Wine writer and content marketer
I’ve never much liked queues. I worked for years as a checkout supervisor at a supermarket, and something instinctive still kicks in when I sense the slightest hint of a line starting to form. Surely they’ve had their day, anyway. With the advent of the written word, let alone the telephone and all technological advances…
As with a lot of things in my life, I came to the world of wine somewhat arseways. I started working in wine more than a decade ago, though it took me a while to recognise that I was actually working in wine. In Bordeaux, where I spent three years, I rubbed shoulders with people…
There is so much wine in this suitcase that the wheels and handles are useless. Moving it is a two-person job, like it’s a fridge-freezer or a table. Lucky, then, that I’m with James, with whom I’ve spent most waking and working hours for the last two weeks. I have never had a conversation with…
I lived in Bordeaux for three years without coming close to mastering French. It got better over time, but I often struggled to comprehend the language being spoken around me. I lived beside the Marché des Capucins, a food market that brands itself “the belly of Bordeaux”. Sunday morning visits were a feast for the…
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…
This is a follow-up to a previous article on brand portfolio strategy in Bordeaux. There, I looked at concepts such as the Grand Vin, the second wine, endorsed brands, and other brand extension strategies. Here, I will look at how those individual building blocks come together to make up the overall brand architecture of a…
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…
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 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 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…