Competition is fierce in the wine business. With so many wineries and wine brands making so much wine, the consumer has virtually endless choice. Why should they pick your wine over the thousands of others available in their market? Wineries should do whatever they can to stand out from the crowd, but the opposite is…
Tag: wine business
Second wines and beyond: Brand portfolio strategy in Bordeaux wine
Bordeaux wine is a crowded and fiercely competitive market, with around 6,500 individual producers actively making wine today. The fine wine segment consists of the top 300 or so wineries, most of whom are Grands Crus Classés (“classified growths”), having been ranked in one classification or another. With some exceptions, the majority have been making…
Understanding Bordeaux appellations
Bordeaux is a massive wine region, producing a wide variety of wine styles. As such, it’s useful to consider Bordeaux not as one place and one wine style, but at the sub-regional or “appellation” level. Developing a better understanding of individual appellations will help you buy better Bordeaux wines, whether as a professional wine buyer…
Wine trade shows: What you need to know
Wine is a people business and a decidedly international one at that. It’s very difficult to get things done without developing relationships, often spanning countries, cultures and time zones. Though Skype makes the world a smaller place, there’s nothing like a real, face-to-face connection for building and growing relationships. Wine trade shows are an opportunity…
How to read (and write) a wine technical sheet
How the wine industry communicates about wine to the consumer is fascinating. Wine companies try to communicate directly or indirectly through their wine labels, winery websites, advertising, social media and various other means. These efforts are sometimes inspiring, quite often funny or frustrating, and occasionally heartbreaking. The wine technical sheet is a key weapon in…
3 Bordeaux wine jobs (that aren’t sommelier or winemaker)
Bordeaux is a dream destination for wine tourists, but what’s it like for wine jobs? Finding a wine job in Bordeaux is equal parts frustrating and exciting, but it’s worth taking some time first to understand the Bordeaux wine jobs market a little. Back in 2015, my job hunt in Bordeaux had a particular focus….
How to find a wine job in Bordeaux
Looking for a wine job in Bordeaux? Good for you. There’s a variety of wine business, hospitality, and technical schools, and each tasks its students with getting out there and finding work. It’s also a pretty city surrounded by some of the world’s best vineyards, so it attracts working wine industry professionals from home and…
Marketing Petit Verdot in Bordeaux: Listrac-Médoc
Bordeaux is not the first place I look to for innovation in wine marketing, and Petit Verdot is not exactly my go-to grape variety. The region has strong links to the past, to say the least, and most of its stakeholders have at least some interest in maintaining the status quo. Encountering new product development…
Listrac-Médoc: Bordeaux, off the beaten track
Some friends and I recently spent a few days exploring Bordeaux wine country. Having spent the morning at the well-known and much-loved Léoville Barton in Saint Julien, we had planned a slightly lower-key afternoon in the little, little-known commune of Listrac-Médoc. Though not exactly Bordeaux’s most glamorous spot, Listrac is not without its charms. I…
Château Léoville Barton: From Ireland to Bordeaux
I became vaguely aware of Château Léoville Barton soon after starting my first wine job in 2012. Knowing nothing about wine and somehow caring even less, I was a natural fit for my new post managing a supermarket wine department in a fairly well-to-do north Dublin suburb. During a routine stocktake, I happened across a distinctive…