for the wine industry and should’ve had more time spent on it. One of his main points was that many producers have high hopes of breaking the Chinese market but have little understanding of the Chinese market or the fragmented system of distribution, which means they end up being disappointed when they try.
St Pierre Jr added: “For the import market to be more promising the quality of domestic wine needs to improve. That will not happen until the domestic players are focused less on volume and packaging. It will be led by smaller wineries and the bigger wineries will be forced to produce better quality.” Unfortunately, this won’t happen overnight.
What about the Russian market? There were very few predictions by the Dimitri Pinsky, founder of a major Russian wine distributor DP-Trade, because the government has just appointed a committee to look at the re-introduction of a state monopoly on alcohol. The committee is due to report back in March 2010 and until that time there seems little point in making predictions.
The Russian government is trying to stamp out alcohol abuse and it thinks it can do this by imposing a state monopoly. Pinsky said: “Alcohol abuse is not a new thing in Russia.”
“But the truth is from 2005 alcoholism has fallen to the lows of 1990 after Gorbachev’s anti-alcohol campaign in 1985 and 1986.
“It looks artificial and suspicious that the volume of the alcohol market looks attractive and is now worth nationalising”.
More soon.
Winefuture limps into action
Thursday 12 November
Winefuture should’ve started with a bang – it was more like a wet weekend.
I can’t say it’s been that enlightening. There haven’t been many new and interesting things said to be honest with you. I am covering the event for a number of magazines and boy oh boy has it been hard to find anything really newsworthy.
Plenty of speakers have had their chance to unabashedly promote their company – Xavier Pages, CEO at Codorniu told us about his grandfather and the history of the company for the first ten minutes before he actually got to something interesting. And while I like Stephen Spurrier his speech on the future of wine writing was a Decanter advertorial. The twitterati at the event had a field day. The magazine should’ve sent a real journalist like Adam Lechmere or Guy Woodward (editors) who could’ve made a real contribution to the debate.
I sloped off before the “How to improve sales and consumption through fairs and competitions” but from all the tweets, it seems that I didn’t miss much. Rob McIntosh of wineconversation.com tweeted from the event: “BREAKING NEWS: Mel Dick announces a wine event in Florida experienced great weather”
If I had been paying for the ticket, I might be feeling robbed by now if it weren’t for Ryan Opaz of Catavino and Gary Vaynerchuk livening the day up
Nevertheless I’ve met a lot of old and new faces, which is great, and I’m ever the optimist for a better day tomorrow.
Quotes of the day
“People are obsessed with wine scores…scores have become involuntary sellers of wine or a defence tribunal for consumers” - Jose Penin, founder of Penin guides
I don’t give a crap about about facebook and twitter but I care about consumers. “You should be embarrassed if you don’t recognised that this platform allows you to talk to them.” – Gary Vaynerchuk
“Bordeaux Grands Crus are the Champs Elysee of Bordeaux but also the Silicon Valley”- Matthieu Chardronier, CEO CVBG Dourthe
Rioja and the build up to WineFuture
Wednesday 11 November
The hotels of Logrono are full, all the restaurants are booked out and most flights into Bilbao are packed with the wine trade. Welcome to the eve of Winefuture 2009.
But a trip to Rioja wouldn’t be complete without a winery visit. We almost managed to avoid the wineries by visiting a monastery and a cathedral in Santa Domingo this morning. However my preferred place of worship would be a barrel cellar. They offer the same peace, calm and reflection of a church but the added bonus of wine. Call me a sinner.
Pernod Ricard-owned Campo Viejo has the largest barrel cellar I have ever seen and I would happily be left there. A whopping 70,000 barrels are housed here and 10% of those are new - it must cost a shed load. With the markets as they are, these expenses must hurt. Koldo Santamaria, the charming international director at Domecq Bodegas, said: “We still make a profit. In the current climate we all suffer but are going to have these kind of moments.
There’s been a definite move to 100% Tempranillos and a shift towards French rather than traditional American oak. It is certainly getting more difficult to spot a Rioja in a blind line-up, which is worrying for a Master of Wine student. I asked Santamaria if the region was in danger of losing its personality. “We don’t think we are breaking anything but bringing a new expression to Rioja,” he said.
“Rioja has been traditionally American oak aged but today the wines are finer but still keep the aromas you are used to. You don’t have any astringent taste at all and I think that has a lot to do with more French oak. It brings complexity too.”
Less oxidative ageing and fresher fruit has got to be welcomed but the garnet Gran Reserva wines of Rioja with their coconutty American oak still have a place in my heart.