The Wine Brand is Dead, Long Live the Wine Brand

Recently Gary Vaynerchuk tore into some Napa Valley Suits during the annual “Ahead of the Curve” seminar (coverage here and here). Vaynerchuk told the conference attendees that “Your brand equity is not as strong as you think. Just because you’re Napa doesn’t guarantee victory.”

Millennial-generation adults who are already having a significant impact on the wine industry “don’t give a crap about Wine Spectator and Parker,” he said. “And I think that’s a little dangerous in this town.” (from wineandvines.com)

It’s the “Power to the people speech” that is both cliched and accurate. Vaynerchuk is a pioneer on the bleeding edge of Wine 2.0, a technology movement that trails actual technology by two to three years. He’s right that Napa’s brand power fails to reach newer wine consumers. He’s also right that many wine consumers wouldn’t know what to do with a Wine Advocate score if the shelf-talker jumped out and bit them. Everyone is all up in arms about this, talking about the fall of Napa and Bordeaux unless they change their ways.

Power to the people and the beats and the wine

CC Licensed photo from Flickr user Drunken Monkey

Two points are being overlooked. The first is obvious and the other is not.

Napa isn’t having any trouble selling their prized Cabernets at triple-digit prices. In fact, sometimes their pricing almost seems like a joke, like they’re pushing it and laughing about it. Not only are they selling out, but some wines get flipped for a huge profit immediately suggesting that Napa is leaving money on the table. We’re in an age where pricing a small production Cabernet out of Napa at $60 seems restrained. Drinkward Peschon releases at $50 and everyone pats them on the back (and buys up all the wine). Until that changes, no amount of Twittering will get Bill Harlan to set up a group on Facebook.

Second, rage-induced change is cyclical. The very Robert Parker who is targeted in the above quote was himself a pioneer when he released The Wine Advocate in 1978. His purpose was to evaluate the wines as they are, with no respect to what name was on the front label. Gone were the days when Lafite could throw their label on the bottle and call it a day. They had to answer to the people now, and the people had a newsletter with a 100-point scoring scale on it. It sounds familiar except now the people have blogs and You Tube. Everyone has a voice, and it is really loud in here.

Now, the trailblazer has gone from reporting on something to influencing it. This happened in the 1980’s with my beloved baseball cards (smell the gum!) when Beckett Baseball Monthly reported prices, then quietly moved to setting prices instead. The Tony Gwynn rookie wasn’t $25 because that’s what people were selling it for, it was $25 because Beckett said so. There was no Gary V. for baseball cards to come save us, just a worthless pile of cardboard when the whole thing came down.

In short, Parker as the vanguard pioneer of change has moved into the mainstream and now there’s another group at the gates pushing for change.  So, to the future! In twenty years, Joe Winedrinker will rally the troops against Gary Vaynerchuk, saying that his influence is no longer felt and that Generation Z must decide for themselves. Joe Winedrinker will give a speech to the Wine 3.0 symposium in Fairfax, Virginia and wag his finger at Linden and Chrysalis telling them that $50 Cab Francs just won’t cut it. “See what happened to Napa?” Joe Winedrinker will say, “They couldn’t sell a drop of their Napa Cabernet before that earthquake dropped them into the Pacific.”

The cycle will continue. Enjoy the wine.