Words of wine wisdom

There are no shortcuts to success in the wine market.

Brevity, they say, is the source of wit. Verbosity, it seems, is the font of wine knowledge for many — there’s no other explanation for the outpouring of articles we are subjected to on wine, most of which are written by hacks with little or no knowledge on the matter.

Perhaps it’s because there are so many new wine drinkers coming ‘in the door’ — a good thing, surely, for both the industry and those who report on it. This horde has little knowledge or understanding about what wine is or how to drink it — indeed, they have no wish to “get into the heavy stuff”, an attitude exemplified by the tagline of Kingfisher’s Bohemia wine “Skip the ritual, drop the ceremony”. Drinking beer is fun, so why not extend that attitude to wine? The problem is, wine costs a lot more than beer, and the people who can afford to drink it have different demographics and psychographics, so no go. Back to the drawing board, chaps.

Wine companies (like all alcoholic beverage vendors) cannot directly advertise their wares, and volumes are too small to justify surrogate products, so really the only way they have to generate brand awareness and trials is the wine tasting or wine dinner (and, perhaps, a bit of PR by wine-friendly hacks like yours truly). This process may extend to Wine Fairs, which provide a useful forum for the comparative evaluation of wines from different producers.

Unfortunately both are expensive and time-consuming exercises that reaches a relatively small audience. Holding an event for a wine club certainly reaches a more focused group of consumers, but how to generate retrial and adoption? Moreover, wine consumers are an eclectic lot who revel in trying different wines, and are rarely loyal to any given brand or varietal.

That’s the conundrum facing wine companies worldwide: how to first gain, then retain, consumers, — both the trade and consumers are confused, even intimidated by the huge number of labels available at retail and on wine lists.

One way out is to “own the store”: ladder the product portfolio so as to have your brands at every price point and variety/ flavour, from as many sources possible, so that regardless of there’s a larger probability of your brand having a larger “share of throat”.

Another is to “buy the shop”: cut deals with the trade that exclude or blocks out the competition and drive your own volumes. This is potentially lethal if the product offering does not match consumer expectations, as one major Indian wine company found to its cost.

Perhaps the best option is to deliver the best value: give a better product range for a lower price, distributed as widely as possible. As always, there are no shortcuts to success or profitability, as many wine companies have painfully found out.

Wines I’ve been drinking
Shared a bottle of the Brancaia TRE Rosso Toscana with Captain Arun Nair and Mukund Padmanabhan of Terroir (the Madras Wine Club) last evening — a blend of Sangiovese, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon from 3 different vineyards (hence the name), the wine has bits of all three grapes: crushed berry and cherry aromas with hints of coffee and flowers, with fine balanced tannins and a good lingering finish. No wonder the 2007 vintage got 93 points from Wine Spectator. Yummy!

[Alok Chandra is a Bangalore-based wine consultant]