When the St. Pierres began importing wine, after buying a Hong Kong shelf company called Asia Solutions Corporation, the also created a product of their own. The family was Canadian by birth, but St. Pierre figured, “God damn, let’s use our French name.” Chateau St. Pierre was California bulk red wine, bottled at a factory in Beijing. It bore a label with the stencilled image of a chateau, which the importers had copied from a coffee-table book. No bottle cost more than forty-five yuan–less than six dollars at the time.

At the beginning they also had a fantastically successful promotion selling two bottles of wine and tie gift boxes. Now they also import Gaja, Penfold’s Grange, and Guigal among many others.

The story provides a small window into wine consumption in China too. Red wine has been called “red liquor” if only to distinguish it from baiju, a “ferocious grain alcohol.” But in the 1990s, the authorities wanted to divert grain back to food production, the story reports, and upgrade the quality of domestic wine. Baiju was banned at ministerial banquets and wine import duties were lowered. But in this video on the newyorker.com, Donald St. Pierre, Jr. says culture of alcohol consumption write large often takes that the ultimate sign of respect for a guest is to down the drink in a single gulp, a tradition known locally as “ganbei.” And apparently for decades, Chinese wine was made in “enormous, state-run industrial wineries [that] blended grapes with chemicals and coloring.” Hmm, doesn’t sound like something worth sipping.

The picture to the right is of Don Sr via Grape Wall of China.

SPIT: double standards
Speaking of the FTC, Blake Gray, former wine columnist for the SF Chronicle, has a lengthy post decrying the fact that the new FTC regulations come down harder on blogs than they do traditional media. [Gray Market Report]

SIPPED: funding freer trade
Frustrated by interstate shipping laws that thwart the ability to purchase wine out of state for 47 states? Consider bidding on wine lots in an auction to benefit the Specialty Wine Retailers Association, which fights legal battles for freer trade.

SIPPED: red wine
Chocolate milk, of all drinks, tries to muscle red wine out of the health news headlines: According to recent research as reported in the NYT, “flavanoid-rich cocoa” found in chocolate milk appears more effective at reducing inflammation that leads to atherosclerosis than regular milk! But the effects still aren’t as pronounced as with red wine. I can see it now: the choco-cabernet smoothie!

SIPPED: symbolic pricing
Joe Montana’s 500 acre estate that spans the Sonoma-Napa county line, is up for sale. The former 49ers QB, who also has a wine label, listed the property at $49 million. [WSJ]

SPIT: symbolic pricing
7-Eleven, the chain of 15,000 convenience stores, has announced their own wine label, Yosemite Road. Instead of pricing it at $7 and $11 a bottle for symbolic purposes, it will retail for $3.99. Aha! Maybe this will be the home of the choco-cabernet Slurpee? [AP]

SIPPED: another city winery
Hong Kong eclipsed New York City as the wine auction capital of the world this year, that we know. But this just in: Hong Kong has had a winery in the city limits since 2007. [CNN]

SIPPED: web voting
The website Foodbuzz recently distributed some blog awards and this blog won the category “blogger you would most want to be your personal sommelier.” Thank you for your votes but my question is, true to blogger stereotype, does that mean I have to pour wine in my pajamas? [Foodbuzz]

Diageo Chateaux & Estates was a major buyer of Bordeaux futures for the better part of the last three decades. In fact, according to one California wholesaler quoted in an AFP article, their buying (along with Costco), created “an artificial level of implied demand from the US — the wine estates set their prices based on this perceived demand.”

But things changed. The wines of the rainy 2007 vintage received weak reviews on the whole and demand slackened for pre-buying during the recession. Diageo Chateaux & Estates had committed to the vintage as they had in the past. Now, they are left with a large inventory of wine that needs to be significantly discounted as it arrives in the US. According to the AFP story, they are dumping the 2007s and previous vintages on the US market to such an extent that trucks are even coming from Mexico to scoop up bargains!

While lower prices sounds like good news, the AFP story neglects the question of future vintages. The low prices of the 2007s may be fleeting because Diageo has now decided to get out of the Bordeaux futures business. As of the 2008 vintage, US retailers have had to pursue different, smaller scale strategies for buying Bordeaux wines as futures to the extent that there has been demand. Now the 2009 vintage has gotten huge advance praise and financial markets have rallied, replenishing the bank accounts of some Bordeaux consumers. So while the demand side for future vintages may be coming back, the economies of scale that DC&E had on the supply side have been removed making a tempting conclusion that prices will move higher.

However, if the Diageo demand was “artificial” as witnessed by the current dumping, the prices could remain lower for several years. And with so many lavishly praised recent vintages already available in the market, Bordeaux buyers may think twice about the need to buy futures on unbottled wine. Indeed, American buyers are “skeptical” according to a recent article on Dectanter.com.

For any retailers out there, what is your recent experience with Bordeaux futures and how will Diageo’s bowing out affect the way you do business? And for consumers, is it “game over” or “game on” for Bordeaux futures?

Well, last week I met that consumer, Robert Kenney (right), whose dogged pursuit of Jay Miller popped the cork on this saga. Kenney purchased 48 bottles of Sierra Carche and has opened 18 of them, “hoping for a good one” but instead has found Jay Miller’s term “undrinkable” a more apt descriptor. I joined Kenney and a dozen other tasters for a blind tasting organized by Daniel Posner, a partner in the wine store, Grapes The Wine Co. in White Plains, NY.

Posner greeted the tasters in his apron as he pulled burgers off the grill outside the store. But his real work had happened well before the tasting even started, coordinating the lineup. He managed to find four bottles of Sierra Carche from two different lots of the wine (astute readers may recall mention of a third lot, #7033, but bottles from that small lot/bottling proved elusive). Posner selected similar wines, including wines rated 93 – 99 by Jay Miller at the Wine Advocate ranging in price from $6 to $150.

It was the worst tasting I have ever attended. Although the burgers and company were good, the wines were abysmal. I’ll spare you the play-by-play (if you want it, see Dale Williams’ funny account–I was sitting next to Dale). Suffice it to say, among the wines, there was one note that kept recurring: “Nasty, VA meets green pepper with a dash of jalepeno overlaying a bed of silage.” Other terms bandied about included burnt rubber, bacterial issues, fermenting/rotting hay, roadkill, and roadkill with burning rubber that ends up in a hog “lagoon.”

Here is the complete lineup:
#1 2005 Sierra Carche (lot 8114) WA 96
#2 2005 Espectacle (Monsant) – about $150 (unrated, but 2004 was WA 99, 2006 WA 96)
#3 2004 Pico Madama WA 93
#4 2008 Edgbaston Pepper Pot (South Africa), $14, unrated
#5 2005 Sierra Carche (lot 8114) WA 96
#6 2005 Pasanau (El Vell Coster) Priorat WA 97
#7 2005 Sierra Carche (lot 8114) WA 96
#8 2005 Mollydooker Carnival of Love WA 99 (17% alcohol)
#9 2007 Emilio Moro, Resalso (Ribera del Duero) WA 90
#10 2007 A1 Mouvedre $12 unrated
#11 2007 Panarroz (Jumilla) $6 (Unrated by JM, but RP gave 2003-2006 all WA 90)
#12 2008 Oriol (Emporda) $12 unrated
#13 2001 Clos Fonta (Priorat) WA 94
#14 2005 Sierra Carche (lot 8113) WA 96
2005 Pico Madama (corked, not served) WA 95+

Someone in the group speculated that the 2004 Pico Madama was the same wine as the 2005 Sierra Carche, both from the same importer. (Marc Clinard of the Well Oiled Wine Co, the importer, was planning on attending the tasting but canceled two days prior with a back injury.)
The labels are similar as the photo shows (click to enlarge back labels). And retailer Gary Vaynerchuk had a bad experience with the 04 Pico Madama on camera (around 14:12), dumping it out and dropping his glass on the table out of frustration. In our tasting, the 04 Pico Madama was not quite as bad and neither wine appeared heat damaged; but neither wine was great and the Sierra Carche exhibited consistently bad notes with a surprising green character. There was something possibly bacteriological in the Panarroz, the worst wine of the day.

The importer’s laboratory analysis of the various lots of Sierra Carche is still pending. Parker tasted one bottle of lot 8114 in mid-August and gave it a score of 90; Miller, another taster, and Mrs. Parker also tasted the bottle and scored it 91, 92, and 93 points, respectively. He also wrote of possibly tasting more bottles on his video blog. In a summary statement, in mid-August, he also wrote that with “over 300,000 wines tasted….bait and switch tactics MAY have happened a maximum 20 times…in reality a lot less I suspect…we only taste with conscientious people in the wine trade.”

Such are the findings from a paper published in the current issue of the Journal of Wine Economics. Robert Hodgson (pictured), the paper’s author, is a professor emeritus of oceanography at Humboldt State University. He also co-owns Fieldbrook Winery in Humboldt county, which “normally produces about 1000 cases per year. Though small, the winery has earned distinction by winning many awards in state and national competitions.”

In fact, it was his personal experience winning medals and then coming up empty handed that led his quantitative analysis of 13 wine competitions as he told Reuters. The paper says that there are about 29 wine competitions in the United States; for the 13 that he studied, entry fees exceeded $1 million.

Other research has shown that consumers’ buying decisions are slightly but positively influenced by medals, which placed sixth out of thirteen variables (ahead of front labels and shelf talkers).

What do you think explains this disparity: something inherent to wine competitions, the nature of blind tasting, or a lack of consensus of quality wine?

Links to abstract and full paper in pdf

“With sales falling, producers may be ordered to leave up to half their grapes to wither on the vine in an attempt to squeeze the market.” [timesonline.co.uk]

A reader just sent this satirical video about how distributors may be selling wine in this slow economy. Caution: it’s wonky, profane, cynical and sometimes hard to understand because of the robotic nature of the voices. But it still has some good laughs and discussion points on a Friday afternoon.

An amendment to a new law included this language: “Taste-testing activities must be conducted in a manner that precludes the possibility of observation by children.” But if they close their eyes, is it permissible to hear slurping and spitting?

The law penalizes small wine store owners as well as customers with families. One shop owner says in a story in the Kennebec Journal (via Fermentation) that she will have to install draperies to be in compliance so that no children passers-by on the street would be able to see in-store tastings happening.

The story elaborates that the author of the amendment claims it was a mistake: “There was supposed to be an exemption for small retail stores. (The negotiations) were quick with several people weighing in on how it was to be and a drafting error was made. We wound up with language that inadvertently scooped the wine shops. We’re working as fast as we can to fix that.” But the legislature doesn’t reconvene until January.

Other highlights in the state’s history of alcohol regulation:
1849: Maine enacts a law that ”punishes by imprisonment any person not licensed who should sell during any cattle show or fair any intoxicating drink.”
1851: After a long fight, led by Portland’s Mayor, Neal Dow, Maine becomes the first state to outlaw the sale of all alcoholic beverages, except for ”medicinal, mechanical or manufacturing purposes.”
1973: NOW achieves the end of sex discrimination in taverns

The Wall Street Journal has done it. So has the San Francisco Chronicle. And the Financial Times and the Times of London. Now the New York Times jumps into the pool with the announcement yesterday that they will be starting the New York Times Wine Club.

Two levels are available: The Times Sampler, six wines “for everyday drinking” for $90, or The Times Reserve, a selection of six wines “ideal to serve on special occasions” for $180. Intervals are monthly to quarterly.

The press release states “The New York Times Wine Club is operated independently of The Times’s critics or other members of the news department.” Global Wine Company, chosen to run the wine club, will “source wines directly from wineries, with no private label or bulk wines.” The dedicated club Web site “includes recipe pairings and links to additional food and wine content on www.NYTimes.com.”

Wines & Vines reported in June that California regulatory authorities have called such clubs “illegal” since unlicensed parties are profiting from the sale of liquor.

But the most pressing question for consumers remains: are any of these clubs any good? Just yesterday, a reader wrote in wondering about the quality of the WSJ club. Unfortunately, I have no first-hand experience. In theory, a club from a winery, shop, or newspaper could inform and educate with new wines that people might not discover on their own as well as sourcing incredible deals since the wines are essentially pre-sold. But clubs could also send a bitter, tannic wine to someone who likes only sweet, for example. The biggest drawback with many clubs, it would seem, is the lack of feedback ability from the consumer to the retailer as boxes arrive automatically. In a good store, a knowledgeable staff member can listen to consumer preferences and adjust a selection accordingly.

Hit the comments with your actual wine club experiences!

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in Manhattan yesterday, alleges that the label for [Down Under] is substantially similar to and infringes on the trademarked label for [yellow tail].

“Bronco’s use of Casella’s iconic square brackets and its use of Australian-centric wording in connection with the sale of Australian wine are likely to confuse consumers,” the lawsuit said.

[Down Under] sells for about $3, or half the price of [yellow tail]. Both wines come in high-shouldered bottles and have duotone capsules as seen in the image after the jump.

If you were presenting evidence to the judge, what would you say in this case?

Lawsuit details: Casella Wines Pty. Ltd. v. Bronco Wine Company et al; Court: New York Southern District Court; Court Case Number: 1:09-cv-07127-RJH; Judge: Richard J. Holwell

Interestingly, UCLA law professor, Eugene Volokh, posted about this label and said that it seemed “pretty clearly unconstitutional.” Not that Hahn, the producer of the banned Cycles Gladiator, would want to challenge the decision since they have garnered such a huge amount of media attention: they are making a massive amount of lemonade from these tiny lemons and now is mounting point-of-sales material in other states to try the wine “banned in Bama.”

Which other labels might be in jeopardy of being banned in Bama? Hit the comments with your thoughts.

To get the ball rolling, consider the image to the right that is on bottles of Geheimer Rat, Dr. Basserman-Jordan from the Pfalz (click to enlarge). Not only does the woman have sensuous grapes in her hair, but the screw cap is adorned with some rather sensuous initials.

And while we’re on the topic of judging a wine by its label, be sure to surf over to a site called The Coolist and see their display of 30 cool and clever wine label designs.

The recent saga of Sierra Carche exposed some cracks in the process of wine making, wine reviewing, and wine buying. For those who haven’t checked out the saga (see Felix Salmon’s excellent summary over on Reuters.com), an influential critic gave a wine brand called Sierra Carche the score of 96, retailers sold the wine touting that score, but many consumers then found the wine undrinkable (as the critic also did 10 months later).

Although the mystery of how this could happen remains unresolved, the winemaker has pointed out there were three “lots” (a batch bottled under nearly identical conditions) of the wine and admitted one of those lots a different wine entirely that was bottled as Sierra Carche.

Charlie Olken, publisher of the Connoisseur’s Guide to California Wine, posted several comments on this subject on the previous thread about his experience with lot variation in domestic wines. An excerpt:

I cannot name the winery because of legal reasons, but I was asked to testify in a law suit in which a winery sued another company over wine lost in an accident. It turned out the winery had sold out of the wine in about eight months and simply went out on the open market and purchased wine in bulk and bottled it as their own under the same label. In discovery, it was found that the lost wine had 20% Chenin Blanc purchased at wholesale at a price way below what labeled grape would have cost.

Unless wineries are required to identify separate lots, whether they are bottling wine in California or Spain or Morocco, these kinds of events will continue to happen. Sometimes it will be only a slight difference in character as in the Ste. Michelle and Mondavi examples above, but the potential for mischief when anybody can bottle several lots under the same label is real and the Sierra Carche is not the only bad example.

Lot labeling has been mandatory in the EU since the early 1990s to facilitate traceability in the event of a recall or consumer complaint. Importer James Koch also posted to the comments: “I have been selecting wines by lot numbers since 1992 – a year after lot numbers started to appear on every bottle of wine – when I discovered that ‘bottle variation’ often is just the result by mixing up different lots. Due to the lot numbers I’ve been able to offer my clients the wines I tasted and selected on my wine buying trips – not only VERSIONS of it.” Koch also pointed out that lot numbers may be difficult to see since it can appear anywhere on the outside packaging material. Lot numbers must start with the letter “L” in Europe.

But American wineries are not required to print lot numbers on bottles. They should. And they should have a standard of 100 percent accuracy. Maybe some progressive wineries will start to do this as Bonny Doon has with ingredient labeling.

Several factors can cause bottle variation to the consumer and disclosing lots would at least provide more transparency. Remember all those consumers who found variation in Two Buck Chuck? Lot numbers could help sort out some of that.

Do you think critics should also list lot numbers in their reviews?

Last fall, Wine Library, the Springfield, New Jersey wine retailer, sent out an email offering for a wine that seemed to be the wine lover’s dream: a fantastic quality-to-price ratio. The wine on offer was the Sierra Carche 2005, a blend of Monastrell with Petit Verdot and Malbec from the off-the beaten path Spanish region of Jumilla. Jay Miller, a critic at the Wine Advocate, described it as “Inky purple, the wine offers an array of scents which jump from the glass… structured wine with gobs of flavor, terrific intensity… It will provide pleasure through 2025.” He awarded it 96 points. The suggested retail price was $40; Wine Library was offering it for $29.99. Robert Kenney, a New Jersey wine consumer, was so enthusiastic upon seeing the email that he ordered several six packs.

But Kenney’s euphoria turned sour as soon as he pulled a cork. He later wrote on the forums at erobertparker.com that “I have consumed 6 bottles already, praying that with each popped cork, a different genie will emerge…so far, no such luck…slapping 80 points on those bottles is generous.”

Kenney describes himself as an “unabashed fan of DrBigJ,” as Miller is known. But Kenney was so disappointed with the wine that he corresponded with Miller and FedExed Miller one of his bottles last fall for him to taste and “see if indeed it was indicative of the wine that he had tasted and scored highly.” Kenney wrote last week that “During a ten month period I had exchanged seven emails with DrBigJ, reminding/imploring him to taste the sent bottle…to no avail.”

Then a consumer in Pittsburgh, Bob Hudak, posted that he had found the wine for $38 at the PLCB, the state-run store in Pennsylvania. On July 5, Hudak wrote of his experience, “Considering that it was a Dr Big Jay 96 pointer in the WA, I figured I buy 6 bottles. I opened my first one this weekend. Big mistake. The wine had virtually no aroma at all. You couldn’t smell a darn thing. With time and air, some stinky aromas that were off-putting became noticeable.”

Kenney chimed in on the thread as did several other consumers with their negative experiences with the wine. (The wine’s scores on cellartracker.com were not all bad although several reviewers took the time to note flawed bottles and one gave it a 74 but the modal score was around 90.)

On July 14, Miller posted to the forum that he finally opened the bottle Kenney had sent him and declared it “undrinkable.” Miller contacted the importer of the wine, Mark Clinard of Well Oiled Wine Co., who replied, “We have had similar problems with this wine and had a meeting in March with the winery to find out what the problem is. There was clearly some substandard product shipped by the winery and we have had to take back a large chunk of this wine from the market because it was rejected by the trade. I apologize on behalf of the winery for this apparent bait and switch. Going forward we are searching for a different winery for this brand.” He posted his cell phone number and asked that those consumers with problems contact him.

Brandon Warnke, Vice President of Operations at Wine Library, posted that anyone who bought the wine through the store could return it to them for a full refund.

Jay Miller then wrote: “this is about the worst thing that can happen to a critic, to be tasted on a fraudulent wine, publish a note, and then have readers spend their good money on a fairly pricey wine only to find out that it’s plonk or worse. Its reminiscent of the furor over Las Rocas a few years ago that nearly killed that brand. It’s a bad situation all around.”

Bruce Leiserowitz, a consumer, then asked specific questions of Miller, who replied:

I’ll do my best, Bruce.
1. The wine was tasted at the usual venue where RMP and I taste with importers, The Oregon Grill in Hunt Vally, MD. Present was Mark Clinard and his partner in the Well-Oiled Wine Company, and Mark Noah, the sommelier who pours wine for Bob and myself. The wine was tasted from bottle; it was not presented as a barrel sample.
2. I can’t respond to this question except that Mark Clinard said that there were three different bottlings of this wine and that some of it was sound. A few people on the Board have given the wine excellent notes while others have had problems. The logical guess is that these discrepancies were due to the differrent bottlings. The wine that Robert Kenney sent me was not defective int he sense of brett, mercaptan, or any winemaking issue. It was just mediocre wine like you might expect in a cheap jug wine. As I said, pretty close to undrinkable.
3. I’ll take the blame for not tasting the wine right away. I just didn’t take it seriously since this was the only complaint that I knew about (until very recently when Bob Hudak and a few others reported their bad bottles).

For some history, go back and look what happened a number of years ago with Las Rocas. It obviously took a while for it to percolate up that there was some bad wine out there. Once it became clear, after being alerted by RMP who received some feedback about bad bottles, the importer Eric Solomon took responsibility. –MrBigJ

He also then added, “I meant fraudulent only in the sense that what I tasted in Robert Kenney’s bottle was a different wine than what I tasted with Mark Clinard at The Oregon Grill.”

This was the first vintage of Sierra Carche, which is owned by Guy Anderson in the United Kingdom. Guy Anderson Wines describes its business: “As one of the UK’s leading brand creators, …. [w]e are constantly researching and learning what people look for when choosing a wine…. We have a strong track record of producing innovative new wine brands…. [B]rands created by Guy Anderson Wines such as Fat Bastard, Mad Dogs & Englishmen and Gran Familia have found success in markets around the world.”

But there was still little known about the actual winery and vineyards producing the Sierra Carche. The importer’s page states that there were 20,000 bottles produced (the above label showed a number out of 16,000). There is scant elaboration on the vineyards.

In the absence of a reply from the Sierra Carche importer, Well Oiled Wine Co., Victor de la Serna offered some additional information. (De la Serna is a Madrid-based authority on Spanish wine and founder of elmundovino.es.) He writes:

I can give some information on this subject. Bodegas y Viñedos de Murcia is not a winery, but the commercial arm of the Casa de la Ermita group of wineries in southeastern Spain. This is a still quite recent (1999) group which began in Jumilla with Casa de la Ermita (DO Jumilla), was expanded with Casa de las Especias (DO Yecla) and Dominio de la Peseta (DO Alicante), three adjoining appellations sharing the same monastrell-dominated terroir, and there’s also, I believe, two more companies, Casa de la Ermita USA and Altos de la Ermita, the latter for upscale wines. The rapid expansion caused the raising of quite a few eyebrows in Spain. The group has been the subject of ‘for sale’ rumors for several years now – but business troubles are unfortunately not uncommon these days among Spanish wineries, so this is certainly not an isolated case.

There have been a couple of other similar cases of lot variation in the past few years involving inexpensive Spanish wines that were highly rated in the WA – always a risk, IMHO, with wines produced by large-scale wineries which can easily increase production of commercially successful brands. Sierra Carche seems to be a different case in that it’s a more expensive wine, but it does come from a very large winery.

Humberto Dorta, a wine consumer residing in Pennsylvania, corresponded with an official at the PLCB about the wine. Here is the reply from the official:

Thank you for contacting the PLCB and bringing this matter to my attention. Please be informed that the Bodegas Murcia Sierra Carche 2005 was not “dumped” on the PLCB as you have described. The importer, Well Oiled Wine presented the wine to my office in the Spring of 2008. As a long time business associate with a new import company. Mr. Mark Clinard of Well Oiled knows the purchasing power of the PLCB. He presented a volume purchase opportunity which we believed at the time would be a great fit for the Chairman Selection program.

As we do with all Premium Collection store proposed wine purchases, my buying team and I sampled the Sierra Carche 2005 which was rated 96pts from the Wine Advocate magazine and quoted with a price of $40.00. We found the wine to be outstanding, in spite of its youth it was showing deep black fruits and some pencil lead. The PLCB price was negotiated to $29.99 for a 700, six bottle, case purchase. The PLCB order arrived in August of 2008 on the first container of this wine to the United States. Only 525 cases of the wine had arrived which went to the Philadelphia and Pittsburgh markets. The Central PA order of 175 cases arrived later and was rejected due to it’s late arrival. The 525 cases sold through at $29.99 without any incidents of excessive customer returns.

Effective July 1, 2009 the wine was given a liquidation price of $18.99. There were approximately 150 bottles remaining at that time. As I stated the PLCB received wine from the first container of this wine to the US. I believe that subsequent shipments of the wine may have contained questionable juice. In the spring of this year, my office was offered the Bodegas Murcia Sierra Carche 2006 which we declined. I will personally pull a bottle from our remaining 2005 inventory to see if there is any cause for concern. Again thank you for passing the information along to me.

An email yesterday morning to importer Mark Clinard seeking clarification about the winery, the three lots, the production volume, and possibilities for customer refunds was not returned. Reached on his cell phone yesterday morning, he said he had no comment at this time.

Late yesterday someone posted to the fourms at wineberserkers.com using the handle BVM winemaker.

We produced a single tank of 180 hl for Sierra Carche 2005 and a sample was submitted to the Wine Advocate for tasting in November 2007. We bottled the full quantity over two days and labeled 20,000 bottles for Well Oiled Wine Co order (lots 8113 & 8114) and we reserved the remnant (3,600 bottles) into clean skin stock (lot 7033). Following the wine’s successful reception among customers and reviewers, we shipped the remnant lot 7033 to additional markets including 1050 bottles to the US. At the request of Mark Clinard at WOW Co following the complaint by the Wine Advocate, we re-tasted the wine and while we found no problems, we also sent samples for analysis at an independent laboratory. We will report the results as soon as they are available. In the meantime, in keeping with our policy on all wines delivered to any customer, BVM will honor any returns of Sierra Carche 2005.

The saga of Sierra Carche is a fascinating and still unfolding tale. One of the largest questions is what protections do consumers have? Have you ever been like Robert Kenney and bought a lot of wine based on a score without trying it? Do you think that wine stores should honor returns of this wine, as Wine Library is doing? (Not all states may allow returns and some may limit the length of time that a shop could return a wine to the distributor.) Although there appears to be nothing illegal with what has happened, and, if real, the “BVM winemaker” has offered returns of all wine so consumers like Robert Kenney can be made whole assuming the three tier system allows it.

What do a winery (and vacation cottage!) outside of San Diego and a Muscadine wine producer in North Carolina have in common?

They are both the quantitatively best winery adapters of social media: Eagle’s Nest Winery has over 6,000 followers on Twitter while Duplin Winery, “the world’s premier Muscadine winery located in Rose Hill, North Carolina” has nearly 4,000 fans on Facebook.

Whodathunkit! Do the small, new or off-the-beaten-path wineries tweet harder? Rounding out the top five twittering wineries are: a winery founded in 2001 in the Barossa Valley; a proto-winery in Sonoma that has yet to sell a bottle; an Iowa winery; and Mouton Noir wines based in Harlem.

Certainly, as our recent discussion showed, overt marketing is mercifully likely to fall on deaf ears in these new media. But these business are tweeting for dollars, one way or another. The logic may be as clear as with the underpants gnomes from SouthPark. Their business strategy was:

Phase 1: Collect underpants
Phase 2: ?
Phase 3: Profit

Which platform works best? The media and finance worlds are abuzz this week with a report that teenagers don’t use Twitter. Indeed, a friend who works at college told me of a poll that showed only 0.5% of the undergrads used Twitter while 70% use Facebook. Twitter must be for old folks like John Hodgman who tweets about taking naps.

Since Facebook has high adoption among underage youngsters, we instead checked in with the two tweetest wineries who offered some thoughts on Twitter’s effectiveness. Dennis of Eagle’s Nest had some general comments in the previous thread.

Kym Teusner got his bachelor’s degree in 2001 and started Teusner wines that year in the Barossa Valley, which is now the number two most followed winery on Twitter. Dave Brookes, the self-proclaimed “Teusner twit,” shared his experience via email, unpacking that mysterious step two in the underpants gnome model:

“We’ve been tweeting since February without using automated traffic builders…..ahem…..unlike other wineries. We basically target wine lovers. Anyone getting more than 100 followers a day is using a automated system and we are more about quality than quantity. ”

And as to sales, Brookes replied, “Yes certainly….it has led to new on and off premise accounts in overseas markets and new customers domestically….most importantly we have built great relationships with customers via twitter and that is gold.”

Five wineries with most followers on Twitter according to wefollow.com:
@eaglesnestwine
@teusnerwine
@pinotblogger
@tasselridge
@MoutonNoirWines

The article suggests that “some of the newer operations [wineries] are using new marketing techniques to cope.” A case study:

Alpha Omega, a boutique winery in Rutherford, Calif., has begun using online services Facebook and Twitter to reach out to its customers. The winery three years ago began targeting consumers directly, and the strategy is now paying off; revenue is up 40% so far this year, compared with a year ago, in part because it doesn’t have to share many revenues with a distributor, says co-owner Robin Baggett.

Call me a skeptic, but I fail to see how the winery’s 296 friends on Facebook, 407 followers on Twitter and no blog can really help them move their wines (even if one of their tweets had a Palin-esque all caps consisting simply of “I love WINE.”) Their range of wines, crafted by winemakers Jean Hoefliger and Michel Rolland, starts with a $28 rosé and moves up to a $480 three-pack of reds in a wooden case. The WSJ article states that wines north of $25 are experiencing “a sharp falloff” so there must be some other secret sauce at Alpha Omega.

If it’s selling directly to consumers and bypassing distributors, then great. But I would imagine in this case that the 20% discount to club members speaks more loudly than their tweets.

Can social media really save the day for wineries? A story making the rounds these days is that the internet devalues everything it touches. But if both luxury and non-luxury wineries can somehow make social media work to increase their profitability while lowering prices to consumers, then that would be a heartwarming tale for all.