“Doing well in blind tastings is of little value to a wine, if potential buyers are put off by the labels” - Robert Joseph Before I interviewed one of the most well-known Key Opinion Leaders in the wine innovation industry for the Vino Visionaries podcast, I did a lot of research about him. To be honest, the more I read, the more I found myself agreeing with him. There are lots of similarities in the way we both we talk about the wine industry - our names were even written next to each other in a recent Tim Atkin article. When I read the above quote by Robert Joseph, I wrote it down, and couldn’t stop thinking about it. I have seen this so many times in the retail sector and even working in the export market. Most winemakers won’t like to hear this, but like it or not, the label is the most important thing when we talk with retailers and potential importers - BECAUSE MOST PEOPLE BUY LABELS. I will tell you a few stories about how much the label can influence us - so much so, that sometimes it can make our mind become “blind”, and ignore what our senses would normally tell us: In Brazil we have lots of fake Argentinian wines at the moment. There are so many, because they sell a lot, and consumers have no idea that they are drinking false wines. 🤷♀️ Who here has ever watched the “Sour Grapes” movie on Netflix? It’s a documentary about the fine and rare wine auction market, centering around a counterfeiter who befriended the rich and powerful and sold millions of dollars’ worth of fraudulent wine through the top auction houses. Can I confess something that I never tell anyone? At the beginning of my career I served a wine that was corked and I didn’t even notice. It was a bottle worth over 1,000 dollars, and everyone at the table was saying how great it was. I gave a little bit to the winemaker afterwards and he said it was corked; it was only AFTER he said that, that I perceived that it. 🤷♀️ So, tell me - why do we need to become experts in blind tastings to pass wine exams? And why, most of the time, don’t they even teach you how to recognise wine faults (by making you smell faulty wines?) 🤷♀️ Why do we need to submit our wines for (blind-tasted) wine competitions, when in the end, in this sort of competition if you do something outside-the-box you will be scored badly anyway. 🤷♀️ We have been taught in the wine industry that we need to talk, behaviour, write, drink and do the same things over, and over and over... Is that what we really want? 🤷♀️ Why isn’t more time spent on marketing, and understanding consumer behaviours? 🤷♀️ Today I’m sending one of my big smiles to say thank you to Robert Joseph. Thank you for being you. We love your work! ❤️🍷 #wineindustry #winebusinesses #wineinnovation #rethinking
Well, I think this can be connected also to the recent discussions we have had about wine education, an education built on old school memorization of facts without much of critical thinking. This then leads to standardized repetition of the same opinions and facts. When talking about focusing a lot on blind tasting, it is more about an inner skill in the wine world or a belief that it counts for the consumers - though it is a way to try and be objective in competitions - but then in the end, as you say, consumers are buying more based on other factors. I can still see that to some extent a blind tasting can have its value, but probably much less than we think. I really liked Robert Joseph's quote of consumers wanting to be 'seduced' rather than educated and having people drone on about tech sheet data. Your example about the corked wine (I am not good at feeling corked wines either LOL), also says how much about how people revere wines because hyped brands or similar. 😉 I agree with you that there are so many factors in wine education that perhaps should be rivisited. Also, making it more with a broader context, more university level-like at least for wine professionals.
Paul Wagner
8mo
It's even a bit more obvious than that when you think about it. Of course consumers buy labels. But no consumer goes into a wine shop and asks them to line up ten Chardonnays at a given price point, because they want to buy the one they like the best. Consumers don't do it, and wine shops won't do it (understandably.) There is an even more interesting element to all of this, because research shows that if the consumer believes the wine to be of high quality (because of price or what it says on the label--or implies on the label) they will almost certainly find the wine more delicious. And if they find it more delicious, they happy. Happy consumers buy again.
I am a strong advocate of blind tasting. I often use it on my courses most importantly for quality purpose. Packaging and marketing is so important to be successful but people do not need us to judge if a label is pretty or not! There is a dimension of education in wine and it includes wine faults. Education protects the consumer. I have heard many stories of people buying crappy oxydized or faulty wines and they did not know about it. That is unacceptable.
I'm curious for more information about your claim that there are a lot of fake Argentinian labels in the Brazilian Market. If these are not actually lines produced in Argentina where are these wines coming from?
Mike Carter MBA
8mo
Robert Joseph's extensive knowledge of wine is unquestionable, but there's another aspect worth considering: the power of storytelling and brand building in the wine industry. Although attractive packaging makes a strong first impression, it's the narrative behind the wine that truly sets a business apart. The key question remains, "Are you selling a product, or are you offering a memorable experience through your brand's story?"
Leslie Cameron
8mo
Priscilla Hennekam - So true. I asked for a glass of Ca’ Regate at the bar at a very upscale NYC restaurant. Put my nose in the glass and got no further - it was seriously corked. I drew the bartender’s attention to this and he went “wow, that’s corked!” The best/worst bit was that the bottle was half full…
Barclay Webster
8mo
Robert Joseph is great! Can’t wait to listen.
Dan Traucki MWCC
8mo
When I was the GM of Yaldara Wines at the turn of the century, we developed "The 2 metre rule" for wine labels-which said- IF you can't read the brand name, variety Vintage and maybe even the region on the label from 2 metres away that wine was destined to sit on the shelve in a bottle shop as it was indistinguishable from the hundreds of other bottles. IF however you could- then there was a much greater chance that a buyer would at least pick up the bottle & read the back label. i.e. CLEARLY LEGIBLE FRONT LABEL- HALF A CHANCE- BLURY/INDISTINCT FRONT LABEL NO CHANCE WHATSOEVER.!!
Labels, like art, are subjective. What appeals to one person visually may not appeal to another, so relying solely on visual appeal to sell wine isn't sufficient. Since wine is an organic product, it needs to be adequately packaged and preserved to allow others to appreciate it optimally, as it was intended to be. Consider a beautifully crafted garment. It's relatively easy to discern what's well-made and what's not because the value is expressed externally. You can pick up the garment, examine the stitching, observe how it moves, feel the weight of the fabric, and see how it looks on a human body. Here lies the question: Where does the value of wine lie—intrinsic, extrinsic, or both? If the value is only extrinsic, then I agree—why bother with blind tastings? However, wine is a sensory product, encompassing taste, smell, weight in the mouth, and visual appearance. How do you measure this? Through tastings. We need tastings to deconstruct and assess wine sensorialy, to examine the "fabric" of the product, to make what's inside, accessible. Since each of us appreciates labels differently and has opinions about wines we've tasted, blind tastings help mitigate these biases.
Transforming the Way Wine Speaks and Driving Innovation Forward
8mo“Four in five people have purchased wine based on what the label looks like”. “Some 85% of people said that they had purchased a bottle of wine in the past primarily based on the appearance of the label, data from online wine marketplace Vivino has revealed.” Great article for us to read: https://www.thedrinksbusiness.com/2022/12/four-in-five-people-have-purchased-wine-based-on-what-the-label-looks-like/#:~:text=account%20Sign%20out-,Four%20in%20five%20people%20have%20purchased%20wine,what%20the%20label%20looks%20like&text=Some%2085%25%20of%20people%20said,wine%20marketplace%20Vivino%20has%20revealed.