This question seems to be influenced by the Oct.15 article by Matt Kramer in Wine Spectator. He mentioned the WineWeb 2.0 in his article and the questioner asks a relavent question.

Wine Spectator, Wine Advocate (Robert Parker) and the Wine Enthusiast are publications that I read. I belong to 4 of these type of web sites. The purpose being that there is a lot of wine out there and the more information you get, the better a consumer you can be.

A lot of the adegga.com reviews are regional, which I like. Many, many of the wines reviewed either aren't available in the US or are out of stock. The point being this: those pubications run late, really late in some cases as you so well know.

For every one of us that use these sites and publications for information (buying by ratings is wrong) there are hundreds of thousands that don't and Wine Spectator says they reach nearly 2.5 million readers. There must 10's of millions of us that drink wine.

When an article appears about a certain area or group of vintners or a grape it is intende to spark interest and hopefully someone will go out and buy the wine. A wine that is published, either on-line or in print gets a heads up supposedly...but just think about all those people that buy wine based a friend's suggestion, or their knowledge of the producer or they like the grape that have never read a word in those publications.

Obviously, you're wines have influenced the buyer's, you sell out according to you're statement. So - keeping in context of your question - here's a couple for you.

Why do all that stuff if you sell out - after all you can't financially do better than that? What's in it for you if they do publish and rate your wine?
Paul

Paul,
Honestly, not much for the winery itself, cause either we don't get our wine ratings published before they are already sold out at the winery level, if they even publish them at all. But if some ratings do eventually arrive, they might help our distributors and stockists, who still have the wines on their shelves, or could be of interest to the wine collector who might have some bottles in their cellar.
As we also export globally, we find that i.e. whether in Hong Kong or Poland, the first thing we are asked, is for our WS and PP ratings! They seem to be easily translated into all languages and cultures.

I understand I think. It's the mid-level then that directly benefits from being able to attach a little WS 90pts tag on it and sell it easier. So then, indirectly, the producer benefits because the distributors, importers, etc want to sell those products because they are then viewed as a "quality" producer because WS and RP say so. Is that right?

I missunderstood the question. I thought that the question meant this - Why do those things, shipping and waiting, if the wine they shipped to WS and RP didn't get reviewed until after the vintage had "sold out" at the the winery. In otherwords - what benefit was there to the winery?

Since you are from a winery - which is more valuable? Word of mouth or ratings? I know wineries that only sell to their mailing lists - I am on a few - and nothing else. They were established before WS and RP even rated their wines. All that ratings did was to increase pressure on their mailing lists. There is so much to understand I really am glad you're here and are willing to converse back and forth. Paul

That's why I started this debate, I want to get other people's thoughts on the importance or not of WS/ Parker points, versus social community sites like Adegga where people can post their own ratings. As a winery, we are excited about this development, and hope it can provide a real alternative to the old heirarchy.

Personally I do not pay much attention to the press. When I purchase my wines I look at the information on the label (grapes, region, vintage...), and if I'm not familiar with it, I ask somebody in the store to describe that wine. Friend's recommendations are influencing my purchase more than ratings. However, I think that the average consumer, will be attracted by a shelf talker showing 89pts WS. Lately I began to collaborate with a wine wholesaler, and I noticed that the the retailers get excited over a good rating too. BTW, do you have a distributor in Georgia?

Hi Botto, my experience confirms what you say here.

We have a distributor based in NY who covers as many eastern USA states as possible. TriVin, you could try to contact them, they are on our website under importers, or send me an email at wineatcortesdecimadotcom and we can talk about it further! cheers!

I will contact you and thanks for the input. Paul

I think WS and Parker still carry a lot of weight but diminishing. I think that as wine drinkers and store staff continue to become more wine savvy, the ratings will lose even more importance. I am convinced that folks are turning more to endorsements from friends and social media. At least that is the case for my friends and me.

Hi Cortes,

A few postings here from you. Just curious- would you be interested in going on record as a case study for wineries using e-media as a communications channel?

Now, referring back to your query. The simple answer is no.... with a but, or yes.... with an if (Quote: Reverend Lovejoy, The Simpsons).

To put this into perspective, you need todetermine what purpose their ratings have, and for which markets. Your size of distrbution probably warrants the use of diverse sources of 'validation' as to your wine's quality. You referred tothe importance of these ratings in Poland and HK. remember that these twomarkets are relatively new, and growing. As such, they look for salient cues on which the market might all be familiar. To contrast the use of WS, or Parker ratings, try using them in a market like France, Italy or Spain...

So, yes they're still very valuable, but you need toknow the motivations of your market. If you seel your wine in Maryland, USA, I'll bet a sensitive part of my analtomy that a wine with a Parker rating sells out a lot faster than one without...

Wine for thought.

Could be interesting. Lets talk.

Damien - I'm not sure I understand the last paragraph of the imediately above entry. The part that says..."I'll bet a sensitive part of my analtomy"...what does that say/mean? I'm finding that the more "shelf-talkers" from educated wine retailers are having a bigger impact than WS/Parker scoring. In fact - the displays by the big distributors have more to do with wine sales (read Sebeka from SAfrica for example) than alot of things. I'd bet that if the good people at Cortes de Cima sent a small well worded shelf talker wine their wines with instructions to post, they'd get more attention for 2 reasons.

1. They'd educate the buying public. Curiosity sells.
2. They'd educate the retailer - knowledge sells.

Paul

Hi again Paul.

I'm going tokeep this post short. OK, that's not very typical of me, but I'm tired, so bear with me...

The point I was trying tomake above is that the avergae consumer will use any cue that seems 'relevant' to help themmake a decision. we know from research that those more interested in wine tend to use more cues (you might use region, variety, winemaker, awards, back-label, year... etc. tomake a decision on the best wine for any specific occasion. However, the average consumer doesn't have either the knowledge nor experience to use this many cues in purchase. Consequently, the average consumer uses less information, and often anything credible will do (a sales suggestion, shelf-talker, Parker rating, etc...).

So, whether there be Parker ratings or shelf-talkers, if the consumer's purchase decision is simplified, that is often enough to sway their decision. The challenge is that if a shelf-talker works, it very quickly becomes that 'every' wine is listed with a shelf-talker, thus reverting to making the selection process difficult for the consumer again.

Finally,on education- I'm sceptical as to whether the average consumer wants to be educated about wine. Some do, but I believe that most don't. They just like drinking it.

Wine for thought.

Damien - I don't agree with you concerning the wine buying public's desire to be educated about wine - at least in my experience.

I "assist" 3 different wine shops in marketing specific wines that they bring into their shops. I help with recommendations to their customers and people consult with me over the phone everyday of the week but Sunday about wine. I order wines for people on a weekly basis.

I would estimate that 75% or more of the people I run into in shops want to know more about wines and are thankful for the information either the staff, myself or the "shelf talkers" give them.

I would argue that a majority of people who purchase wine don't have the foggest notion of who Robert Parker is and that same group have never opened a page of a Wine Spectator magazines.

So, it is imperative that if a winery wants to show off it's product, either through distributors or to retailor direct shipping it better use "shelf talkers" of some sort or another of mass appeal. I think that educating the wine buying public is going to a greater impact than doing nothing.