They do they believe this crap (18 June)

Last year I penned a Snippet called Slack journalism or do they believe this crap. In it, I castigated the press and the wine industry for claiming, that because their wine won a trophy at the International Wine Challenge, it was the best of its type in the world. 

 

In that article I stated that winning a trophy at any wine show is always good news for the winery, but I'm becoming increasingly concerned by the amount of bovine manure being sprayed forth by both the wineries, and the press in relation to these wins. Kilikanoon was one of the wineries mentions as it had won the Riesling Trophy with its 2006 Mort's Block, at the International Wine Challenge.

 

After that appeared, in the Feedback Section, Nathan Waks CEO of Kilikanoon wrote, "I hope we didn't do the misleading here. We sent out a press release stating the facts- which have been turned into a story by I think AAP/Reuters, possibly combined with a release Taylor's may have made.

Our release clearly stated that we had won the award for the best Riesling (worldwide)- my brackets in the release. We would never make such an inflated claim! However, we are pretty pleased about the overall result."

 

Today I received a Media Release from Nathan Waks and it states:

"Oracle Best Shiraz worldwide again!
Kilikanoon is proud to announce the 2005 Oracle Shiraz from South Australia’s Clare Valley has won the trophy for Best Shiraz (worldwide) at the world’s biggest wine competition, the International Wine Challenge (London).

This competition, with its 400 judges and 9,000 blind tasted wines adds another dimension to Oracle’s impressive track record, which includes a similar Best Shiraz (worldwide) trophy at the (London) International Wine and Spirits competition for the 2001 Oracle....."

In one breath we have Nathan claiming he did not intend to mislead (by claiming it was the best in the world,) and now we have him issuing this release. Frankly, if he is not claiming its the best Shiraz in the world my grasp of the English language is far worse than I imagined. The word "worldwide" means "in the entire world."  Nathan is an educated man and a very smart cookie at that! I can not imagine he does not know what this word means, and how his use of it will be perceived.

 

This might look like good publicity for winery, but it lessens the credibility of the show system and does the winery no credit in the way the award had been publicised by the winery.  Its another example of the industry going for the "quick fix."  The problem with quick fixes is that when they eventually stop working, and they always do; and when that happens, there is a serious problem that needs to be addressed. If you want proof, just looked what happened, and is happening, in the US market. Some producers were "hooked on Parker points" and now many of those wineries have serious problems moving their wine, but that's another story.       

 

Nathan Waks is a man of immense integrity but sending out these releases does not add to that integrity. It cheapens it!. That's a shame.  

 

If you think I am being hard on Nathan, yes I am.  But as circumstance would have it, when the Media Release came in, I was working on the Tour Diary and was working on a very positive peace about another one of Waks's enterprises, Seppeltsfield. So I am not bagging him for the sake of it.  

 

I finished off the last Snippet on this subject with the following paragraph and its still valid, so will use it again.

Whilst marketing your product is great, it's about time the wineries, and the press, stop treating consumers like they are complete and utter bloody idiots and showed some respect for their consumers. Why not tell consumers the truth; this wine won a prestigious trophy in an international wine show. Is it that sufficient praise? Or in their heart of hearts, do the wineries realise that a trophy at a wine show means nothing, so they have to use bovine manure to sell their wine? This situation stinks, and it's about time wineries stopped relying on meaningless points and a lot of flatulent rhetoric to promote their wines.

I will get off my soap box now and get back to preparing Chapter Two of the Tour Diary !
 

From Brian: Wednesday 18 June

You obviously missed the 7:30 Report segment on Witchmount, whose 2004 Shiraz was crowned Best in the World at Syrah du Monde. I wonder if Kilikanoon were there?

 

TORB Responds:

Dunno Brian, but the release also stated "More recently the 2005 Oracle scored a gold medal at the 2008 Concours Mondial.

 

Feel free to submit your comments!

"  In that shows Shiraz segment, out of the 384 samples, 128 were awarded either Gold or Silver medals.  So not every child wins a prize, just 1 in 3. 

 

I loved Jeni Ports description of the Witchmont, "It is good, it is good. It's a modern Australian wine, there's lots of fruit there, it's a lovely wine." Talk about meaningless, innocuous waffle. I am surprised the word "nice" was not used, but then "good" and "lovely" represented three of the twenty word description. You could say the same thing about many of the "crowd pleasers" that have little character to distinguish them from the rest of the pack. And Wyndham Estate Bin 555 scored a gold at du Monde too - no vintage mentioned. I guess they don't think that's important. Nuff said!    

 

From Graeme Gee: Wednesday 25 June

 I'd concede that putting 'worldwide' in the heading is pushing it a bit, but I have no problem with the rest of the media release. Blame the London IWC for grandly titling the trophy 'Worldwide'. As far as I can see, Killikanoon have described exactly what the wine has won - even to the point of mentioning the number of wines in the show in the press release. No one reading it could imagine that every shiraz in the world was entered.

Anyway, doesn't the IWC only exist as a publicity-generating forum for the magazine and wineries? No-one's entering it for any other reason, surely?

 

TORB Responds:

You learn something new everyday! Bugger!! I was not aware that the Trophy was so grandly titled by the show itself, although that's not very surprising.    

 

Regarding your bloody cynical comments about the reasons wineries enter this competition, you must be wrong mate. Surely they enter so that they can find out how to improve their wines. That was one of the major reasons behind the agricultural show system ..... but hang on, this isn't an ag show is it! This is the show where approximately one wine in eighty wins a trophy.    

 

From Ian Hickman: Tuesday 8 July

 I really don't blame wineries for cashing in on show results like this in this cut-throat environment, especially when they grandly title these trophies as such. Despite copping a fair bit of stick about their relevance, it's still amazing just what some of wins can mean to sales - unfortunately Majella had already sold out all of its 2005 Cabernet before they could cash in (as usual) when the phone calls flooded in, while a local retailer sold what was a considerable number of cases well under two days after the result.

 

Similarly the same retailer had many cases of the 2005 Kellermeister Tempranillo for the good part of a year and couldn't sell a bottle - that all changed when it took out the consumer panel's best wine trophy at the Advertiser/Hyatt awards, an event that I thought might have a little local appeal and influence but not enough to result in everything statewide being sold in a similar rapid rush. The 2004 Gemtree Obsidian which took out the expert panel's best wine trophy at the same event sold out just as quickly - neither even had time to really publicise the results either, they sold out before that could even happen.

 

 

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