Wine Enthusiast magazine celebrates its 20th anniversary with the March 2008 issue and editor and publisher Adam Strum reflects on the changing market in “The Enthusiast Corner” column. He writes that
“I’d like to think Wine Enthusiast played an important part in helping to bring wine to the attention of the American public at large, and not just the elite, over these 20 years. Wine magazines, books and the rise of food television have all undoubtedly played a role in making America a wine drinking nation. Other factors abound: American cuisine at home and in fine dining restaurants underwent a renaissance, and wine naturally became an important part of that. News of wine’s health benefits enlarged its consumer base. But most responsible for the growth of wine is the incredible leap in terms of overall quality at the same time that wine became more affordable. How often does that happen? Name me one consumer product that can compare.”
I think he is right in all this. Wine’s vigorous growth in the United States is a complex phenomenon. Many factors have contributed to the rise in per capita consumption in the United States and other New World markets at the same time that wine drinking has fallen dramatically in the Old World. The wine media’s role may be an under-appreciated element of this phenomenon.
The Supermarket as Home Depot with Wine
My friend Patrick works the wine aisle at a local upscale supermarket and he constantly delights me with his original insights into consumer behavior. He sees cable TV’s influence everywhere, for example. People watch Trading Spaces or the home remodeling network HGTV, he says, and run out to Home Depot for wallpaper and remodeling supplies. A huge industry has been built around their media-driven passion to renovate and restore. People watch the Food Network, he says, and run to supermarkets for exotic ingredients — and the wine to go with them. Wine is scattered throughout the store, not just in the wine aisle, to make the idea of a sophisticated meal (one that would please the Barefoot Contessa) a convenient choice.
Wine, in other words, is a lifestyle product that is promoted by lifestyle media like cable TV and lifestyle magazines that encourage and enable consumers to develop adventurous, sophisticated, consumption-driven identities. I don’t mean this in a bad way, although I know it sounds pretty bad. It’s just a fact. The magazine racks at Borders are filled with lifestyle magazines. You probably read a couple of them yourself. Even serious newspapers like the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times now have thinly disguised weekend “lifestyle” sections. Don’t pretend you don’t know what I mean!
Wine Enthusiast is a particularly good lifestyle magazine — there is a reason it has lasted 20 years. One factor in its success is that globalization has helped the wine market expand, providing more choice at affordable prices. Mr. Strum writes that
“New regions such as Australia, New Zealand, Chile, South Africa and others new to a global industry muscled their way on to the world stage. Competition drove improved methods in the winery and the vineyard. Competition also drove prices down at the middle and lower tiers.
“The world wine map has been redrawn so dramatically in the past 20 years it’s almost unrecognizable. Back then, it consisted of France, Italy, Spain and, way off in the margins, California. Now you must include Oregon and Washington State, not to mention the other New World countries I mentioned above. Every state in the union now produces wine. Countries like China and India are ramping up production in numbers that boggle the western mind.”
Martha Stewart Wine
Globalization has certainly made wine more interesting and wine drinkers can appreciate the value and variety. It would be a mistake to think that the wine media are passive observers of this phenomenon, however. It is in their interest to promote the industry that they cover and to try to profit from every aspect of it. You aren’t surprised when cable television networks expand outside the box, are you? They sell advertisements on their programs along with videos of the shows, books, lectures and assorted types of lifestyle paraphernalia. Think Martha Stewart! (And yes, there really is a Martha Stewart wine — made by Gallo).
Wine critic publications do the same thing — they have adapted the Martha Stewart System to lifestyle wine. I will focus on Wine Enthusiast here because it is their anniversary, but they are not an unusual example. Wine Spectator, Decanter, Gambero Rosso and most of the others have commercialized the wine experience in the spirit of Martha Stewart.
Mr. Strum describes Wine Enthusiast’s expansion this way
“Wine Enthusiast, as a company, has evolved dramatically over the past 20 years, too. In addition to the success of our catalog and our magazine, we have created an events division that is an astonishing success. We now annually produce four Toast of the Town events to introduce American consumers to wines that are available in their markets. These walk-around tastings, held in spectacular cultural venues, offer a sample of each city’s restaurants, accompanied by tastes of the portfolios of 70 wine companies. These events help educate and expand the palate of the American consumer, and to reinforce wine’s place at the table.”
Wine Enthusiast is more than a magazine, it is a lifestyle system. It sells magazines, of course, plus wine-related products through their catalog and website, produces wine events and so on. It informs, enlightens, educates and enables. A Wine Enthusiast cable network (or YouTube.com channel) would be the next logical step.
Even the magazine is commercialized in perhaps unexpected ways. Everyone knows that wine magazines sell lots of advertisements, of course. The editors always say that they don’t let advertising dollars influence their ratings, and I actually believe them — although market forces obviously do have some influence over the wines that they choose to consider for their reviews. National magazines need to pay attention to wines that are in national distribution. And these are the wines that are featured in the ads.
Wine Enthusiast takes one more step into commercial waters, however. The magazine includes a monthly Buying Guide that provides 100-point ratings and thumbnail reviews of dozens of wines. (I actually find their reviews to be very accurate, by the way.) But just before the long list of ratings there is section where a smaller number of wines are featured, with images of their labels for easy supermarket identification. These are the wines you will remember if you scan through the magazine quickly. I have always assumed that these were featured wines, selected by the editors for their good value or wide availability.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I started reading the fine print about how Wine Enthusiast rates wines and discovered that the labels are in fact “paid promotions.” Wineries can’t write the reviews or designate their products “best buys,” but they can pay to have them highlighted in the illustrated section! I wonder if that is true of other wine magazines? I’m going to be reading the fine print a lot more closely now so that I have a better idea of what is editorial content in the wine press and what is “paid promotion.”
Martha Stewart has only recently entered the wine business (with Paul Newman close behind), but it seems to me that the Martha Stewart system of total lifestyle marketing is already here. Hmmm. I wonder if that’s a good thing?