The Power of (Mis) Information
Written By: Dylan York on Mon, Dec 3rd 2007
BBC News. CNN. MSNBC. Fox. The Post, The Times...
All of the above are news outlets that the vast majority of the world turns to. Some people have their favorite "brand," while others are satisfied with content from the first provider their eyes or ears light upon. Still, others are skeptical and aware of certain biases as may pertain to certain political/moral issues or the like.
And as far as wine is concerned, who do you turn to?
Well of course to ClassicWines.com and hopefully my column, The Wine Mogul. But where to next? I think it safe to say that you are probably turning a good deal of your attention towards the more "mainstream" outlets of wine knowledge.
Why?
It could be because you've been reading Wine Spectator for years. Maybe you heard that Josh Raynolds of IWC fame loves a bottle of wine that you love, so you check out his "written palate" and find that you two were separated at birth. Or perhaps RP's picks have lined your pockets quite well in the past, so you follow him when it comes time to write checks for cellar stuffing.
Whatever your reason, those outlets are very powerful, and ultimately, flawed. Even the Wine Mogul is sometimes flawed when it comes to telling you what to drink - I am only human. Now what to buy and sell, that is a far more black and white, or should we say black and red matter.
I have the easiest of columns to write here, because my advice can be tracked against raw data, against good old indisputable math. If I say a case of 1982 Latour, in mint condition, in the original wooden case is a steal at x dollars, then you can check it to see if that is so.
But if I tell you a bottle of 1982 Latour tastes awful, or heavenly, of dull – how do you quantify that? Fact is you can't. It's all about taste.
But this isn't my point, my point is that these news outlets I mentioned above, are not too terribly concerned with anything but the most sensational of stories, or stories that happen to affect a larger demographic. CNN will bore you to tears about the cost of sweet crude, followed by video clips of depressed looking Joe Punchclocks shaking their heads at the amount of money it takes to fill up their Suburbans. But will CNN mention what happened last week in Nairobi? Only if there was a mushroom cloud, a dead Somebody, or any other means of grabbing attention.
So what about the wine mass-media? Are they looking for the absolute best? Are they looking for the unique and the odd, the off-the-beaten-path bottles that can enlighten and enrich? Well, only if they are 1) easily obtained in a highly populated western market 2) already well known 3) are an industry "force" (note: many will deny this, but we all recall the days when a certain Napa meritage would garner high scores and coincidentally held full page ads in certain wine glossies).
Remember what drives media to provide content: advertising dollars. If an outlet can claim x amount of readership, especially of a given coveted demographic, then they can ask for y amount of money per ad, per space, per printing/timeslot/webpage.
And is that wrong? No, it is the most feasible economic model for the publication to pursue – appeal to the largest audience, with the largest amount of "product" (i.e. reviews on wines that can be found countrywide) so you garner the largest reader base.
There is a caveat: you will oftentimes find reviews of wineries that produce only 400 cases of a given wine, however - and this is key - those wineries also have second labels that ride the coattails of those 400, to the tune of upwards of one hundred thousand cases.
So how do you find the oddball wines of a not-so-sexy region? How do you broaden your palate beyond the Top 40? How do you get past the Motor Trend Car of the Year being from one of the top five automakers, every single year?
You have to dig. And I have a shovel. Lets do some digging into some not so "spotlight" regions, some wines that you might laugh at.
I remember a lot of people laughing at some kid named Mark Cuban who was running around trying to sell stock in some start up called AudioNet. We all know of those stories. And I'm not promising huge returns, but shouldn't you know about "other markets" so as to round out the portfolio? To at least keep tabs on potential investments?
You know the answer. Oh and turkey and prosecco are ever so perfect together... even at 2am!
