Episode Transcript
[00:00:04] Speaker A: Why do we drink what we do? Why do some drinks become classics while others languish at the back of the drinks cabinet?
[00:00:11] Speaker B: Is it just because we prefer those drinks? Or are there underlying economic, social, or technological trends that shape our choices?
[00:00:19] Speaker A: And that's what we're going to explore on A Question of Drinks.
[00:00:22] Speaker B: Join us as we explore the hidden side of the drinks cabinet. The decisions, reversals, and underlying forces that shape the beverage market. I'm Luli Halstead.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: And I'm Felicity Carter. And together we host A Question of Drinks.
[00:00:37] Speaker B: Hello, Felicity. Now, I know you've just come back from what seemed to be a bit of a mysterious conference in Dublin.
What was that all about?
[00:00:47] Speaker A: Well, I did. I spent a week in Dublin in a lovely, cool weather, listening to academics from a field known as drinking studies.
[00:00:55] Speaker B: My goodness me. So that sounds like that's encroaching on our territory a bit.
[00:01:00] Speaker A: Drinking studies. Okay, so I didn't know this, but there are academics out there who look at how alcohol shaped history and culture.
There was really a sort of heterogeneous group. There were professors of literature, history, geography, philosophy, sociology. We had an epidemiologist. We had somebody else. Can't remember. Like, it was just a completely mixed bag.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: And so those are all academics, basically, in different academic discipline areas, but kind of coalesce together around the idea of drinking studies.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
Looking at how alcohol gets used against different groups and how it shaped civilization. It was really, really, really interesting. And what was really interesting is, at the end of it, I realized that in wine, we see wine culture in this very superficial way. So talk to wine people, they talk about, you know, it's peasant agriculture and aristocrats trading barrels of wine, and everybody's sitting around the dinner table drinking.
And that represents almost none of our human drinking history.
[00:01:56] Speaker B: Well, that's so interesting. You know what? We'll have to. We will come back to this one because I really want to hear what you learned about it, and we'll do a deep dive on an upcoming episode, shall we?
[00:02:06] Speaker A: We will. I've got so much to talk about. But anyway, what have you been up to, Luli? You're always doing something interesting.
[00:02:12] Speaker B: Well, I am still suffering after attending a wine tasting, Felicity.
And it turned out that I had to endure 42 minutes of the winemaker talking about not only himself, but also his vineyard before we were even allowed to taste the first wine.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Okay, 42 minutes. Is that hyperbole or was it actually 42 minutes?
[00:02:36] Speaker B: No, it was literally 42 minutes because I timed it.
[00:02:41] Speaker A: Oh, God. You must have been so bored if you were actually counting down the minutes. Okay, trade or consumer tasting?
[00:02:47] Speaker B: It was a consumer tasting, actually.
[00:02:49] Speaker A: Oh, no. Oh, that's even more. More dire.
[00:02:51] Speaker B: Oh, no, no, it was. And it cost a lot of money for people to attend. I'll come back to that bit at some point.
But it would have been bad enough if it. If the audience, you know, as you were just saying, were kind of like dedicated wine professionals. But as I was saying, this was consumer. And Felicity, this is how we have got to today's question.
See what I did there? See what I did there? So why do we make wine so boring? Or we could put it maybe a bit more positively. How can we make wine more engaging?
[00:03:22] Speaker A: All right, you know I'm going have thoughts and rants about this, don't you? All right, so why don't you start?
Tell us about this terrible 42 minutes you suffered.
[00:03:31] Speaker B: Yeah, the infamous 42 minutes.
So I went to a tasting that was, on paper, phenomenal. So it was a really prestigious producer. It was an eight vintage vertical.
So basically across eight years of the same wine, ranging from 2014 back to 1998. So the wines were genuinely incredible. They really were. And the big lesson I discovered whilst tasting them all was that the age of these wines wasn't the main thing that was driving how they tasted. It was actually the weather of that particular year that had far more impact on the long term flavour than the thyme in the bottle.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: All right, I'm getting an inkling of why this might have been a long 42 minutes, but what happened?
[00:04:15] Speaker B: Okay, so the room was packed, as I said, with people who'd paid really good money to be there, and we had all eight glasses lined up in front of us. We're all really excited, sort of once a lifetime opportunity. And Felicity, it could not have been more joyless.
So there was a PowerPoint presentation at the front, starting with a hugely detailed history on the slides of the vineyard.
So the type font was, you know, like stupid 0.4 or whatever it was.
And basically the winemaker kind of read out and sort of what was on the screens that clearly we couldn't see. And when we finally, after the 42 minutes, got to the tasting part, he then showed us an incredible, incredibly detailed tasting note again back on the screen from PowerPoint, and again that nobody could read.
And what we actually wanted, we wanted to hear from him and get his kind of take and taste along with him in real time. So instead they poured the first glass in front of us and Then we sat there for the 42 minutes before we were invited to even taste wine number one.
[00:05:19] Speaker A: Oh, God. Oh, my God. Okay, so, you know, bad. There's so many things to say about bad power. But look, were the wines any good?
[00:05:27] Speaker B: Yeah, so, yes, one. The wines are brilliant. It was the format that was hostile for me. Anyway, so you had this amazing live expert in the room, and they turned him into basically a voiceover for his own slide deck.
But here's the bit that really, really gets me.
[00:05:43] Speaker A: Oh, there's more.
[00:05:44] Speaker B: Okay, I'll get to you.
[00:05:45] Speaker A: I'll get to you, Lily.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Okay, there's more. Yes. So everyone. So I guess the point is that everyone in the room was already a believer. They paid loads of money to be there, and they wanted to love the wine. So, effectively, this is, like, the easiest audience in the world to delight. And the format still. Still managed to suck the joy out of everything that was going on in the room.
[00:06:07] Speaker A: The Dante's Inferno. Look. Seven. Wine tasting.
[00:06:11] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah, look, now, I clearly am not the wine police showing up to a fine to find a winery for owning a projector. You know, I.
I have made some catastrophic slides in my time.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: I've only ever seen good ones from you, Lily.
[00:06:27] Speaker B: Oh, you're very flattering.
[00:06:28] Speaker A: I've seen many of your presentations.
[00:06:30] Speaker B: Believe you me, there are many catastrophic ones. But the issue was never the information or the wines. As I said, the wines were amazing. It was the experience that the people had whilst receiving it. And that distinction, Felicity, is the central thesis of what I want us to talk about today.
[00:06:47] Speaker A: So, first of all, I have enormous sympathy with people who can't do PowerPoint slides. My slides are just pictures now with, like, word on them. And it's not a strategy, it's just. It gets me out of having to do tables and things. But my first question is, isn't it unfair to indict the whole sector because of one bad presentation? I mean, I've been to. I've been to so many bad lectures in my time, but they didn't put me off the subject.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Yeah, okay.
Yes, fair enough. Okay, so that was Case Study one. But here's why I don't think it's just one bad presenter. So I've got a second piece of evidence.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: Okay, go.
[00:07:24] Speaker B: Okay. Case study two happened a couple of weeks ago, actually, when I was recording the winemakers podcast out in Sonoma. So there were trails.
[00:07:33] Speaker A: That's a handy little piece of marketing you put in there. So everyone go and listen to the winemaker's podcast. The episode with newly.
[00:07:40] Speaker B: No, I didn't just say it for that. I said it because it's relevant.
[00:07:42] Speaker A: It's studying. It's only me. It's silly me. Okay, sorry, carry on.
[00:07:46] Speaker B: Oh, okay. So the relevance, Felicity, was that trade tastings came up in conversation and the PODC podcast hose basically said, he said, when are we as an industry people going to stop having four guys sitting on a stage talking at us when we're at a wine tasting?
[00:08:05] Speaker A: I must say, four people talking is a lot more dynamic than some of the wine, the ones I've been to. Okay, but have you got a better idea of how to do it?
[00:08:13] Speaker B: So do you know what? On the podcast we ended up which
[00:08:16] Speaker A: everyone's going to listen to this really
[00:08:19] Speaker B: random tangent, a bit like ours, actually, about inventing a circular sofa with kind of pull out taste built into it so you could sit in the round and put your glasses down and then the person leading it would kind of actually move and be interactive and kind of engage more with the room instead of standing at the lectern like it's a sort of shareholder agm.
[00:08:41] Speaker A: Well, I just. All I can say is I hope somebody from IKEA is listening to this podcast. They might make it happen. But I will point out that what you are suggesting is a better prop rather than changing the underlying format, which is at some point somebody has to stand up and explain what it is that people are tasting.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that's fair enough. It's fair enough. But do you know what? We did come up with the name. We came up with the wine round. So working title. It might not test well in focus groups.
[00:09:08] Speaker A: I don't know. I don't think you should abandon Lily. It's really catchy. I mean, the Swedish, when they make their IKEA version, will turn it into the winner.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. That was unpronounceable, but it works anyway. But I, going back seriously to your point, I don't think it's quite as simple as form format bad. So for good in this case, so slightly to contradict myself. So a couple of the winemakers on the same podcast mentioned it again.
Said they actually really loved the sort of four glasses, six glasses in a row lineup because it let them taste through systematically and compare properly between the wines.
[00:09:42] Speaker A: Okay, you're going to have to unsnar this because I'm confused. So you're saying that the old fashioned way of putting wine in front of people is good, but then you're saying that explaining the wines is the problem.
You're gonna have to explain.
[00:09:56] Speaker B: Okay, so I think you're debating there. Good, good interject. But debating then my example probably more than my thesis or my argument. So. So. So the lineup isn't the problem. The seating isn't necessarily the problem. I guess what I'm trying to get to is the principle. That's important. The important bit. So to me, the villain is being talked at with no agency or interaction.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Yeah, but you know what, Lily? I really like sit to do anything. I like the passive version, you know, but how. How is this not just a. No offense, Lulu, but how is this not just a luly problem?
[00:10:33] Speaker B: Well, I think. Do you know what?
Yeah, it possibly is a luly problem. So many tangent. I. I have a strong and thoroughly deserved reputation in my family for getting bored at events really quickly, so it possibly isn't me problem.
[00:10:49] Speaker A: So I can expect if you get bored of the podcast, you'll just walk out halfway through. I'll have to talk the rest of it by myself.
So give me an example.
[00:10:57] Speaker B: Okay, so I might regret this. So. Okay, very quickly. So we made a family trip to Monticello when the kids were kind of teenagers.
[00:11:04] Speaker A: For anyone who doesn't know, that is the beautiful plantation home of Thomas Jefferson.
[00:11:09] Speaker B: It is indeed correct. So the lady showing us round was really lovely and a very, shall we say, well meaning volunteer. But in each room we entered into the house, and to me, okay, it kind of, quite frankly, just looked.
She spent a lot of time thumbing through a book of his writing so she could read out appropriate sections. So I was stuck in each room for what seemed like ages, until, guess this. I found the emergency exit door and bundled the kids out midterm.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: Well, I've got a confession. When I was in Dublin the other week, I went to see the Book of Kells. And you know, you do a guide and you go around, it gives you really long explanations about the standing stones and stuff. And I took the audio guide off and just went and wandered around and looked at it. So. So we're in the same boat. But okay, I will say that it. It suggests to me that what you're annoyed about is being trapped, listening to something very boring, on top of which you get impatient easily. I will go back to saying that doesn't indict the whole wine industry.
No.
[00:12:05] Speaker B: So, indeed, a fair point. But if enough people kind of have the same experience, it stops being a presenter problem and it kind of becomes the cultural norm.
And I think the wine industry has, in too many places mistaken expertise for experience or Positive, experiential, whatever we want to call it.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: But I will point out, a formal wine tasting isn't a social gathering. It's specifically structured as an educational event to put wine front and center. So. And that's true whether it's consumer or trade tasting. So if you don't have the wine front and center, you don't have a wine tasting.
[00:12:42] Speaker B: I agree. Then get this, we've agreed. I agree that wine should be front and center.
[00:12:48] Speaker A: We should mark the time.
[00:12:50] Speaker B: Yeah, we got to. How many minutes to get to our first agreement?
I agree. Yes. As I was saying, wine should be front and center. I don't agree that the customer, though the consumer should stop being. So if we stick with consumer tastings, because that's the bit I'm challenging.
So. Rantler.
[00:13:09] Speaker A: Morning.
[00:13:10] Speaker B: Coming in. Incoming, incoming.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: Between three and ten minutes.
[00:13:13] Speaker B: You know, I can do as many as I want. It's our podcast.
In my experience, the focus tends to be on how clever the producer is rather than the person in the room actually actually experiencing the event and them being front and center. So lest we forget, Felicity, that our consumers are the ones that spend their hard earned money attending tastings. And yes, clearly tasting the wine is a central element, but so is a memorable and engaging event.
[00:13:42] Speaker A: High quality rant, Luli, I score you 93 points.
[00:13:47] Speaker B: Okay, good. I've got more.
I've got more.
So those attendees could be spending their money on a cooking class, a visit to a museum, a great meal out. That's the competitive set that we're facing with consumer tastings. So we don't just compete with other wine tastings. We compete with every other way. Some. Every other way someone could choose to spend their Thursday evening, their Friday, their money, their time.
[00:14:19] Speaker A: Look, I agree with. I agree with all of that. Right? I absolutely agree with that. But in the end, and you've got a bunch of glasses of wine on a table, somebody sitting down and tasting through them with somebody talking about why you're doing it.
And if you don't have that, you don't really have a wine tasting. You've got something else. So you know what? The other thing you might have might be absolutely fantastic. But it's not a wine tasting, if you see my point.
[00:14:43] Speaker B: Okay. We're turning into a full gloves off, aren't we? In a caring and respecting way. Because I think what you're doing there is what you've done a few times, Felicity, if I may say so. So I think you're Deb. My example rather than the principle. And by the way, you're doing it really well
[00:15:03] Speaker A: in any consumer data to prove that it's not just your, you know, your experience.
[00:15:08] Speaker B: Carry on hold. I have some academic feelings to bring in later.
[00:15:13] Speaker A: Oh, God, I've taken the lead off. I've taken the lid off.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: Yeah, you have. So I'm not arguing that wine shouldn't be the hero. I'm arguing that the consumer, the customer, should never stop being the protagonist kind of, so to speak. Those are two completely different things. So I set their are times where the wine is front and center in the industries.
But I think the industry's become so obsessive about the things it's obsessive about, you know, yield blending, terroir technique, that it's kind of forgotten who it's talking to. And I would even say this amongst premium luxury fine wine, we can come back to that. But too often we design the experience from the producer's perspective, not the receiver, the customer, the consumer.
[00:15:53] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I mean, I can see some of that. But I will say it also depends on who the audience is. So, you know, to be clear, if you did a wine tasting for a group of professionals, you'd get lynched if you explain a lot of that, because that's what geeks live for, especially for some reason. Soil. I just, I.
[00:16:10] Speaker B: There's a lot of talk about soil.
Yeah. And agreed. Look, agreed, that's fine if you're talking to masters of wine because. Or equivalent, because, you know, it's their job to care about those details. But when it's consumer tasting, I think sometimes we confuse being impressive with being interesting, perhaps. I don't know. So consumers don't reject complexity as we know, they reject feeling excluded or not part of it.
[00:16:39] Speaker A: All right, so in a second, let's move on to talk about how you could actually put consumers at the heart of events, which, honestly, I think, you know, being interactive and so on, if you didn't have a very skilled presenter, could backfire horribly. But at the moment, I'm going to accept your premise that there's a problem with the format, so I can steel man the argument.
[00:16:58] Speaker B: Okay. May I refer you to my previous answer? Council feels like I'm. I feel like I'm in a prosecution seat today.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: That's right where you are, Luly. That's right where you are.
[00:17:09] Speaker B: I know I'm feeling a bit nervous. The challenge accepted. So I think it's bigger than presentation skills. If enough people experience wine this way, I think it stops being a bad presenter problem. And as I said earlier, it comes more kind of the norm, the culture problem. And that's the bit I'm challenging.
But I noticed you said steel man there. So is that your way of saying you're going to kind of agree with me? For the sake of the answer, yes.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: So I come back to this, this thing that it's really unfortunate that we don't have words for different types of wine because when we talk about wine, we're alighting many different things together. So there's the commercial wine segment, which is about wine being part of something else. You know, it sits at your elbow while you're chatting with friends. You drink it while you're watching Netflix. You don't really think about it all that much, necessarily. Right, right.
[00:17:55] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. So very modern way or today's way of consuming the product.
[00:18:00] Speaker A: But interestingly, there's always been a segment of wine that people just drank rather than, you know, talked about or thought about.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: Yeah. So you're talking about the kind of traditional wine producing countries, I guess, sort of France et al at that point.
[00:18:13] Speaker A: That's right. Particularly the Mediterranean. So when wine was, you know, part of everyday life, particularly at the dinner table. So in that circumstance it was more like a condiment. You know, it's like you don't sit at the dinner table having long discussions about the quality of the vinegar or the olive oil. So it was more like that.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: I love that idea of wine being a condiment. I think I'm going to adopt that in our household. Have we got all the condiments on the table?
That's brilliant.
Yeah. So nobody has to kind of be persuaded to drink something that simply has always been on the table the way bread is. And now we're going to just call it the condiment.
It's only, I guess then since wine then really sort of turns into lifestyle, that it has to start competing, you know, kind of for shelf space or for attention or for a reason to be chosen over something else.
And I guess that's exactly why this matters. As soon as wine has to compete, it has to start thinking like every other category, competing for people's time or attention or share of wallet.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: And just to take this off at a tangent, I remember going out to some of those historic cooperatives in places like the Rhine Valley and there's these taps, right. You used to take the dairy can of plastic. You just used to go and fill up your wine. In some places you can still do it. You, you just, you just go get your wheat twine and take it home. Yeah, that's the job.
[00:19:31] Speaker B: Yep, exactly.
Again, building on that tangent with another one. I lived in the Ardesh region, I didn't know many, many years ago, and we used to have what we call bonbons, kind of plastic containers. I can't remember how many liters they had, but I'm looking back, I think it was quite a lot and we used to just go to the local co op and fill them up.
[00:19:50] Speaker A: No point if it's not big enough for a lot, you know. Yeah, it was.
[00:19:53] Speaker B: Yeah, I was actually. No, it's kind of worrying quite how much there probably was in there, but. Yeah, yeah, so I guess that's kind of one type of wine that you can get. There's also the other, which you were inferring just before we took us in a double tangent there to wine as kind of prestige or the fine wine end of the world.
[00:20:13] Speaker A: Yeah. And so going back to sort of everyday wines, we would think of these now as the sort of the big brand wines that you would find in a supermarket. Now what makes these wines unique in their segment is they're typically made to a recipe. Right. So the virtue of these wines is that they're exactly the same year after year. Right. And that is a very particular type of wine wine that you don't need to talk about because it tastes the same as it did last year.
[00:20:35] Speaker B: Okay. So yeah, in the world of consumer behavior, so bringing in some evidence ish here, so FMCG or CPG for our American listeners, that's typically, isn't it rather a good characteristic to have? So consistency isn't boring. It's often exactly what consumers value. So nobody wakes up, I don't know, hoping for their favorite brand to taste different this week. You know, it's like, oh no, the chocolates taste completely different than it is changed.
[00:21:02] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:21:04] Speaker B: Vegemite changing Australia.
[00:21:06] Speaker A: Can you imagine? Then there's all these other segments, right. So, you know, a recent segment is natural wine, which really started the revolution against this big brand industrialization wine and which also has sort of values attached to it. It aligns with an anti capitalist mood. So this isn't just about the wine itself. It's also about who makes it and why. And then there's a whole lot of what you might call artisanal wines whose winemakers might, might use some interventions in the wineries here and there. But you know, what they focus on is how the wines are made, how the vines are farmed. You know, that's a really important part of it. So in these Wines, variation is a virtue, not a flaw.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And we're kind of edging into sort of wine as identity territory, I guess there. So where you choose products according to your values as the consumer, and I guess that's a completely different job for a brand. So it no longer sort of simply selling a drink. It's. It's effectively helping people to express something about themselves to themselves and to others.
[00:22:07] Speaker A: That's right. So sidebar about this, though, just tangent. There is some evidence that organically farmed grapes produce better wines that win more awards more consistently. And it may be, I read one paper that because the grapes aren't as protected and so they have to produce more polyphenols and those other compounds to protect themselves against the weather and against the insects, and those are the compounds that make wine more complex and interesting.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Well, there you go, Felicity. Every day is a school day. I've learned something new. Thank you for sharing that.
And talking of the different type, excuse me, different types of wine that you were. We get to, I guess we get to the fine wine bit, which is what sometimes can go into the level of kind of investment grade wine, because it can be, obviously, you know, the idea being it's purchased and then resold later at a profit. But this is where I, where I think things get really interesting because we're now, we're moving away from, from wine as a drink and we're moving more into wine as a symbol. So as I was just sort of inferring earlier, this is where we get self actualization, perhaps even more than the taste.
[00:23:10] Speaker A: Yeah, look, I'm going to, I'm going to agree with that and we should talk about that. But I'm going to put the taste thing with some caveats. I mean, generally the wines, especially the fine wines which command prices, they do so because what Jamie Goode calls the community of taste, have judged them to be very good wines over a very, very long period of time. So, you know, 100 years or 200 years ago, people were commenting on how remarkably beautiful the taste. So taste is absolutely part of it for many people. But yes, but yes, I think you're talking about the Veblen effects. Do you want to talk about what that is?
[00:23:45] Speaker B: Oh, okay. Thank you. My pleasure. So, yes, this is the insight that demand for a luxury product actually increases as the price goes up because the higher price sort of enhances the product's prestige. So it comes from Thorstein Veblen, who coined the phrase conspicuous consumption. So he was an economist, sociologist, social critic. Did Loads of things.
And basically whose ideas remain really influential in marketing and consumer behavior and luxury branding even today. Because although he wrote like over a century ago, many of his concepts explain why people buy premium products. So things like wine and whiskey and fashion and watches, etc.
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Yeah, so. So his point is that conspicuous consumption is spending that exist to be seen rather than to be useful. So in this world, wine collecting is a textbook fable. And good, because you're often dealing with very scarce products, that it makes no sense whatsoever to spend huge amounts of money on something that is a consumable basically.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
And this is where you get the sort of self actualization bit.
Put in other words, you're sort of showing off to yourself as much as to anyone that's watching.
[00:25:02] Speaker A: Can I just interject. I've just had this idea.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: Well, okay.
[00:25:06] Speaker A: No, I was reading. I was reading the other day about cultures that engage in wealth destruction and republic. Wealth destruction. And it's a way of showing that you're a member of the community. And because it has to be a communal thing, maybe when you open that bottle of Romanee Conti, what you're engaging in is wealth destruction that forms community. I've just. I've just thought of that right now. Yeah.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Cause I was thinking about that as you were talking or as we were just talking, because it, you know, once you've consumed the product, it's got.
I guess if we're talking about this sort of luxury and the collecting end, things like that. This is an area of wine that I suppose it needs critics then partly is what you were just saying earlier. So the scores, the sort of whole apparatus of prestige to maintain this effect. Or we can put it another way. It's where the story surrounding the wine effectively can become just as valuable as the wine itself.
[00:25:57] Speaker A: Yeah. And I mean, I think there's a lot of truth to. To this, but I want to. I want to interject it's not the whole truth about.
So this, this assumes that there are no taste qualities that set them apart from other. Other wines. But. But in general, yes, I completely agree with you.
[00:26:10] Speaker B: Okay. So that's. I guess that's what I'm saying.
We agree with each other again twice in one episode.
[00:26:16] Speaker A: We're gonna have to draw this to a close.
[00:26:17] Speaker B: I know.
So we saw this, I guess, this sort of Emperor's New clothes quality idea 50 years ago, didn't we? To two this year. So in the 1976 judgment.
[00:26:31] Speaker A: Oh, luly. Oh, Lulu. You're not calling this Empress. New clothes are You. So, okay, so context. I've been to California four times this year, and each time, the noise around the Judgment just got louder and louder. So why don't we. Why don't we explain what happened? Do you want to take it away?
[00:26:45] Speaker B: Okay, so just on the podcast, Winemakers Podcast that I appeared on three weeks
[00:26:50] Speaker A: ago, everyone,
[00:26:53] Speaker B: they were also. The winemakers on the podcast who I was chatting with were also saying, when are we in California going to stop talking about the Judgment of Paris? And they decided they couldn't do it till 2027. But they were all, I say, getting a little fed up with it.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: But anyway, everybody on outside California, what was the Judgment of Paris?
[00:27:12] Speaker B: So the judgment of Paris was. So Stevens Barrier, British wine merchant based in Paris, wanted the French wine trade to try Californian wines. So to get them interested, he put top Bordeaux and Burgundy wines into the mix against Californian wines and served all of the wines blind.
[00:27:30] Speaker A: Yes. And importantly, let's not leave Patricia Gallagher out of this. She originally tasted the wines, and she convinced Spiria to try them, and then she went and sourced all the wines and got them to Paris, which was a really difficult thing to do back in those days.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. And this tasting was kind of considered an oddity. So there was only one journalist there, George Tabor of Time magazine.
So he was the one that wrote a tiny article about the fact that the French judges ranked the Californian wines above the French ones.
You know, like a Napa Cabernet above Bordeaux first groves Napa Chardonnay above top Burgundy, et cetera.
[00:28:06] Speaker A: That's right. And apparently, the story goes, the judges tried to take their scorecards back when they realized what they'd done. They were so appalled that they'd rated the California wine so highly. I know.
[00:28:17] Speaker B: No wonder they were worried, because the story really shows the entire sort of apparatus of prestige can be stripped away effectively in one afternoon. And underneath, it was just kind of a liquid in a glass being judged on its own merits once, perhaps.
[00:28:31] Speaker A: Okay, disagreement, Time. I disagree that that's what it was. Okay, so it didn't prove that all wines are equally as good as one another. It showed that there are other great terroirs in the world besides those in France. So many, many regions in the US since have tried to chase Napa, which is where the wines came from, without success, because it turns out that Napa has some of the best climactic and geographic conditions for winemaking anywhere in the world.
So all the tasting proved was that France didn't have a monopoly on Great
[00:28:58] Speaker B: sight, but isn't exactly the point. Nobody's saying those French wines weren't exceptional.
The tasting didn't clearly didn't destroy quality, but it separated, I guess, quality from prestige. So the surprise was that everyone assumed that the French wines had to be better and exposed just how much of our kind of confidence in fine wine came from reputation and expectation before anyone had even taken their first taste. Do you think they had to wait 42 minutes, by the way?
[00:29:28] Speaker A: Yeah, there's some, there's something wrong with your argument. I'm just trying to unpack what it is.
You know, reputation's not just a made up thing. Like when you walk into the Louvre and before you've even seen the Mona Lisa, you think it's, you know, you think it's going to be amazing.
It's because it is amazing and has been over time. But anyway, look, what I do is I'd say what that tasting did was it separated reputation from evidence on that particular day. So France went on to keep producing extraordinary wine wines, but Bordeaux didn't suddenly become, you know, half price or mediocre overnight.
[00:30:03] Speaker B: No, no, absolutely. And I, I, yeah. So I, I think that's why I think the judgment of Paris is actually so fascinating because it didn't prove prestige was fake. It proved what we could put it, that prestige shouldn't be substituted for tasting potentially. So instead of the piche, you know, we were talking about the cooperative wines earlier, different type of wine being left alone as a completely kind of joyful thing in the whole category, I think has kind of absorbed the idea that the correct way to relate to wine is with a sort of kind of reverence.
So it's almost as if the trade has decided it was selling a, I don't know, like a religious experience with a small R, when most people actually just wanted most of the time, kind of just social joy experience.
[00:30:53] Speaker A: Okay, so that's a very unfortunate choice of words because for much of wine's history it was, it was part of the religious.
[00:30:59] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, okay, exactly.
[00:31:00] Speaker A: So. And that's part of why wine has always had a special aura around it that other beverages haven't.
[00:31:06] Speaker B: Okay, I'm now conceding to you on that history point. Yes. Third agreement of the episode potentially. So wine absolutely has deeper cultural and religious. You're right to pull me up on that roots kind of more than any other drink. But my question is whether we've mistaken that inheritance for a rule book and how basically on how every bottle should be experienced today.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: Yeah, I will, I Will say, you know, it's actually something. Nigel Groening from Felton Road told me once that, you know, they're a biodynamic. And he said he's never seen people as happy as the day they're out stirring things and burying things. And he said he'd understood how important. He'd finally understood how important ritual was for humans and how happy they made them. And so, you know, I think rituals can enrich an experience as well as intimidate people.
[00:31:53] Speaker B: Yeah. Again, incoming agreement. I do. Yeah, I agree with you.
[00:31:58] Speaker A: So what's your opinion about ritual, Lily?
[00:32:00] Speaker B: My issue isn't with ritual. It's with assuming ritual is the default setting. So what I'm suggesting, I guess, is that wine has become imperialist. So the, the principle of fine wine got applied to the piche on the table. And that's when you get to the 42 minute lecture in a room where people just wanted to, you know, experience joy in the occasion with, most important, permission to actually taste the wine.
[00:32:26] Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, given this was obviously a terrible experience. But didn't you say these were extraordinary wines? These weren't pitchy? I've come across that word before.
I don't think you've proved that this is inherent feature of wine. Right, but rather than go over my same point endlessly, let's talk about wine as the hero of the occasion rather than as a supporting actor. So what you're talking about, the tasting that you talked about, a vertical tasting of a genuinely great wine is culturally closer to going to an art gallery than going, going to, you know, watching something on Netflix and, and treating it with a bit of reverence isn't snobbery, it's respect for what's on offer.
[00:33:01] Speaker B: Okay, I have to call you on this one. Call me.
[00:33:04] Speaker A: Go. Go on, go.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: Yeah, go, go, go. Because I think what's actually going on is the wine industry is confusing seriousness, reverence, as you said, with importance. So the logic runs bear with if it's complex, it must be serious. If it's serious, it must be authoritative.
If it's authoritative, people should defer to it. And deference is what sells at the high end. So in summary, complexity equals seriousness, equals authority, equals sales. And I think that's the kind of chain people producers believe in.
[00:33:41] Speaker A: But now you have to explain why is it that art or other cultural goods are allowed to command reverence, but a handmade product that is produced once in a particular year and which will never taste the same ever again, Men can't be treated the Same way.
[00:33:54] Speaker B: But. Okay, to clarify, I'm not saying it can't. Of course it can. Someone deserves exactly that kind of attention. Just as some films deserve to be watched in silence rather than, you know, on your iPad, on the plane. But my issue is that we've taken. We're taking. Maybe taken is too strong a word. We are taking the behavior that belongs in the art gallery and exported it kind of into the pub, the restaurant, the barbecue. So we're acting as though every bottle of win, not every many bottles of wine kind of deserve the seminar before anyone's allowed to enjoy it.
But I also think you've slipped into an assumption I don't agree with.
[00:34:35] Speaker A: I have not. I have not explained yourself, Lily.
[00:34:38] Speaker B: Yes, you have. Okay. I have. So. Okay. Oh, God, you're really putting me on to defend myself here. But then I keep going back at you, so it's my own fault anyway. Let's roll with it. Respect only exists if you analyze something.
[00:34:51] Speaker A: So I never say something like that, but carry on.
[00:34:55] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. O. Okay. Fair.
I can stand, for example, and admire a beautiful sunset without clearly understanding anything about the physics of light.
I can be deeply moved by a piece of music without knowing anything about music theory. I can have an incredible meal without needing the chef to tell me all about every ingredient and technique. So enjoyment can in itself be a kind of form of respect. In fact, I'd argue that's exactly what wine is for most of the time. But the industry's confused paying attention with appreciation. I think. I think that's one of the biggest strategic mistakes we've made. We've designed experiences that demonstrate expertise over creating enjoyment. And because I know you won't let me get away with this one, I'm making grand statements. I calm bearing evidence. Felicity.
[00:35:46] Speaker A: No, no, I. I mean, I actually agree with you about the idea of showing off expertise. I think that is a real Achilles heel. But. But. Go on, Cat, carry on.
[00:35:55] Speaker B: There's a statistician and winemaker called Robert Hodgson. Hodgson. I think that's how you pronounce it. Yeah. Who ran an experiment on judges or. So this is on wine judges at the California State Fair Wine competition. So one that's one of the big ones. So he gave each judge the exact same wine three times in this in the same blind flight without telling them.
[00:36:18] Speaker A: Okay. This is a very well known experiment. And it's stick. That's often used to beat wine riders. So what happened is that only 1 in 10, 10 judges scored consistently across all three pores. So the results Were basically statistically no better than somebody guessing.
[00:36:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that's the bit I find interesting. Not because it proves exports experts are frauds. That's not what we're saying here, but it absolutely doesn't. But because it shows expertise, I guess, is much messier than perhaps we'd like to believe. So we're often asking consumers to defer to the authority of experts, but that isn't nearly, I would say, as kind of black and white as we may present it.
[00:36:57] Speaker A: Well, I think that's true in all areas of expertise, particularly cultural areas. But going back to that experiment, I think what it showed is that wine competitions themselves are basically flawed rather than white wine, is that the critics don't have, you know, consistent taste. Because I've done my fair share of these over the last 20 years, and I can tell you that you get a minute or two to judge between 50 and 90 wines in a single day. Yeah. And so, you know, imagine if you were being asked to judge cheesecake. Are some cheesecakes better than walnuts? Absolutely. Are some bakers geniuses while others are terrible? Absolutely. Could you spot the geniuses if you were handed 50 to 90 cheesecakes to taste one day? And no, you couldn't. And then you have the problem that some of those judges are sitting there thinking about their own baking methods, and then others are thinking about how they sell it to their customers. And so each judge is working off different criteria to an impossible, you know, tasting standards.
[00:37:51] Speaker B: Oh, Felicity, do you know, now you've mentioned that. Do you know where we could apply to become cheesecake judges? I'd really like to do that. And, you know, I think I'd be really good at the, at the cheesecake lemon subcategory.
[00:38:08] Speaker A: You think she would. And I hope that somebody listening to this puts you immediately on the Country Women's association, because I want you to taste 50 lemon cheesecakes and see how you got it.
[00:38:18] Speaker B: Okay, you're on. Anybody wants me?
[00:38:22] Speaker A: She does jams as well.
[00:38:24] Speaker B: I'm not so good at jams.
[00:38:25] Speaker A: No.
[00:38:25] Speaker B: Lemon cheesecake I would definitely be better at, I reckon. I don't know. Anyway, I don't. Back to the study. I don't think I, I don't think the study says quality doesn't exist. I, I, I think it certainly is often overstated, and I think probably that's the important distinction.
[00:38:42] Speaker A: Do you want to, do you want to unpack that a bit?
[00:38:44] Speaker B: Okay. Okay. So consumers feel there's only, only one correct answer, you know, and, and even the experts don't consistently agree on that. I guess you're kind of creating this idea of anxiety where you didn't need to create it. So that's the opposite of what great communication should do. So great communication should reduce anxiety. That's sort of the point of it.
[00:39:06] Speaker A: But hang on a second. Lots of film critics give different scores to the same film. That doesn't give people anxiety. They just think, well, I'll go with this critic that I like. Yeah.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: But it also, I think there's something about the culture of wine which implies that if you don't get it as a consumer you're tasting, you don't experience it in the same way as the experts, then there's something wrong with you. So there's another piece of research. Bear with that. I really love. So an economist called Orly Ashenfelter, who not only good name or.
[00:39:42] Speaker A: No, I'm admiring the name.
[00:39:43] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I instantly, I think, has one of the best names in economics, by the way, of all the people that I read papers and books of. Anyway, despite that, or is in because of that, potentially, he has built a model that predicted Bordeaux vintage quality so remarkably accurately. And basically all he did was look at rainfall and growing season temperature, which. Interesting.
Back to what I was saying at the beginning about, about the taste of the wines in my 42 minute waiting experience. But go on. Sorry I interrupted.
[00:40:16] Speaker A: I actually remember that because at the time Robert Parker was incandescent about it. He called the whole idea absurd or even immoral.
[00:40:22] Speaker B: Okay, immoral. That's really strong for a spreadsheet.
[00:40:26] Speaker A: Yeah, well, these, these systems always get this response. I remember there was one, I don't know if it's still running. It's called Saturnalia. And it used satellite data to predict vintage quality before the grapes were picked. And I remember every time I brought it up, people would just be in an uproar. But I think, I think what this proves is that machines can crunch data more accurately than human beings who have pallet fatigue. It doesn't challenge the idea that there is such a thing as quality and complexity.
[00:40:51] Speaker B: So as they say in politics, Felicity, with the greatest of respect, that's like,
[00:40:58] Speaker A: that's like saying, you know how courageous it means you're about to lay into me.
It's the highest insult with the greatest. Okay, so go with the greatest of respect.
[00:41:08] Speaker B: And here, here I think you and to be others, okay, maybe are misunderstanding my argument. So I'm not anti expert, I'm anti expert culture making ordinary people feel like they need Permission to enjoy wine.
[00:41:26] Speaker A: Okay, look, I agree with that, and I think there is some of that in wine, but I also think you've done a bait and switch from the beginning. So you've argued that wine is somehow boring, that we've made win boring because of boring tastings. And then the critics are unreliable. Those. Those things aren't proof that wine is boring.
[00:41:43] Speaker B: I actually, I think it's. I think it's exactly the same argument because both come from the same underlying belief that wine has sort of one correct interpretation and that someone else is there basically to tell you that.
[00:41:58] Speaker A: Well, you see, all of this is, you know, all of this is very culturally specific. I. I don't think you've proved this. So there. Look, there are lots of lousy tastings. I have sat through my.
But, you know, I live in a. I live in a wine town in Germany, and every so often, there are wine fairs and you go out and you see them, and people are buzzing with excitement about it. They're running around trying different wines. They're having a great time. So it's all about context.
[00:42:22] Speaker B: Yeah, so. So agree. So let's just. Look, let me try and make this practical, because otherwise, I know it risks sounding all a bit theoretical, which is where I'm going at the moment. So when I talk about bringing more. More joy, for example, into wine.
So I'm not talking about, by the way, here, dumbing down wine. I'm just talking about kind of changing how we invite people into it.
[00:42:46] Speaker A: So you have to.
[00:42:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So a case study. Do you want case study?
[00:42:52] Speaker A: Yeah. Gone.
[00:42:53] Speaker B: Okay. Chicken wine.
[00:42:55] Speaker A: All right. You're gonna have to say the name of it in French, because I can't do it. Well, it's the cruise with a label that looks like it's got a painting of a chicken on it.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: Was it it called La Vieille Ferme? Did I do that?
[00:43:05] Speaker A: Did I sound like I was the one? The chicken wine?
[00:43:09] Speaker B: Yeah, I had to concentrate really hard there.
So, yeah, it's the brand that UK consumers nicknamed because they genuinely couldn't pronounce it properly.
And instead of being embarrassed, it's rapidly risen to become the fifth biggest wine brand in the UK by volume. Felicity. It's grown over 40% in both volume and value over the past couple of years, while most brands in the UK market have been going backwards. Seriously. So what's fascinating is that consumers completely ignored it, ignored the sort of intended brand cues and invented one of their own. And instead of fighting that, the nickname became part of the brand's success with a smile on its face. So metaphorically speaking, I will point out
[00:43:56] Speaker A: that this is a wine that exists at the commercial end of the market. It's typically not the wine that people line up to do wine tastings of. I mean, you know, absolutely human. Reverence can, can coexist. Right. You can find wines that are fun and so on. But I still think, I still think there's a significant segment of wine that deserves to be treated with care.
[00:44:15] Speaker B: Yeah, care 100 care. Yes. I would still battle a little bit on reverence. No. So care is giving people the information they actually want and inform they can use and letting them enjoy it. Reverence, I would say, is more kind of like the back to the religious sort of standing in a pulpit and making people feel stupid if they, I don't know if they taste cherry. And instead of the mandated plum. So I've sat through the exact tasting room hell moment. I'm sure you have as well, glasses lined up, somebody sort of standing opposite you going, what do you think? Do you like it? And there's kind of no correct answer. But that doesn't involve, but you know, kind of performing Connorship.
[00:44:58] Speaker A: Connoisseurship.
[00:45:00] Speaker B: Connoisseurship. Sorry.
[00:45:03] Speaker A: Look at, look at. No. Okay, so now I think we've gone off in another direction as well. I think what you're talking about, why people can be terribly patronizing. You know, there's, and it's true, there's lots and lots of wine people who have a lot of hard won knowledge and they want to, they want to share it, but at the same time they want admiration for their hard won knowledge. Right? Yeah, yeah. It comes down to, again, you know, which, which type of wine are you talking about? Because there's absolutely a place for reverence. If you handed me a wine, and this did happen once in my life, if you handed me a wine that came from the last bottle of a 1915 plain vintage, I would absolutely argue it demands reverence. And there are wines out there like this. Now, should you be reverent about a commercial wine off the supermarket shelf? I don't think anybody's asking for that.
[00:45:46] Speaker B: Yeah, but if we were all being served a hundred year old wines, you know, I might agree. But I think you've kind of just made my point for me there, Felicity. So the examples we keep reaching for, you keep reaching for are the kind of, you know, the examples of the rarest wine in the world. And most people don't drink those wines.
[00:46:06] Speaker A: Yeah, but I don't think most people go to tastings of the chicken wine. And. And when they do, I think what we're talking about is just terrible presenters.
[00:46:13] Speaker B: Yeah. And. Okay, so there is a wine stock. I'm going to do a tangent. There is wine stock happening on Clapham Common, opposite my house this weekend. Loads of marquees, loads of people.
Loads of people there just to have fun, doing, enjoying, tasting to your line that you keep using commercial, special wine. That's the reality of how wine can be enjoyed.
[00:46:39] Speaker A: Well, if they're doing it on Club and Colin, then they're already doing it. So you've come full circle. You see, I don't know. I think. All right, so tell me more about.
Tell me more about my presenter problem.
[00:46:53] Speaker B: Okay, so I can't believe this is me saying this, because this feels like a U line. I think we might have switched, but. But I think we're back to culture.
[00:47:02] Speaker A: What, so you can't. No, I'm sorry, You can't take that?
[00:47:05] Speaker B: I can't take it.
[00:47:06] Speaker A: No.
[00:47:07] Speaker B: Okay. Yeah, but don't, don't worry, I'm about to disagree with you again. So if one person gives a boring tasting, that's a presenter problem. If hundreds of people give tastings again, it becomes the kind of cultural norm. So, Howard, I can't pronounce his surname.
[00:47:23] Speaker A: Moskovitz. I think you're talking Moskovitz.
[00:47:25] Speaker B: Thank you for helping me out there. So the market researcher who famously proved that there was no single perfect spaghetti sauce, so he spent his career, you know, a fair thing to do for a career career, showing that people don't have one shared definition of the perfect flavor, in this case, you know, kind of spaghetti sauce. But they cluster around different preferences. So the point is, there is no one correct answer in that tasting room because there never was one. Because the, you know, correct palette in a room to begin with, because there are multiple flavors.
[00:47:59] Speaker A: No, absolutely. And I think we could. We could do a whole episode on, you know, anosmia is what you can taste, what you can't, how people have different perceptions of the same thing. And I, I completely agree that nobody should leave a tasting feeling stupid. But, you know, that is the worst version of the whole thing. And I guess what I'm defending is the idea that some things are worthy of attention. The idea that some wines are closer to cultural objects and they do demand a bit of wonder and a bit of ceremony.
[00:48:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I agree.
I agree that. That wonders that, you know, the idea a bit of a. Of wonder exists.
I think we disagree. Perhaps it's about who gets to kind of gatekeep that. Yeah, yeah, I think maybe. So let me offer one more piece of evidence. We'll find a one about the question of reverence.
[00:48:44] Speaker A: I'm all ears.
[00:48:45] Speaker B: Okay, so you know the, you know the well known blind tasting study that found non experts actually prefer cheaper wine, while a separate brain scan study. So another piece of evidence found that same wine labeled at a higher price lit up people's pleasure senses more in their bodies.
[00:49:05] Speaker A: I hate this study. This study is also used as another stick to beat the industry. So it's always used to suggest either there's no such thing as quality or that wine experts are all charlatans. But here's the thing, right? I really love opera. If you took most people to a Wagner opera, they would be paying you money to get out of there about, after about five minutes, right?
[00:49:23] Speaker B: They'd be like, where's your, I might be with them.
[00:49:25] Speaker A: Here's my credit card.
[00:49:26] Speaker B: Gave them the emergency exit. I know them well.
[00:49:29] Speaker A: But that doesn't tell you anything about Wagner, right? So for most music critics, they would say that Wagner represents the pinnacle of what is humanly possible in opera. But it takes you time and effort. Some people like it from the start, but for most people you're gonna have time and effort to appreciate it. And that's true whether it's art or music or wine or Shakespeare or whatever it is. You know, there are some products which need to be approached in a way different. Different way, yeah.
[00:49:56] Speaker B: So I, I, that A, that's a really good analogy. So yes, that was very good, thank you. But B, you've been drinking. No coffee, Any coffee. We're recording in the morning.
But B, I think my, my issue is that too much the wine trade behaves as though every bottle is the kind of bar in your analogy there that requires study and endurance rather than recognizing the most wine is there just to make an evening better. But look, there's room for both.
So this is where we could bring in people like Rory Sutherland, System 1, Ehrenberg Bass, all the kind of marketing practitioner gurus of our day who will say sort of similar things in this direction. People don't remember information. They remember how something made them feel.
[00:50:42] Speaker A: That's that famous Maya Angelou quote, you know, people don't remember what you've said, they remember how you made them feel. Meal.
[00:50:47] Speaker B: Yes, exactly, exactly.
And that's, you know, it. I guess what I'm getting to is if we're talking about tastings, it's how people remember the tasting. They don't necessarily. They might do, but not necessarily remember the 19th century founder or soil as you were talking about earlier. They remember the experience kind of what stayed with them, you know, was it 42 minutes waiting to taste the first wine. So the memory that got in, that's what's kind of got encoded. And that's the tragedy, I think, because the presenter didn't lose my attention in this tasting through lack of knowledge. They lost it by forgetting that the experience was part of what I was there for.
[00:51:25] Speaker A: Yeah, no, I mean, it just. It sounds miserable, to be honest. I will point out that you and I have wine colleagues who would have made notes and they would have come out bursting with excitement about the granitic soils.
[00:51:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:51:37] Speaker A: You know, so it sounds to me like, you know, not only did you have a very, you know, thoughtless presenter, but there was also an extreme mismatch between the lecture and the audience. But, you know, that also happens all the time and not just in wine.
[00:51:49] Speaker B: So I think that's one of the most. Most important things we've said on this podcast today. Felicity.
[00:51:54] Speaker A: One of the. One of the many important.
[00:51:56] Speaker B: Sorry, yes, sorry. One of the many important things. So, yeah, absolutely, there was a mismatch. And by the way, I did actually make up my own scoring system and wrote tasting notes and did score the wine.
[00:52:06] Speaker A: What's your scoring system?
[00:52:07] Speaker B: So I had a score, I had like three different columns of 10, which is. Was about flavor, was about whether I would buy it and whether I thought it was good value for money.
[00:52:21] Speaker A: Well, do you know what my scoring system is? It's my private scoring system. I would just have, like, did I like it or not? Does the wine work? Is it. Is it balanced? And I'd have ticks. I just go, yes and no. And I told that to a wine writer from Australia and he said that his system is yes, no, and F off.
[00:52:38] Speaker B: Only an Australian critic could have.
Only an Australian critic.
Yeah. But I think the.
I think that's exactly the kind of good that. What good strategy tries to avoid. Kind of taking us back on course. So the wine didn't fail. As I said, the audience didn't fail. The experience was. Was really what failed. And. And I guess the. The data or evidence in this area says that that's sort of the backwards way of looking about.
[00:53:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, it's clearly a problem. And I would suggest the boring presenter who didn't notice that people were getting restless after, you know, five minutes, much less 42. Probably. Probably bores the pants off people in other as well.
[00:53:17] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, exactly. But again back to the sort of the, the marketing sort of gurus of our era and what they're saying about this. I guess this is why I'm taking us into the idea of sort of joy and potentially humor in wine.
So if you look at adverts for example, so System1 is a company that can predict advert success because they have this huge database and they, they measure existing and potential adverts on emotion and they find that immune amusement is one of the strongest predictors of long term growth. So they're the funniest quartile of UK ads is roughly five times more efficient at converting media spend to action to purchase than the least funny because it's generating an emotional response. And that's the kind of the bit people miss which is humor isn't there just to entertain, it's there because it helps you remember something.
[00:54:15] Speaker A: Yeah, but I will just point out that the topic thesis has now moved from you know, we make wine boring to here's how to sell more wine. And those are not the same two problems.
[00:54:25] Speaker B: Well, I don't know, I think they're exactly the same problem though, aren't they? Because advertising is simply one expression of how the industry thinks about itself. So if we consistently create experiences that are forgettable or intimidating but emotionally flat, we don't just make wine boring, we make it harder for people to remember to choose to come back. And at the the day end of the end of day we want to sell stuff. So strategy decides what role you want to play in people's lives. The marketing bit, the advertising simply makes that strategy visible.
[00:54:55] Speaker A: So this is a tangent but I do think we live in a more risk averse society general, particularly around speech codes, you know, people are a lot more cautious about what they say. I could go on a rant about this but I won't because I won't derail the subject. So go back to talking about effectiveness.
[00:55:09] Speaker B: Okay, so example, so on the my Instagram feed just yesterday, okay so I saw an advert that was a perfect illustration of this idea of connection, emotion, joy.
So it was an advert for a brand called Folk, which is a premium English rose I think, selling for around £20 a bottle. And the headline was Folk is made for four friends.
And then underneath it basically had what looked like a handwritten note and it said always say yes to a quick 30 minute ros with your bestie because 90, that 90 minutes could be the best six hours of your life.
[00:55:49] Speaker A: Okay, slight, slightly complicated message, but I. I get it.
[00:55:54] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. And when you see it written down, it makes more sense than me reading it out loud. But the point there was this. Isn't laugh out loud funny, clearly, but it puts a smile on your face. When I saw it, I had a smile on my face because it made me thinking of sharing a glass of wine rose, potentially, with my besties, with my friends.
So, most importantly, we notice what the advert's doing there. It's not talking about acidity or clones or the vineyard. It's selling a moment. So friendship is the hero and wine is the enabler, and that's what people are actually buying into. So I've got more.
[00:56:30] Speaker A: Okay, well, you've got more is yours. Go ahead.
[00:56:32] Speaker B: I've got more. So, Archer Ruse, the premium branded canned wine in the US oh, yes.
[00:56:39] Speaker A: Founded by the very interesting Marian Lightner Waldman. And everybody should listen to the interview I did with her on the Drinks Insider podcast.
[00:56:46] Speaker B: Oh, now who's promoting her own podcast? Yes, I completely agree, Felicity. It's one of my favorite episodes. Oh, no, genuinely, it really is a good episode, and I thoroughly recommend, as I've done before, people to listen to it. She's fantastic, isn't she?
[00:57:00] Speaker A: And she is. And everybody should listen to. What was the one you did in the Sonoma?
[00:57:04] Speaker B: The Winemakers Winemakers podcast.
[00:57:06] Speaker A: Yeah, everyone should listen to that one.
[00:57:07] Speaker B: Thank you. Promo's over. So, anyway, so Archer Ruse has one of my favorite ever wine advertisements, and I think it's a beautiful blend of gentle humor, which elicits sort of an emotional connection.
[00:57:22] Speaker A: Do you want to talk about that? That's an advert. I assume you're talking about with Elizabeth Banks, the actor and also co owner of Archer.
[00:57:29] Speaker B: Yes, she is now. So I am. So the actress advert basically shows Elizabeth Banks basically shown living a bit like a slob, which is kind of amusing because she's a glamorous actress. And you see her sort of in pajamas and slippers and sort of baggy T shirts sort of slobbing out, you know, around Marian's. What supposedly is Marian the owner of Archer Ruse's house?
[00:57:53] Speaker A: Yeah, look, let's just. Let's just go back to the question. So I just want to say, you know, the question was, do we make wine boring? And now the question has become, could we do better, more impactful advertising? Right.
So it's casting it all in commercial terms, and those are very different questions. So, yes, it would be nicer to see better in marketing. So I'm not. I'm not disagreeing with that, but they are different questions.
[00:58:14] Speaker B: Okay, again, I don't think they're that different a question, actually, because advertising, as I said, is simply one expression of how the industry sees itself.
Strategy decides what role you want to play in people's lives, and marketing, as I said earlier, brings that to life. So if your underlying belief is that wine is something to be admired more than enjoyed, that kind of philosophy shows up everywhere in tastings, black labels, accelerador, et cetera, et cetera. And that's why I'm talking about Archer Roos, because they've not just made, you know, a funny advert.
What they're presenting is a different vision for what role wine plays and how it can show up.
[00:58:54] Speaker A: I do agree with you that a lot, you know, humour would be absolutely welcome. But let's get practical. If a winery rang you tomorrow, Luly, and said, fix our tasting room and how we talk to people, what would you do?
[00:59:05] Speaker B: Okay, so first thing. Okay, first thing. Separate trade communication from consumer communication. So properly so. Yeah, yeah. So trade to trade talk has, quite rightly, you know, it's all about authenticity, reliability, fish technique, detail, quality. Because. Because the intermediary needs to kind of have that to sell it on onwards. But that. And. And it is super important. But I think often the mistake is then applying that same logical model to the person who just wants a nice glass of wine, you know, to share with friends whenever it might be.
[00:59:45] Speaker A: Oh, yeah. And don't use the same website marking copy as all of your neighbors. So a couple of years ago, a client asked me to analyze some of their California competitors and it turned out they were all using the same. The same words and ideas. It was wild how homogeneous it was. Everyone using AI. It's got 10 times worse.
[01:00:02] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. I mean, that's a really good point to bring up.
And looking at the copy, you know, it's such a good discipline, isn't it? And, you know, and a cheaper fix than. Than many things that wineries, particularly dtc. DTC wineries could do.
[01:00:20] Speaker A: Oh, no. It's one of the things you could do in an afternoon and you wouldn't even have to hire anybody. Just go and. Look, Felicity, I sound like this. Then they should hire you to do it. Yeah, or hire me. I'll come and. I'll come and sort you out.
[01:00:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Careful what you wish for. She'll definitely sort you out. But it'd be really good. Your copy will be superb if she does. Okay.
[01:00:42] Speaker A: Yeah. You'll get. You're getting noticed.
Whether you want it or not, you'll be noticed. Yeah.
[01:00:47] Speaker B: So second, so second thing on my list.
Build the wine round.
No, no, we were talking about that round so far. Not literally, I'm being facetious, but the principle is that whenever you're leading a tasting or you're interacting with your, your customers, your consumers, wherever it is, you know, think about how that interaction is going to work, what impact it's going to have on the memory and emotion of the people receiving it, rather than just this kind of monologue or I need to talk. Talk at you.
[01:01:19] Speaker A: Oh, do you know what? That would be me out. You know, I tell you what, the tastings that I hate the most in the world are the ones where you're in a room and all the producers are behind their own little tables and you have to walk around. So you have to go to a table man by some producer and you have to engage them in conversation while they pour you their wines. And then you go and do it another 20 times. I like the ones where you sit down and you don't have to do anything and they come and they pour wines for you and at the end, other people, people get to ask questions. That's the one that I vote for.
[01:01:47] Speaker B: So I'm wondering, we've did. We've decided. We've uncovered that I'm hugely impatient. Are we now uncovering that you're either A, antisocial or B, I was about
[01:01:57] Speaker A: to say lazy, but that's really.
[01:02:00] Speaker B: That's not good. I'd never imply that.
[01:02:03] Speaker A: No, no. Think of me as a. Think of me as a sponge soaking up information.
[01:02:06] Speaker B: Ah, okay.
[01:02:07] Speaker A: We'll put it right.
[01:02:08] Speaker B: Okay, we'll put it round another way, but I think what you're potentially doing there is taking my example a little bit too literally. So I'm not advocating for walk around tastings per se. I'm just talking about the idea of, of more engagement. So you, you can do that sitting down as easily as you can do that standing up. But may I remind you, Felicity, we are both not normal.
[01:02:33] Speaker A: I am.
[01:02:35] Speaker B: No, we're not. We are not. Believe you me. Because
[01:02:42] Speaker A: do you know what? I went to somebody's place when I was like, really young and after I left, I heard her husband say to her, I really like meeting all of your eccentric friends.
I was so offended.
You're not pleased? I think I'd be quite pleased to see you describ.
[01:02:59] Speaker B: Look, at least you're memorable. You're creating emotion. All those Things I've been talking about. You're not bland. See, this is.
[01:03:08] Speaker A: So tell me, tell me about normal. Tell me about normal people. Okay. Yes.
[01:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah. So we're not normal in the sense that we are trade people who nerd out about wine because. Because it's our job to do that and to understand that. So I'm talking about the normal people, the ones that actually buy the stuff. And by the way, that also includes premium and luxury consumers. I think there's so many, so much misinformation and luxury consumers are misunderstood. So in my ideal world, if we were talking about tasting, the present center would.
Would ask the room a genuinely engaging question, you know, with glass one, which would be served straight away, not, you know, notice the minerality. But look, a question like, who can you imagine drinking this with? Imagine if you are saddled tasting, immediately the room becomes part of the tasting instead of just listening.
[01:04:04] Speaker A: Yes, and I. I know you say I'm ignoring your argument, but I do you know what, what you for is you're asking for better presenters or people with speaker training, people like us who make everything really engaging.
But this dreary thing is so true of so many circumstances where people have to stand and speak because most people find speaking really frightening. I mean, how many terrible, terrible conference presentations have you sat through where the subject could have been fascinating, but the speaker made it sound like it was drilling teeth?
[01:04:39] Speaker B: Oh, many, many, many, many. And I again, you know, let them without sin and all the rest of it in presenting. But look, better presentations would help. But I. I still will go back to. I think it's bigger than that. It's about starting with the audience instead of the. Instead of the wine and making that kind of emotional and memorable connection.
And that's the different mindset, I guess I'm getting to.
[01:05:04] Speaker A: Okay, so here's my bug bit.
[01:05:05] Speaker B: Oh, you've got one.
[01:05:06] Speaker A: No, I've got one. The thing that really grinds my gears is sell it. Or staff who have learned a script who cannot tell whether the person in front of them wants to learn, just wants to buy their favorite, or is an actual expert.
[01:05:19] Speaker B: Good, now we're getting to your bugbears. Now we're getting somewhere. So that's exactly the same principle. So great. Communication starts with the person you're talking to, not the information you're desperate to deliver to them.
[01:05:32] Speaker A: Yeah, and I mean, I think what we're pointing out actually is this sector just doesn't invest very much in staff training. And this is across the board. You know, the number of companies whose salespeople have never had any sales training is remarkable.
[01:05:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And again, another agreement incoming. So I'll happily concede your earlier point too, as well. So maybe that's the fifth agreement of the episode, but there's absolutely a place for slowing down. I agree with you. I'm giving it. I'm. Yeah, giving a truly exceptional bottle the attention it deserves and. And sharing in that craftsmanship. But to clarify, my argument has never been against that. It's that we've kind of treated that as the default position when most wines and most occasions, it probably shouldn't be. So, enough of me, Felicity, what would you do?
[01:06:20] Speaker A: Well, first of all, I think it's this point that wine has different registers. So if you're running a winemaker dinner for collectors who've, you know, each paid thousands of dollars to be there, you need to take the wine very seriously, and you need to take the people around the table seriously. If you've got staff pouring at the cellar door, they need to be trained so that they can recognize that some people find trying multiple wines is over overwhelming. And some people are highly knowledgeable and want to explore everything on offer. And some people are probably people who are going to pay way more if you pull them the good stuff.
And this comes down to professional training, more or less. So how would you fix the world? How would you set it all to rights?
[01:06:57] Speaker B: Okay, well, I could answer that many ways, but in relation to the topic we've just been discussing, I guess wine doesn't. My key takeaway. Wine doesn't become less premium because people enjoy it more, if anything.
[01:07:16] Speaker A: That's a deep insight.
Unpack that a bit.
[01:07:21] Speaker B: Yeah. Okay. So if anything, enjoyment is kind of what creates this memory. And memory creates brands and engagement and. And that creates value. So to me, that's good for consumers, that's good for wineries, and that's good for wine overall. So that's where I would go.
[01:07:40] Speaker A: Everything. Everything you've said is fair enough. And I think, you know, I will. I will bang on about this. The ESS problem that we're having, which is always the problem in wine, is that wine isn't one thing and how you talk about it or how you deal with it depends on which wine segment you're talking about. And I think your. I think your complaint, which I think is actually true, and I'm going to concede it, is that people are always acting as though they're dealing with the fine wine segment rather than with the broader market.
Yeah.
[01:08:06] Speaker B: So when we put it like that. We don't actually disagree maybe as much as it's it's come across.
So my basic argument then is that not all wine, or we could say our basic premise is that not all wine should be treated like fine wine. Is that all right?
[01:08:22] Speaker A: Stop it right there. We're not going to agree with everything. I quite enjoy being your ideological opponent, but while I'm being conciliatory, I will also agree that something 42 minutes of vineyard, soil and weather is a bit much.
[01:08:36] Speaker B: Thank you. Even for an impatient person like me. Especially for an impatient person like me. So if any of our listeners have their own Hill moment, tasting story or their own version of the sofa in the round, please send your questions thoughts to a questionofdrinksmail.com.
You've been listening to A Question of Drinks, the podcast that explores why we drink, what we do, and we're here
[01:09:06] Speaker A: to answer your questions. If you want to know more about about anything drinks from the marketing history to the economic underpinnings to why this drink is popular and not that one,
[01:09:15] Speaker B: send us an email, send us any questions you'd like us to discuss, and quite frankly, the more random niche the better, and we'll have a go at answering them. We can be reached on a questionofdrinksmail.com that's a question of drinks all one wordmail.com and we would hear.
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