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Keep It Simple Stupid: the four words that give us the acronym K.I.S.S. that was supposedly coined around 50 years ago by a US aircraft engineer called Kelly Johnson. Complexity is beloved by fans of poetry and art and by everybody who takes wine seriously. A simple wine is generally unrecommendable, unless it’s cheap and appealingly rustic. Complexity is what wins […]
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In all the discussions that have been sparked by my various posts on people’s readiness to dig a bit deeper into their pockets when buying wine, there’s one word that hasn’t been mentioned: confidence. One of the best illustrations of the value of confidence is the old line that “no office manager ever got fired […]
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. A brief slideshow My perceptive friend, Damien Wilson (@WineBusProf) of the Burgundy School of Business, responded to this slideshow with the following piece on forbes.com, the link to which was posted on Twitter by Johan Burger @johanhburger. I agree with Damien that there are lessons to be learned here by the industry. forbes.com
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because I'm worth it / ilon Specht / l'oreal December 23, 2013
READ MOREIlon Specht, the woman who raised the self-worth of millions of women. “How can any bottle of wine be worth $200?” (Or whatever figure you choose to name). It’s a question I’ve been asked countless times and, to be honest, I’ve always had a hard time dealing with it. Responding, as I have, with my […]
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The following debate appears in the December 2013 issue of Meininger’s Wine Business International Perspectives What’s a wine story worth to a brand? Two perspectives. By Felicity Carter and Robert Joseph One of the stories that the wine trade tells itself is that it needs to engage consumers by sharing its stories with them. But what […]
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14 hands / apothic / extravaganza / gallo / menage a trois / trapiche December 20, 2013
READ MOREA piece written for Meininger’s Wine Business International From Praxis PR I have seen the future, and its name is Apothic. Or Menage a Trois. Or 14 Hands. If you’re a wine professional and you haven’t tasted any of these North American wines, or Extravaganza, from Trapiche in Argentina, I’d recommend that you do so; […]
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Fake wine / Hardy Rodenstock / Jefferson Lafite / Rudy Kurniawan December 20, 2013
READ MOREWould you like to buy a Picasso that used to belong to Hemingway? I have a few of them I bought from a guy I met in the pub who discovered them in a walled-up cellar in Madrid. It’s an amazing story; he’s an amazing guy. Austrian or German – shares his name with a […]
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12 drinks of christmas / alexander armstrong / giles coren December 20, 2013
READ MOREComedian Alexander Armstrong and food writer Giles Coren offer their 12 Drinks of Christmas for BBC. After my comments about wine on television, I happened upon a novel effort last night by the BBC that brought together the Times restaurant critic Giles Coren and his brother-in-law, Alexander Armstrong, presenter of Pointless and half of the TV comedy sketch duo, Armstrong […]
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mineral flavour / mineral wine / minerality / shist December 16, 2013
READ MOREA whimsical piece written for and published on the timatkin.com website where a follow-up piece can now be found. “I go with the flow.” Lubricated by six serious Mojitos – his favourite drink – Danny Makeabiggabuck is surprisingly loquacious about the approach he takes to the wine business. The cigar-chomping, New York-born founder of Fruity-Chardonnays-R-Us, […]