Picturing Thoughts in a Burnt-out Winery

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The age of pictures is upon us. We have traveled through the Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age to reach the Digital Age. The new technology of each age affected our societies in different ways. In the digital age, we are drowning in imagery. People call it the information age, but it is quite clear at least half of our population is not absorbing much data. We deny reality while posting happy pictures of our birthday parties and those delightful shots of pets lying in contorted positions around the house. We are in a mad rush to share our banal lives at every opportunity. We hope that a new hat, a severed finger, or trophy moment, will validate that we are indeed living a life.

My mother was a professional photographer. She spent the greater part of her life looking at the world through a camera lens. We would sit in the dark with her from an early age as she went through culling her images. She spent a lot of time walking and observing her surroundings before deciding to lift the camera to her eye. I take pictures now and again and try to spend a lot of time choosing, cropping, and especially, culling.

We are all photographers now, or perhaps not. We are all recorders. Meals we eat, wines we drink, views from our hotel balconies, the smiling kids, those impressive vegetables in our gardens. We take the shots, but then we must quickly make room for more by disposing of them on Instagram, Flickr, Facebook, or other media streams. They are not for keeping or savoring. We cast them into the raging torrent of images cascading through our lives. We are rocks in a digital river as the never-ending flow of pictures splashes around and over us. It wasn’t that long ago that people might only own a wedding photograph of themselves or a couple of hard staring family portraits, and that was it.

The recent Napa Valley fires brought these thoughts to the forefront of my mind. So many images appeared of things around us burning. My Facebook feed was fiery Hades in hourly increments. Buildings ablaze, homes lost, and dreams incinerated. But looking is not reality. Pictures are not a thousand words. They are our eye candy in a digital age of instant imagery, capturing everything and nothing in a gasp of titillation.

I got through the evacuation lines with a dubious slip of paper. I stood utterly alone in the center of a burnt-out Napa Valley winery. Blood red coagulated wine dripped slowly from a matt charcoal glazed stainless steel tank. It made a good picture. At that moment, however, I thought about how muffled my footsteps were in the heavy ash of the floor. It felt like moving through warm dirty white snow. I heard the sad, soft crunch of glass underfoot and the grating sound of metal being pushed against metal as I moved around. The harsh, acrid smoke hung in the air, mixed with the sweet vinegary smell of a dumpster nearby filled with pomace. The heat of the fire still emanated from the stone walls. I plunged my hand into the ash burial mounds to pull out some corkscrew inventory that had burnt. Underneath the surface, it was like a warm billowing pillow. The skeletal corkscrews were hot steel in my hands. I threw them in a pile like dead soldiers in a trench. Cut down before their time, olive wood cremated and gone; they would never see the cork of a bottle.

Yes, I took pictures, but no image I chose to put my butterfly pin through could ever begin to hint at the unique loneliness of that moment. The layering of senses and emotions of how all things come to an end. The majesty and terror of the cycle of life. I could have been the only person in the world in that quiet morgue. All these pictures we take can memorialize, record, amuse, shock, and prod us in various ways. A rare few can become emblems of an event, or time, our Iwo Jima moments. But they are wholly inadequate communicators of life. We should take and post fewer pictures and videos of our lives. They interrupt and erode our capacity to be fully present in times that require our full attention if we are to live a full life.

Is Your Wine Covidiently Distant?

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"Are you doing anything new, dynamic, and outside?" the e-mail said. A friend was asking if I'd be interested in being on an "Emerging from Covid" panel discussion about wineries' wine tastings. It was a great question, because it made me pause to think hard about this momentous event we are dealing with and how it has impacted our on-site engagements.

After sleeping on it, I decided that I had nothing to contribute. The property I'm working with is doing foundational work in this area that need not be overly clever at this stage. I did search the web and read some articles on the subject. It seems that the industry is attracted to the idea that social distancing and the new necessity for COVID 19 protocols are turning us all from caterpillars into butterflies. I think that storyline is over-inflated.

What remains dynamic is the same as always.

Knowing your audience, backgrounding them before arrival, setting up the relationship and expectations perfectly, creating an effortless path, demonstrating clarity of intent, personalizing the interaction and emotionally over-delivering, matching your story strengths to their life values, consummating the relationship, recording the exchange with human insights, and mining the seam post-visit.

Some folks are promoting isolated pods in the vineyards. Others, wine selecting from your car or sitting in private garden arbors. My dubious favorite is, "Our exclusive setting was always safer." These physical elements are temporary marketing comfort blankets.

The real dynamism is not newsworthy. It comes, as it always did, from consistently carrying out the fundamentals with honesty and heart.

Stunning Cabernet?

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Why does that word “stunning” bug me? It’s just a word. I know whatever ire the use of “stunning Cabernet” arouses in me is entirely my problem. For those of us who live in a world of stories, there is exciting research on how words lose power or go stale through overuse. It's quite natural for a new word or descriptor to suddenly appear and rise to the top of the wine lexicon. "Minerality" or "cool climate" are another couple of recurring favorites. "Stunning" is different. It's been around too long and is used in a lazy, fill the wine tech sheet, kind of way. Also, it is a descriptor that is patently untrue 99% of the time it is used. Do we really believe that the people will be genuinely "stunned" when they taste that wine? When was the last time you were stunned (shocked, dumbfounded, startled) by a wine you tasted? "My gosh, that's amazing, how exactly right, I am stunned by this wine!" Kind of like buying an Audi, now that it is on your radar, you’ll start to see “stunning” everywhere in the world of wine. I apologize for that in advance.

Writing and communicating about wine is complicated. There is a common language required for us to describe what something is, and how we believe it tastes. Our product is so subjective that it suffers from what some researchers call "weak facts." You can't say that "This wine has a shorter spin cycle, costs 20% less, uses less electricity, and gets your whites whiter." Stories are essential in wine because that is where we can add emotional value to our critical data. To keep our work and stories compelling, we do have to mix the standard language with new words that are fresh and meaningful. It helps to keep our guests listening.

Regarding taboo words, I remember having the big “don’t use that word” conversation with my son Colbyn when he was about seven years old. I lectured him more than once on how words only have the power that we choose to give them. Luckily, he was smart and seemed to get it, despite my intellectualizing.

Not long after that, his grandfather, a rather stern Highlander, was visiting from Scotland. As we were sitting at dinner having a Scottish gastronomic blowout of sausage and tatties, my son confessed he got in trouble at school that day. We asked him why, and he said it was because he had used a “bad word” that the “Teacher told us never to use at school because it upsets people.” He added after another bite, “It was the F-word.” Potato came flying out of Grandpa Ken’s mouth as he tried to suppress horror, or amusement, I couldn’t quite tell. Son Colbyn was told firmly by his mother that it was quite correct that his teacher reprimanded him, and we would say no more about it. It wasn't a conversation we wanted to get into over dinner with Grandpa in the house. No doubt, it would be seen as a poor reflection on our parenting standards.

A few bites of sausage later, he said, "I feel like saying it again; Dad, I just can't help it." "Don't you dare.” "But I can help it. Fff… Fff…" His behavior about all this was odd and out of character. However, I was so focused on him not saying the “F-word at the dinner table that there wasn't time to delve into why this was unfolding. As his mother and I protested, he said, "I can't stop myself, I can't stop. Fff... Fff…" Our warnings and came to a crescendo as he blurted out, "FAT!" FAT. The “F-word” was fat. The relief was palpable, but we still had to acknowledge that this was a word that we shouldn't use in a lot of situations. Someone at the table from a less politically correct nation was desperately trying to pierce a sausage and hold back tears of laughter. To this day, I don't know if we got played. I suspect we did.

Anyway, back to “stunning.” Many years ago, I presented a Cabernet as "stunning" because it was easy to say, and the word was in a great review of our wine. The guest was a seasoned traveler and buyer visiting Napa Valley. He sighed deeply and told me, "This is the fourth stunning Cabernet I've had today." That was the day I stopped using “stunning.”

VINFABULA – Profit from your story being made more powerful. colin@vinfabula.com

Smoke On The Horizon

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Have you ever seen a sign or advertisement for a restaurant that said, "Open For Business During Construction," and immediately thought, “Ooh! let’s try that place, darling!” Probably not.

The slew of "We are open for business after the fires" winery announcements are about to rain down on our wine customers all over the country.  My Inbox already contains a deluge. People who are into wine are typically on more than one list or have joined multiple wine clubs, so these e-mails are going to multiply the message across the nation in addition to the news media.

My two favorite winery communications so far are both from Sonoma. One said, "We all face challenges in life, thanks for caring, far-flung customers like you are part of our community too." Well stated. It avoided effusively thanking everyone and their brother, and it didn’t ask for business or any wine sales. It rang true. The other took a straightforward approach and said, "This event is going to hurt us, we are going to see less of you, and we have multiple families to feed, so come and see us and buy some of our wine.”  It also rang true, as showing your vulnerability takes some guts.

My least favorite winery fire e-mails are the ones that are dripping with a heavy glaze of "grateful and humble" while talking endlessly about themselves and how they feel. We would do to remember we exist for our customers; they don't exist for us. In one message, I added up 18 references to 'us/we/our' in their short grateful, and humble e-mail. There were only 3 ‘you’ references for the customers it purported to address. One of the 'you' instances was to tell the customers how they could help 'us.'  Another gem was from a region nowhere near the fires saying that they commended all the brave folks who went through what they did. They noted they were never in danger and were all safe and grateful but had endured five days of power outages. This e-mail ended with an ‘Early Bird’ offer to an upcoming wine event.

These fire prompted e-mails have pulled me in two directions. Do they help our cause or not? The Wine Industry Advisor had an interesting article on “disaster empathy” and how we might consider reaching out to our most loyal customers as they seem the most moved to act. If we pursue this effort to go after the 'pity purchase,' we may indeed achieve short term gain by saying, "Support us in our time of need." However, is there a greater cost of pushing the fire narrative? Does it all further cement the feeling that arranging a visit to the Wine Country in the fall carries a high risk of inconvenience and disappointment?

Many I had spoken to before the current calamity said that although their visitor numbers were down, their average spend was up. Not sure how true that might be across the whole wine region, but if it is, it might support the idea that the wine loyal do indeed keep coming back, and it is the wine experiential who are not packing their bags.

So, what’s the solution? Some have suggested we should now promote experiences outside of harvest time. 'The Magic of Bud Break' or 'Let's Go Suckering in May' and 'Return of The Mustard Festival.'  We could stop building new wineries with tasting rooms, that would help. (We’ll have to let the pain of the marketplace take care of that one.) No doubt, many will be packing their toothbrushes and getting ready to take their show on the road in 2020. Finally, once the flurry of post-fire e-mails is over, perhaps the most straightforward thing we can individually do is stop talking about or referencing the fires or the power outages of 2019. The damage is done. Without denying the heartache it caused so many, we could focus on how little impact it had on our industry, and our winemaking, relative to the whole. Shake it off, it was briefly inconvenient; we got past it, we made great wine. Ask our front-line staff to either avoid or talk down the event rather than instinctively finding a way to place themselves in a big story. Show the usual beautiful views and blue skies and add the customary “Looking forward to seeing you here” language. Up the frequency and work tirelessly at making the carrot more tempting.

We cannot deny the negative PR this event has had on our region. It is truly awful. It’s just if we want to recover quickly; we shouldn’t add fuel to the fire in people's minds if we can avoid it.

Bad First Date Wine Tastings

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I was working with some tasting room folks the other day, and they laughed a bit self-consciously when I asked them to cast their minds back to the last time they went on a first date. “Because being on a first date is how you should be conducting your tasting.” You are not an item yet, make an effort! It should have the frisson of early excitement that comes before you hand them over to the longer-term soulless TV dinner of a marriage, known as your e-commerce department.

The first date is a simple analogy. Do you think your date is just going to be enthralled if you sit at the table and talk through all five courses? Yapping on about the food as it is presented and what you know about every ingredient? “The chef marinades this in diesel oil and cumin for 48 hours…” Worse than that, how do you think your date feels if you immediately order what you think they should have? Then, as they eat, go ahead and tell them what they should be tasting. Dates love that assertiveness.

There are companies that can tinderize your data, slice and dice who your customers are, and how they all interconnect. Who loves you and who doesn’t, who will buy extra in their shipment, who won’t. However, if you don’t take the time to pay attention to your date while they are in front of you at the winery, it’s all just ones and zeros.

The biggest mistake I've ever made in tastings was usually not taking the time to get to know my date.  Sometimes because I was rushing, sometimes because I thought my impressive Scottish banter and wine knowledge would carry the day.  I recently spoke on the phone to a great wine host who used to work at Pride many years ago. He told me, "As I got older, I talked less and less and asked more and more questions, and my sales just kept getting higher and higher."

The counterpoint to this is everywhere. I was assisted by an Estate Director at an “Appointment Only” Napa Valley tasting a few weeks ago, at a winery I'd never been to before. You could say it was our first date. I gave her lots of hints that I was in the business, knew the owner, and had knowledge of the vineyards being poured. By the end of the tasting, the Estate Director knew not one more thing about me, or my preferences, than when I walked through the door.

This topic must be boring some of my regular readers by now, but it keeps coming back because it’s the number one failing of the wineries I visit or get feedback on. We think it is all about us. So exasperating, because the alternative could be such a huge quality improvement and wouldn’t cost much to implement. Instead, we pursue quality by going out and getting an optical sorter for $150,000. To summarize, a very high percentage of front-line staff in our industry don’t take the time to pause and pursue the fundamentals of a first date.  Make an effort, present yourself well, shave, comb your hair, be upbeat, ask interesting questions of your date, listen to the answers, and then ask a follow-up question that shows that you listened. Enjoy yourself.

If you are considering a night of passion, it’s definitely not going to happen if you don’t make this relationship effort. The days of easy wine club hookups and impulsive one case stands are fast disappearing. Our customers want candlelight and soft music, a glint in the eye, and a “Wow! That’s so interesting, tell me more about you.”  They want to be heard and discover common bonds and interests.

Meanwhile, at my new winery date, my host closes with, “Is there anything you’d like to take with you?”  Aaah! The invitation to the bedroom, delivered after the monologue equivalent of a Big Mac Happy Meal, conducted with all the ambiance of strip lighting in a shopping mall. 

No, that's OK, maybe another time. (That's never going to be a second date.)

 

VINFABULA – Improving your engagement, improving your sales. Contact me at colin@vinfabula.com