Carruades de Lafite Certan de May Charmail Chasse Spleen Chateau Hermitage St Emilion
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Friday, May 27, 2011
Your own sanctuary at Villa del Palmar
Within 5 minutes of walking distance from Cabo San Lucas lies Villa del Palmar, stands a five star beach resort and spa, perfect for your little family holidays. The resort features dramatic waterfalls, never ending swimming pools, salt water aquarium and the best spa of Los Cabos. Whatever stress you are suffering from will vanish [...]
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/vagablond/ysSN/~3/BUE0dfO-P0Y/
Kosta Browne, Sea Smoke...Is Rhys Vineyards the Next Cult California Pinot Noir?
Complete this sequence of CA Pinot Noir high-flyers: Kosta Browne, Sea Smoke, ______________.
I got some great answers: Williams Selyem, Sojourn, Roar, Donum Estate, Papapietro Perry, Adrian Fog. But since Twitter is character limited I wasn't able to completely describe the context of the question.
To me, Kosta Browne and Sea Smoke aren't just highly-sought California Pinot Noir producers with reputations for making full-flavored wines. They're textbook examples of shrewd marketing resulting in loyal customers willing to pay a premium for their wines in good times and bad.
Kosta Browne began producing wine in 1997 and their first publicly released vintage was 2000. If you look at Wine Spectator's highest rated domestic Pinot Noirs of all time their wines dominate the list. Although detractors bemoan their prices getting out of hand, the steady climb from $48 in 2000 to $72 for their 2008 single vineyard releases isn't hard to justify in my mind. They're based in Sebastopol, in Sonoma County, and produce wines from other people's vineyards. I enjoyed their 2006 Russian River Valley (92/100) and Sonoma County (93/100) bottlings each purchased at retail for around $60.
Sea Smoke's story is more site-focused yet pinning them down can feel elusive. Unlike Kosta Browne, they don't buy any of their grapes and their Sea Smoke vineyards are planted to capacity creating a famously popular waiting line for their wines known as "The List". Located in the Sta. Rita Hills AVA in Santa Barbara County, their positioning couldn't have been better aligned with the release of Sideways. Their three Pinot Noir bottlings range between $40 and $80. I saw a bottle of Sea Smoke Ten on a restaurant list for $245 recently. They also produce a One Barrel Pinot Noir (23 cases) that sells for $150. I loved their 2004 Southing Pinot Noir (95), their 2008 Southing (93), and their 2006 Sea Smoke Ten Pinot Noir (93).
These wines have an appeal that goes beyond what's in the bottle and beyond the label. There's an elusive quality about them. Perhaps contrived but you see it in brands like Scarecrow. Where is Scarecrow? What is Scarecrow? "It's not a place - it's a state of mind."
Opening wines like these announces to wine geeks it's a special occasion. When you're having a hard time getting your hands on a bottle you're tempted to pay a premium at retail or at a restaurant for a chance to try them. So adding a brand to this list isn't to be taken lightly.
And before I go much further gushing on about how much I adore these brands I want to acknowledge: One man's ceiling is another man's floor. Just like going to Best Buy and looking at stereo gear - the best things they have there aren't even up for consideration for a true stereophile. Same with wine. Hard core domestic Pinot Noir hounds are off looking at micro-production brands I've never even heard of.
And that's great. I'm not there yet and what I'm talking about here is a broad awareness in the wine community of brands that through hard work, quality production, savvy positioning, and a little luck obtain favored producer status that lasts a long time. The idea here is to catch one of these brands on the way up - when prices start around $30.
Until a couple months ago I had no familiarity with Rhys (rhymes with "piece"). A friend had an allocation and asked me if I'd like to try some. Then I read this. It's a love letter to Rhys Vineyards from highly esteemed Slate wine writer Mike Steinberger on par with the ode David Pogue wrote for the Canon S95 in the New York Times. It's impactful to me when a journalist writes such a striking endorsement for a specific brand.
Still, I read Steinberger's piece with skepticism. It goes on and on about terroir and praises the low alcohol levels of Rhys' Pinots - was I going to like these wines? Or was I going to have to squint and struggle to see the charm of these pieces of art?
Their focus is very much on site and letting the grapes speak for themselves rather than the winemaker guiding the style in a particular direction. That being the case it's understandable they'd want to distance their flagship wines from those produced from purchased grapes. In fact, 2008 is the last vintage they're producing Alesia Pinot Noir.
Though this wine was produced from grapes grown in the Sonoma Coast AVA (a more common area for Pinot Noir production) Rhys' own vineyard are in the Santa Cruz Mountain AVA.
I've heard the Alesia wines provide a reliable window into the Rhys style. As in: If you like Alesia wines you'll love Rhys wines. The alcohol level clocks in at a reasonable 13.9% (some of their Pinots are less than 13% alcohol) so it feels like a good will attempt to ween the high alcohol by volume crowd from their (our?) 15%+ expectations.
Here are my notes:
2008 Rhys Alesia Pinot Noir Sonoma Coast
13.9% Alcohol
$35 Release Price
My expectations were running high as I tried this wine for the first time - which could have set me up for a big disappointment. Fortunately, based on everything I've read about Rhys Pinots this wine absolutely delivered what it promised to be: A balanced, site-driven wine that points a light in a new direction for California Pinot Noir.
There's a laser-beam focus to the presence of this wine and a fresh, vibrant personality that's utterly appealing. Ample acidity reveals itself first as a slight pucker then later as a subtle citric quality. This mixed in with classic Pinot Noir markings of strawberries, a little earth, and perhaps slightly more substantial (if ultra-fine) tannins than I've seen in rounder new world Pinots. There's a wet river rock aspect that wouldn't be out of place in a red Burgundy.
Overall, a beautiful expression of Pinot Noir.
92/100 WWP: Outstanding
(and I could easily add a couple bonus points for the back story and overall experience)
So I'm not saying Rhys is producing Pinot Noirs that are stylistically similar to Kosta Browne and Sea Smoke. Not at all. I'm suggesting you might want to jump on their mailing list if you're interested in catching a rising star. And check out the articles on their press page for more information.
Further Reading:
Question of the Day: Who are some California Pinot Noir producers you'd put one this level? I'd love to discover more producers to check out from your suggestions.
Types of Wine Food and Wine Leisure Food Armagnac Baron de Lustrac Armagnac Baron de Sigognac
Meals without Wheels : Take A Look at The Coolhaus Ice Cream Sandwiches Shop
Wine From Here: Natural Wine in California
The trailer is here – film coming in the summer of 2012
Chauvin Cheval Blanc Cheval Blanc (Bin Soiled) Cheval Blanc (Damaged Label) Cissac
Muscadet 2010 has the snap, the crackle, and the pop
Muscadet has had recent parallels to Goldilocks: The wine region near the mouth of the Loire River was hit by a reduced harvest in 2008, an abundant harvest in 2009, and a just right harvest in 2010 that has superb quality too. Outside of hipster wine circles, Muscadet is not so well known among younger [...]
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Challenging Wine Pairing: Thai Red Curry Beef
Thai food is so popular that I wanted to do another Thai dish for a challenging wine pairing. Since our family especially enjoys spicy dishes, I decided to try a red curry dish using strips of sirloin steak in this recipe. Delicious! The menu for this pairing consisted of the Thai red curry beef dish, [...]
Challenging Wine Pairing: Thai Red Curry Beef was originally posted on Wine Peeps. Wine Peeps - Your link to great QPR wines from Washington State and beyond.
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Belgrave Bellefont Belcier Bellevue Mondotte Berliquet Beychevelle
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Lot18 and the Art of New Market Models
The funny thing about business models is that when start-up businesses position around new market dynamics they do one of two things: They paint the exact picture of their business for casual observers (and competitors) in Manet-style realism or they don’t, leaving the mind’s eye to make Monet-style impressionistic leaps.
Perhaps this is why Philip James’ new venture, Lot18, is being lumped into the “Flash wine site” category when it appears to be much more significant (even if impressionistic).
When I covered so-called “Flash” wine sites last July, Lot18 hadn’t yet launched and my opinion then (as it remains today), was to urge caution with many of these sites because most don’t appear to be businesses with a vision that can grow into full-fledged ongoing concerns with an impetus bigger than capitalizing on the short-term oversupply of luxury-priced wine as a retail operation. The word “Flash” has been equated to, “Flash in the pan” meaning that these sites will be here today and gone tomorrow. Many others have opined similarly, including a recent run of punditry from the New York Times, Wines & Vines and Palate Press.
While each of these articles touch on the obvious vagaries of the model with a winery-slanted spin about whether the online wine sales sites are predatory vultures, there’s a much bigger view to look at – a market dynamic that I think Lot18 sees as an ownable market space where other sites (and writers) see an ecommerce retail operation. And, it has virtually nothing to do with being predatory. Instead, it’s about creating a solution for a problem that has existed for ages.
Instead of viewing Lot18 like another in a long list of ecommerce sellers responding to the here and now, I think James sees a much bigger business model that can bypass the three-tier and capitalize on the age-old problem of winery inventory management vintage by vintage, a problem that has typically been handled very quietly in the three-tier, a system that is closed off to the majority of the boutique wine market.
It’s a subtle change in perspective, but rather significant. It’s the difference between selling a few wines that can sell at $60, but not $80 as a one-off deal based on the current economy and creating an entire mechanism for inventory management that has bedeviled the boutique wine market.
As one small Mendocino vintner without a distributor infrastructure said to me, “I’m ready to release my ’09 Chardonnay, but I need to move 70 cases of the ’08 first.”
Yeah, him and about 5,000 of his winery brethren, too. Likely, that’ll be the case next year and the year after, as well.
By common analogy, I think Lot 18 sees a wide and deep market-altering Amazon.com-style opportunity where others see Fatbrain.com, a little known ecommerce bookstore for technical books circa 1999.
Sure, I groaned when I read a recent article on Lot18 at Business Insider. There, James was quoted as saying, “No matter how fast we hire, we have more openings than we can actually fill.” In total, the short piece smacked of hubris. But, James also said something really insightful when he noted, “(Wine) is a $30 billion niche. It’s bigger than music, it’s bigger than Hollywood, and it’s bigger than DVD’s and cinema. I guess you can call that a ‘niche.’” That was on April 26th.
On April 29th James wrote a blog post at his personal site discussing in very obtuse terms the arrows that companies take in the back when they have, “First Mover Advantage.” He noted, “There’s a first mover advantage to what we do, and we’re happy to be leading the way. It’s not cheap going first, and that is the flip side, but by leading and paying to pave the way we do get to define a portion of the landscape.”
An alleged “Flash” wine sales site that launched in November having “First Mover Advantage?” What the …?
On May 2nd Lot 18 announced a $10 million dollar round of series B financing, adjoining a $1 million dollar sales month in March and April.
Clearly, there’s more here than meets the eye.
Despite having worked at three venture capital-backed companies, I don’t profess to know much about the VC game. However, I do know that in this day and age, VC guys aren’t throwing $10 million into the 40th wine-related “Flash” site and the 196th social commerce business plan they’ve seen in the last 12 months unless there is a vision for something that the rest of us can’t yet discern.
What precisely Lot18’s VC’s see is between Lot18’s business plan and the banker’s in wingtips, but what I think they see can best be typified by a quote from Jeff Stai, owner of Twisted Oak winery in the Sierra Foothills who was quoted in Palate Press regarding a sale at another flash wine, “… We sold 683 three-packs, which is roughly three pallets of wine. I’ll sell three pallets of wine all day at near-FOB!”
FOB is a wine industry term for the winery sale price to a distributor.
What Stai didn’t say, but he could have was, “If I can close out a vintage and maintain a margin that I’m happy with and not have to deal with the incredibly inflexible, non-partnership oriented three-tier, who greedily eat my discounts instead of passing them to the customer, I would love to.”
So, if we go back to quotes from James about how big of a market wine is and you consider that closeout discounting to this point has only occurred in the three-tier system, you can start to see the seeds of a business model emerge that’s much bigger and will surely outlast the “Flash” sales sites that operate like retailers in a short-term bubble.
There currently isn’t a vintage closeout or inventory liquidation mechanism in the wine business outside of the closed off three-tier system. Every other consumer packaged good vertical has a closeout function typically handled by brokers.
Ding, ding. This is why Lot18 is nationally hiring, “Wine Procurement Specialists” – these are the equivalent of brokers who facilitate the sale of goods that need to be closed out.
It sounds so simple, but really the business perspective difference in between being a small-time “Flash” operator and building the infrastructure that Lot18 is putting in place is significant in vision.
So, are these sites “predatory vultures” perilously taking advantage of wineries in short-term time of need, as has been alleged? It’s all in your vision of the business model – a model that I suspect is more Manet than Monet for those who look for the fine detail.
Photo credit: Demetrios Vlachos
Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/lot_18_and_the_art_of_new_market_models/
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