Talk-A-Vino

Yesterday I was a snob, today I feel more like an idiot. In yesterday’s rant, I was complaining about the feel, shape and overall appearance of the bottle of 2010 Turley The Label Cabernet Sauvignon – first release of Cabernet wine by the famed Zinfandel producer. Then, while reading the comment by VinoInLove, I realized that I should find the offering letter and see if I’m not missing something.

Unfortunately, I have a bad habit – I keep old papers and e-mails around. So of course I found it. And then I read it. And then complemented myself on being… yeah, I already said it. Here it is, the offering letter, pretty much in its entirety (to drill it deeper, I even highlighted the key sentence):

So, my apologies to the Turley Wine Cellars – my yesterday’s rant was not justified. Or, was it, may be just a bit?

We can get good lessons from any situation, this one being no exception. Personal lesson – the rant have to wait. If I would give it a bit of time, do a bit of research (i.e., find that offer e-mail), this all would be averted and I will not have to call myself names. But – there is also a marketing lesson here. I believe fundamental marketing mistake took place. Brand new product was introduced. The [very] unusual product for the given producer. It should be expected that additional marketing would be needed to help people to accept that unusual product. All it would take was to put a piece of paper with exact same description into every box, and “bad surprise” problem would be probably 80% fixed. It would be even better if the same information would go on the back label, which is pretty much wasted right now. And that would fix 90% of the problem.

Now, this whole situation forced me to read the back label. Carefully. And now I’m puzzled again. The first sentence of the “Vision” statement above says that this wine is a modern reinterpretation of the 60’s and 70’s classic, with lower alcohol level. Care to guess the ABV listed? It is 14.5%. I have some serious doubts that California Cabernet of 60’s was listing 15% ABV. Now this gets interesting – I’m really curious how this wine will taste like. Thus – to be continued…