Hunter Valley 13.0% Screwcap $40
This wine was sent to me as part of a six pack intended for a “taste and tweet” event organised by Wine Communicators Australia (I am not a member). I’d like to mention a few things before I get down to reviewing it.
Firstly, I use twitter – both as a tool to let people know that I’ve posted something on this site and for free form conversation that at times can be enjoyable in and of itself. I am not averse to ‘social media’ as such.
I also quite like the idea at the heart of ‘taste and tweet’. It’s inclusive and can even be informative.
Having said that I harbour some misgivings over the events that are occuring under the #wcatt hashtag at the moment. Most of them revolve around Rick Bakas, the self professed “1st Dir of Social Media in the wine biz”, who has been brought out from America to give a series of lectures to Australians on the use of social media (I won’t be capitalising that term). I believe his role is also to ‘facilitate’ the taste and tweets that have been scheduled during his tour – this seems to be more or less a matter of saying something like ‘I’m Rick Bakas, I’m here, start tweeting’. Thanks Rick. From the depths of my heart.
I am worried by what seems to be a pattern of fawning over self aggrandising Americans who are invited to this country to offer solutions that I don’t think they possess (Gary Vee anyone?). ‘Selling Snake Oil’ is the right phrase I believe. Among many nuggets of wisdom from Rick so far, my favourite was his advice to nurture your online communities like you would nurture a young vineyard. Ok, dear readers, I shall feed you bullshit and check you for disease regularly.
Australia has many capable and proven users of social media. Furthermore I would argue that each culture, each country approaches the medium in a different manner. I’d like to see it stay that way. What will come of Rick Bakas’ visit? Well, he will make money, increase his profile and lift his chances of being asked to another place to spread the the good news – “I’m like the Pied Piper of Twitter” Rick tweeted yesterday. Thanks again Rick. I’m not so sure that anything will change for Australian wine – although our collective tweets may become more generic…
To the wine – it’s superb. I cannot say enough good things about it. It’s bright, clean and vibrant with penetrating red fruit (cherry dominant), violets, fennel seeds and a layer of mostly latent Hunter earth lying below. Brisk but balanced acidity bears the structural load. Beautifully fleet of foot and only just medium bodied with length to burn.
Precision and clarity are the hallmarks here and I would struggle to put a drinking window on it. It will live for an eternity. It’s the sort of wine that excites me and that should win many over to the charms of Hunter Shiraz. A modern classic.
So why is this review lost under the questioning of a social media guru from the land of opportunity? Because it’s about time people realised that if you’re going to endorse the sale of snake oil, the good juice will be obscured.
Winery website- www.dewine.com.au/
chalk one more up to the cultural cringe. we're all falling over ourselves to be thought of as 'world class' by our older siblings. I admire what wcatt is trying to do – engage with industry, consumers and trade via new media, but Rick unfortunately can't change the exchange rate.
Very good, and worthwhile post Jeremy. You can, likewise, colour me skeptical about Bakkas and other social media "gurus". A guy who cut his teeth at Nike? What's he gonna say about our issues of oversupply? Challenges of a changing climate? The power in the market of Kiwi sav? The misuse and abuse of the WET rebate? Our crap ad valorum tax system?
Classic oz cultural cringe. Bring someone out from OS and listen to them, rather than being proud of our own, and cutting our own swathe.
I don't think it even addresses the problems we as an industry have particularly well. How can we co-opt some of the massive media slice the food world has got? Why is it that there's so little legit column inches regarding wine in the press? (I mean content, NOT reviews.) How do we confront the massive oligopoly of colesworths? And how, pray tell, do you get rural communities that aren't necessarily early adopters to get into new forms of communication in Oz?
Any of us can say 'C'mon guys, get into it!!!'. I just don't see how a guy from elsewhere is going to understand the nuances of our strengths, virtues, challenges and predicament.
Good to question all of this sir. Important even. A debate worth having.
I'm obviously not free from bias on this issue, but I will say that Rick's much more genuine than you might think, and certainly much more than Gary V. Further, Rick is not actually getting paid for this trip – The WCA is covering his travel/accommodation/incidentals but that's about it.
He's also not here to solve bigger issues in the industry. He's here to give advice about social media and also to help spread the word in the states about Australian wine. That's the main scope of his visit, and we've got to keep that in mind.
For me personally I don't like the cult of social media guru worship that follows people like Rick either, and can see how it looks like a massive cultural cringe to us Australian wine commentators. That 'let's worship Rick and he might say good things about us to people back in the states' mentality has followed the trip around quite a bit already and i can't say I'm comfortable with it either (as it just perpetuates all the ridiculousness).
What I'm trying to say is that Rick is just a bacon loving American with a shiload of energy and a bent for social media and wine. He's been brought here to talk social media to people using social media. In person he comes across as genuine and affable, even if his twitter personality seems far more overt.
Regardless if there is one positive to come out of all of this is that you got to try the De Iuliis. It's one of my favourite 09 Hunter Shiraz and a wine of effortless grace, regionality and appeal. Very fine booze indeed.
(disclaimer for everyone: I sit on the national committee for the Wine Communicators of Australia [WCA] who brought Rick out here)
I agree that what #wcatt is doing is admirable in trying to engage the industry, trade and consumers. (and I am a member). But let’s get some perspective. Not using social media in 2011 means you’ll be out of business by 2016”? Really? Take your hand off it Rick.
Social media is one of the many ways to communicate with the customer. And while it has been terrific for disseminating the thoughts of some informed, interesting wine bloggers, it has also given us winewithoutbs. Wine will eat itself Jeremy. Twitter will probably eat itself too.
Fair points there Andrew. I just think that us talking to each other isn't what we need. What we as an industry need are people who will connect to the folks 'out there'. All good and well for us to chat wine to one-another – but we already do that.
An aside: David Bicknell summed up something pretty right on last night. He's got wine to make right now, and thus didn't have time to engage with #wcatt stuff. We are bang in the middle of vintage (well, here in MR, we're closer to the end of it, but still…) It's daft to think that we might have to miss out being told how to communicate with the public because we're actually caught up making the darn stuff.
As for the 'not using social media in 2011, outta biz by 2016' – you couldn't be more right Brendan. How much tweeting we see from Burgundy producers? 9/10 of SFA.
Isn't it that we, as an industry don't need MORE communication, but better communication? MORE vs. better is the story of the Australian wine industry right now (and at a certain level I do think it's dichotomous). We need better wine writing – and I think this is coming. We need better engagement with the public at large – I'm not sure this is. We need more honesty and truthfulness. The last thing the world needs is communication infused with PR, marketing and David Brent style management-speak.
Good points about us talking to each other Cam.
Twitter is definitely all about the industry talking to others in the industry, with some passionate wine lovers thrown in for good measure. There is a big disconnect there with the general public that ultimately gets glossed over.
On the flipside facebook is everybody, and yet the industry doesn't handle that platform particularly well either. On the whole, however, Australian wineries are (mostly) more social media aware than many other countries, yet we don't do it as well as other industries. Therein lies the problem, and therein also lies the opportunity.
Ultimately you're dead right about better communication, not more communication, however I'd frame that by saying that we can use more mediums to get the message across without necessarily doing more communication as such.
More targeted, less noise. That's the answer.
Thoughts?
Excellent post Big Boy. Really good writing.
GW
I second the GW. Good writing. Love a bit of sarcasm. LOL, WTF and all that.
Why didn't they get Charlie Sheen to help out too? I'm sure he wouldn't mind testing the wares, mixed liberally with tequila.
MichaelC
Rick Bakas seems typical of the sort of speakers that do the rounds of industry associations, who lets face it, need someone to fill their program of events. These so-called 'industry experts' are almost always people who would never survive running the type of businesses they preach to and have generally only been someone's employee, with no 'skin in the game'. They can speak in extended platitudes, and whilst perhaps some of what they say is relevant, they at best confirm what their audience already knows and maybe provide a few bonus warm fuzzies and some back slapping.
As I am purely a wine drinker, not a wine writer, a wine maker or a wine marketer, perhaps I am speaking through my hat. I can however comment on what I saw during the Rick Bakas led tweet-ups, which seemed to be a continuous loop of those in the industry talking to one another with little to know reach to consumers. In fact, this is what many Tweeters in the wine industry already do. If this really is what those in the wine industry see as the next 'great white hope' then it is at a lower ebb than I thought possible.
Harder questions always produce more powerful answers. I'm sure he's a top bloke, but as a consumer and business person looking in, Rick Bakas seems be most expert in producing unfocussed noise.
Excellent post Jeremy – I'm pretty sure you are becoming my ghost writer
My comments with regards to Bakas, Gary V and the #WCATT roadshows, is simply this. They're not making a jot of difference – in fact they are taking us all backwards as we BELIEVE they are making a difference. The issues we face are that "corporate" wine Australia wants to buy a platform and unfortunately they think social media is it. Total crap of course, as the use of social media depends totally on the quality of the individual tapping away at the key board – thus corporatisation of the form is really just a load of bumkin.
The hooking of "consumers" through social media for wineries is minimal. They only follow wineries they've tried and liked before and as such they're not new, but rather fans. For consumers like Keira above, they are actually fans of wine and people and as such her interests lie in how the wineries communicate. To believe a corporate winery can simply get on line and "talk" to the masses is pure and utter madness. Will they be out of business by 2016? Hardly.
We don't use facebook as it is simply too personal – its invasive and to become a "friend" means giving up part of yourself, and as such wineries using facebook heavily very rarely get many friends in comparison to lightweight social media such as twitter. The advantage of twitter is that it is easy to scan over the history of a "tweeter" to determine how they use the medium and as such your decision to follow their conversation can be quickly made without repercussions. Wineries come and go on twitter as they have used it as a bulletin board and have had little success, we've all watched them, and as such their failure to understand the medium is their Achilles heel.
I follow your logic with regards to questioning de iuliis for being part of #WCATT, but I do think that you need to give some slack. Not all wineries are thinking about this as hard as you and they simply see this an opportunity for some simple product placement (much like posting off samples to wine critics all around the country), sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. They are not at fault, they are simply rolling the dice in this very crowded stage.
Keep up the good work and I'll see you in April.
Cheers
I should point out that it wasn't my intention to question the wineries involved in #WCATT. As I've said, I have no issues with 'taste and tweets' as such. I was asked if I would be interested in taking part in the #Hunterwine event and I replied in the affirmative – I approached it with an open mind. I suspect the wineries did too and I presume the logistics of being part of #WCATT wouldn't have left enough time to assess the tour before committing to being involved anyway. As you point out, they were just rolling the dice. I've no problem with that.
Sadly, it soon became apparent that the tour and the taste and tweets were turning into a circus…so I took no further part in them. I chose the De Iuliis Shiraz to make my point as it seemed to be the best wine in the pack – a wine that CLEARLY shouldn't be obscured.
It seems that not all members of WCA are totally behind the Bakas tour, so my misgivings lie entirely with Rick and those communicators who are pushing this event so hard.
cheers
j
Really excellent piece JP. As a non-twitter user I've found this and its ensuing discussion extremely interesting and eye opening; and I don't even know who Rick Bakas is really. Oh yeah, you've also provided inspiration for the next Oz Wine Toon JP, so…..
Cheers,
Chris P
These tweet ups etc are being used as a tool to communicate, but what does that communication engender? is it altruistic or just product marketing? Whether it's business or personal, twitter or facebook, to a significant degree social media is about promotion, about the projection of one's view of themselves or their endeavours. There aren't many true altruists involved, and as such there will be a lot of 'noise' and hyperbole. Industry association members are trying to get their businesses noticed in a crowded marketplace, and as Mark put it, "rolling the dice". No shame in that. But perhaps it pays to remember that social media's noble, democratic ideals are just as open to commercial manipulation (and perhaps it's more insidious) than any other media. Plus there's no real arbiter either. Rick Bakkas is not in the wine business. he's in the Rick Bakkas business. So too Gary V. At the moment though, no-one knows whether there will be any benefit gained from going on the ride with these experts of self-promotion. Snake-oil it may be, but there is little risk involved in rolling said dice so plenty of businesses are willing to invest in the experiment. But the lack of structure makes it bloody confusing. much like this post. sorry.
Interesting post. I didn't attend the lecture in Melbourne as I wasn't persuaded it would be useful at the price and the tweet ups appeared to be a bit broad and potentially lacking in structure. "Bringing a bottle" also seemed a strange outcome for a $125 ticketed event, as opposed to say visiting a friend's house. To be honest, I did think good on the guy for getting himself the gig, and I wasn't so worried about him being from overseas. But, unfortunately, in practice, it's been a little bit like watching a slow-motion, rather long, advertisement about, well, say, an upcoming advertisement. The general PR style cacophony that has accompanied the events has also affirmed my belief that it's better to remain a bit independent. For completeness, I think that more than a couple of WCA members would have joined just to find out about events, such as myself, rather than as a means of offering their approval of them. Bravo for raising interesting issues.
Cheers
Sean
Interesting string of comments here. Not sure I deserve so much criticism.
I just tweeted Jeremy and Keira with an open invitation for anyone to share a glass in person or online. I'd be open to hearing your thoughts on how the #WCATT tour could've or should've gone. We didn't have a model to base it off of, and if there's another series of events like this in the future, any and all feedback is useful.
Help me understand what would have been beneficial to the industry.
Cheers,
Rick
Rick- I believe there is plenty of feedback in the thread above. I have passed on my personal feedback through this post and also directly to WCA. That is the appropriate channel for it.
cheers,
j