mhicken January 27th, 2010

I attended this year’s Direct to Consumer Symposium in Sonoma last week. The recurrent message was that the future of DTC wine marketing is going to skew heavily toward mobile marketing (by which I mean marketing tools such as text messaging, twitter, facebook or websites … but all of which work on smartphones such as the iPhone or Blackberry). See this report from Wines & Vines for details. At almost the same time, the San Francisco Chronicle writes that it thinks that the big breakthrough app for wine consumers will be Cellar Tracker, created by Seattle wine lover, Eric LeVine.

If you happen to have an iPhone, you might want to check out the convergence of these two trends by using the app, Cor.kz. This nifty app allows you to bar-code scan a bottle of wine using the camera in your iPhone. The app then connects to CellarTracker and displays all the relevant information about the wine including user reviews from their huge database. You can then save the wine into your own cellar or if you are drinking it, share your own rating and tasting notes using Twitter and/or Facebook (connectivity for both are built in). Check it out … this is the future!

Tags: cellartracker, consumer, corkz, direct, iphone, marketing, mobile, smartphones, wine

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mhicken January 6th, 2010

Today’s Globe and Mail wine column by Beppi Crosariol highlights good value wines that retail for under $20. Beppi provides an interesting range of picks for consumers who want to find a reasonably priced “house wine”. However, the picks highlight the ridiculous price of wines in British Columbia. For the wines that are available in both Ontario and BC, here’s the price comparison:

Louis Latour Chardonnay: $15.95 in ON; $19.99 in BC

Concha Y Toro Marques de Casa Cab Sauv: $19.99 in both provinces

Santa Rita Medalla Real Cab Sauv: $19.99 in both provinces

Remole Toscana: $12.95 in ON; $13.99 in BC

Perrin Reserve Cotes du Rhone: $14.95 in ON; $17.99 in BC

Les Fumes Blanches Sauv Blanc: $11.95 in ON; $13.99 in BC

MacMurray Ranch Pinot Noir: $19.95 in ON; $24.99 in BC

J & F Lurton Pinot Gris: $10.95 in ON; $13.99 in BC

Bollini Pinot Grigio: $16.95 in ON; $18.99 in BC

Pierre Sparr Gewurtraminer: $16.50 in ON; $21.99 in BC

Ouch … only two wines are the same price and many of the wines are significantly more expensive in BC. And this is a comparison between two liquor monopolies … not a comparison between the U.S. and Canada where the differences would be even greater. Something is seriously wrong with the LDB pricing structure when you have differences this large between MONOPOLIES. Doesn’t a government monopoly have an obligation to act reasonably when its the only game in town?

Tags: bc, LCBO, LDB, liquor stores, ontario, prices, taxes, wine

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mhicken December 2nd, 2009

Some of Ontario’s largest producers (those that make Cellared in Canada wines) have withdrawn from the Wine Council of Ontario and formed their own alternative trade organization, the Winery and Grower Alliance of Ontario. The split was apparently caused by the Ontario government’s introduction of increased taxation on CIC wines in order to support the growth of VQA sales. There now appear to be two distinct camps within the Ontario industry, those that produce solely VQA product and those that produce both VQA and CIC product. The latter group is apparently set to fight the new tax as reported in this story from Wines & Vines: Ontario Wineries From New Group.

Tags: cic, industry, ontario, trade, vqa, wine

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mhicken November 9th, 2009

Interesting story this morning on Bordeaux prices. Diageo, one of the largest purchasers of Bordeaux worldwide, is exiting the business and liquidating their huge Bordeaux wine inventory at greatly reduced prices. This is creating a cascade of downward price pressure for Bordeaux in the U.S. with retail prices ebbing below wholesale in some cases. Here in B.C., we are, of course, “insulated” from bargains by the LDB … but will consumers keep buying Bordeaux here when they see prices collapsing south of the border?

Tags: bordeaux, LDB, marketing, prices, retail, wholesale, wine

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mhicken November 5th, 2009

For your weekend reading:

Good blog post and discussion on marketing wine online here.

Here’s an interesting discussion of geographical indicators of origin and their effect on consumer wine choices.

Check out this nutty elementary school education project which equates wine with pot.

Tags: consumers, marketing, online, origin, sales, wine

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mhicken November 3rd, 2009

Just out for lunch and happened to walk by the LDB’s government liquor store at Harbour Centre. New signage for Cellared in Canada product was up. The CIC product is now displayed in a separate section with a sign that reads “Bottled in British Columbia” with smaller print stating “from International and Domestic Wine”. The real BC product is displayed separately with a “BC VQA” sign. This signage is a vast improvement from the previous displays which simply read “British Columbia” on both CIC and VQA product.  Readers will know that I don’t often offer kudos to the LDB but this signage is honest and clear. Well done.

Update (November 6, 2009): the updated Cellared in Canada signage was covered in the Vancouver Sun today. A few issues remain … the new signage does not contemplate 100% BC wine that is not part of the VQA system (this wine is rarely, if ever, sold in government stores), and … CIC wine sales should not be included in domestic sales figures.

Tags: bc, british columbia, cellared in canada, LDB, marketing, signs, vqa, wine

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mhicken November 3rd, 2009

Sanity has prevailed at City Hall. The City of Vancouver has withdrawn the proposed “anti-wine” bylaw and it will not be considered in its original form. The bylaw would have required restaurants to monitor food and liquor sales and ensure that food sales always exceeded liquor sales in any 8 hour period.  The law was administratively unworkable and could have seriously affected the sale of fine wines which would have skewed sales to liquor in the absence of huge expenditures on corresponding amounts of food. There will now be a “rethink” and further consultation with the industry.

Tags: bylaw, city, food, law, liquor, Restaurants, vancouver, wine

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mhicken October 23rd, 2009

In two unrelated pieces of news today:

Amazon.com is apparently giving up on its fledgling wine business. This will likely be welcome news for wine retailers in the U.S. who would have had to compete with Amazon. However,  it demonstrates the extreme difficulties of dealing with the post-prohibition patchwork regulatory system in the U.S. which make the inter-state shipping of wine a legal nightmare.

Speaking of nightmares and just in time for Halloween, the City of Vancouver has put forth a nightmarish bylaw proposal for city restaurants under which they would be required to continuously check their liquor and food sales such that liquor sales never exceed food sales in any 8 hour period. The proposed law seems ridiculous from a policy perspective as well as administratively unworkable. Theoretically, a restaurant would have to stop selling expensive bottles of wine during the evening if they thought that food sales might not match the wine sales total. Who dreams up this stuff? And, more to the point, why is taxpayers’ money being spent on this?

Tags: amazon, bylaws, food, law, liquor, Restaurants, sales, vancouver, wine

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mhicken October 5th, 2009

It appears that change is already in progress for “Cellared in Canada” (CIC) wines as 2 of B.C.’s Big 3 commercial wineries are reported to be changing their CIC labels so as to promote more transparency and honesty in labelling. The Vancouver Sun reported on the weekend that changes are in progress and will be in place prior to the Olympics. The adjunct to this is that the retail level marketing and display of these products also needs to be changed so that consumers will not receive any misleading information as to the origin of the wines at the store level. In both government and private stores, CIC wines need to be displayed separately from real B.C. product, perhaps in a new display section with a name something like “Global Blends”. The BC LDB will also need to fix its statistical reporting practices for BC wines as it is currently including CIC sales within BC sales statistics. It’s not really that difficult to do … hopefully, we will see change on this quickly in order to protect the “British Columbia” brand for wines that are produced from 100% BC grown grapes.

Update (Oct 9, 2009): More coverage on this issue from the political side on Global TV News yesterday. However, it appears that good progress is being made on cleaning up the labelling and marketing issues: Jancis Robinson has stories on her web site that cover changes for Cellared in Canada wines in British Columbia and a working group for Ontario to enact changes on Cellared in Canada there. I have also heard that changes are imminent at the BC LDB.

Tags: bc, cellared in canada, labelling, LDB, retail, vancouver sun, vqa, wine

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mhicken October 2nd, 2009

I just watched the video below which is a brilliant explanation of why the internet and social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) is dramatically changing the landscape for retailers and for government. Think about the wine industry while you’re watching it …

Thanks to the Cherries and Clay Blog for bringing this to my attention.

Tags: bc, facebook, government, internet, linkedin, marketing, regulation, social media, twitter, wine

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