The recent pivot to on-line and virtual programs, events, and communication presents challenges and opportunities. How well has the wine industry responded? What does the future hold? Join me on a trip down the virtual rabbit hole to find out.

Can’t Un-Ring a Bell

It has been fascinating to see how quickly we and our wine industry friends and colleagues have adapted to using technology to overcome necessary distancing and business and travel restrictions. There are costs, for sure, in terms of lost personal interactions, but gains, too. They say that you can’t un-ring a bell, and I don’t think we can (or should) completely un-do the recent pivot towards virtual communications.

So Sue and I have decided to embrace the opportunities of virtual wine for the time being and to appreciate the many creative ways that wineries are using online platforms to get their messages out and connect with customers. Herewith several examples from our personal explorations. There is still a steep learning curve, but as you will see below, lots of progress, too. Please use the comments section below to give more examples  of successful virtual programs and events from your personal experience.

 

People, Places, Things

Let me start with an example of a simple idea well done.  Promotional videos are not a new thing and, with the rapid advance of technology, they are easier to make and to distribute via the web. But they seem to be very difficult to do well. Videos are the perfect opportunity to tell first-person stories, but so many winery videos seem to forget what their story is once the camera light comes on and default to generic “four seasons in the vineyard” images.

So we celebrate when someone gets it right and tells the story of the people, the places, and the wines and how they are all connected, as the video above from Andrew Will Winery does.  Andrew Will is located on Vashon Island, just a short ferry ride from our home base, sourcing grapes from some of the best sites in the Columbia Valley, including the Two Blondes estate vineyard.  The wines are elegant, distinctive, delicious — we are big fans.

The video is very effective in introducing the people, Chris Camarda and his winemaker son Will, their views and values, the role of terroir, and the nature of the wines.  You will know if you would like the wines after seeing the video and why they are special. And the winery is using the video effectively just now to maintain connections with customers during the current crisis.

BDX In the Rocks

The virtual space can be as interactive as you want it to be (up to a point!) so many wineries are experimenting with virtual tastings. Our friends at Reynvaan Family Vineyards in Walla Walla show one effective approach.  Winemaker Matt Reynvaan went live on Instagram several Friday afternoons in April and May, talking about his work and tasting interesting pairs of Reynvann wines.

One thing that made these tastings especially appealing was that wine-list members were invited to taste along with Matt by purchasing the library wines at their original release prices, a terrific and unexpected opportunity.

We focused on the May 1 tasting of Cabernet Sauvignon and BDX blend wines from the Reynvaan’s In the Rocks vineyard. These are very special wines that surprise many people because Reynvaan and that region are best known for their outstanding Syrah. Sue and I tasted the Cab wines when we visited the Reynvaan family last year and they are really memorable. Honestly, I couldn’t wait to relive that tasting via the internet.

If you watch the video (even if you aren’t able to taste the wines) I think you will get a sense of Matt and his family and what drives and inspires them.  Toward the end of the tasting Matt opened up the conversation to questions from his on-line audience, adding a small but important interactive element.

The Reynvaan tastings achieved many goals. It got scarce wines into the hands of people who enjoy them and probably replaced to some extent lost sales to restaurants. Most of all, however, it created and nurtured personal relationships, which everyone believes are at the heart of the wine business, and allowed Matt and family to tell their story in the most natural way.

Virtual Release Party

Mike and Karen Wade, the proprietors of Fielding Hills Winery in Chelan, Washington, had planned to host a big release party this spring for their new line of white wines.  Mike, the founding winemaker of the family operation, is famous for his distinctive red wines, but as the winery grew and winemaker Tyler Armour joined the team, it was clear that white wines and maybe a Rosé needed to be added to the mix.

The Rosé and a Chenin Blanc from the estate Riverbend Vineyard on the Wahluke Slope came first and this year they are joined by a Chardonnay and Roussanne. It’s a big deal for the winery. But the coronavirus crisis made an in-person celebration impossible. With daughter Megan’s help they organized a Zoom-fest instead and brought together friends of Fielding Hills from across the country to taste the wines and learn about them from Mike, Karen, and Tyler.

Because of the Zoom platform’s flexibility there was the opportunity for more interaction with the audience. Tyler also gave a mini-tour of the wine-making facility and Mike used Google maps to take us to the vineyards, which Sue especially appreciated.  I think everyone enjoyed the delicious wines and appreciated the opportunity to taste them together and learn about them.

Will virtual release parties like this replace in-person events after the crisis is over.  I hope not! But I hope the virtual is retained because it can reach a different and broader audience in a different way, expanding the local to the regional, national, or even global.

The Virtual Tasting Room

By far the most personal virtual experience that Sue and I have had happened last Tuesday, when we Zoomed to Portland to talk wine with Stewart Boedecker and a couple of other wine friends. Stewart and Athena Pappas run Boedecker Cellars, an urban winery that sources grapes from some of Oregon’s best sites. They have been trying many initiatives to connect with customers and supply them with wine while the tasting room was shut down.

One of the clever offers was a trio of “Happiness on a Tuesday” wine packages — six-packs and cases of wine put together from small quantities of interesting products Stewart rescued from the warehouse. Sue picked out an all-Pinot six-pack for us (plus another 6 bottles of her favorite Pinot Blanc) and we will be working our way through them in June and July. Our affordable six-pack included a 2014 Pinot Noir from the famous Stoller Vineyard, so there is no chance of coming away disappointed.

We like the idea of Tuesday night wines and so we couldn’t resist Stewart’s invitation to attend a Tuesday evening virtual tasting. The group was small enough that Stewart just opened up the microphones and we all chatted and learned about the wines just as if we were sitting at the tasting room bar with the winemaker. It was great and reminded us of how much we have missed such previously normal moments during the pandemic crisis.

Virtual Trade Events

It is easy to think about virtual wine events just in terms of consumers and direct sales opportunities, but the coronavirus pandemic has done much more than just shutter cellar doors. Wine fairs and trade events around the world have been canceled or postponed, depriving many producers of the opportunity to present their wares to potential importers, distributors, restaurants, and retailers.

It isn’t the same, but virtual pitches can at least partially replace the wine fair booth and give wineries an opportunity to get their messages out. That’s what I found at the On-Wine Fair, where 45 Italian wineries were each given twenty minutes to tell stories to a virtual U.S. trade audience.

I attended the webinar of Tenuta Montemagno, a producer in Monferrato (Piemonte) that specializes in wines made from local indigenous grape varieties.  The brief and well organized presentation was very effective.  Place, personality, emotion. These characteristics came through clearly. This won’t replace the traditional wine fair — the opportunity to taste and talk in person is very important — but it goes a way toward filling the gap in the current crisis and expanding opportunities in the future.

Vinarium Becomes TeleVinarium

The virtual world really is a rabbit hole. One you dive down there’s no telling where you might end up. The only limit (besides bandwidth, I guess) is imagination.  So when the Romanian organizers of Vinarium, the International Wine Competition Bucharest realized that it might be possible to shift on-line for their annual wine competition, they took the fateful first step. First time anyone has tried  to organize a virtual wine competition, but changing conditions provoke innovation.

A typical wine competition is a coronavirus nightmare. Five jurors sit close together around a table, spitting and dumping repeatedly while sommeliers fill glasses from masked bottles in a specified secret order.  There’s a certain close-quarters logistical choreography here that, when done well, would make Balanchine smile but earn a frown from Dr. Fauci today.

Virtual Vinarium aimed to get the results, but without the risk, and on-line platforms meant that jury members could be safely isolated.

The 36 international judges from 12 countries (including 4 Masters of Wine) were divided into juries of 5 or 6 persons. Getting them zoomed-up and their OIV judging software connected was probably the easy part (although I am glad I didn’t have to figure it out). Bringing the physical world along for the journey came next. That meant taking each of the 853  entered wines and decanting them into small coded sample bottles that could be shipped away to wherever the judges were. Then, of course, they needed to be tasted in the correct order and all the usual protocols followed.

I have only judged a couple of wine competitions and I’ve always been impressed with the complexity of the logistics involved. TeleVinarium went to the next level. Outrageously ambitious!

These are just a few of the hundreds of virtual events and projects. They begin as supplements to real world activities, sometimes replace them, and have the potential to transform them. Where will it all lead? Only one possible answer. Ask Alice!