I don’t really see anyone actively pursuing “green” as a strategy for selling wine in the state of Washington. In the November 2008 issue of Wine Business Monthly the “Direct to Consumer” offering is about teaching tasting room staff how to speak on issues of sustainability to enhance the visitor’s experience and make them feel even better about buying the wine. Whether it is pesticides, water conservation, migrant labor or fuel efficiency, the article argues that the staff interfacing with customers should be able to speak intelligently on the topic. I would argue that a winery’s PR and marketing should speak intelligently on the topic as well. If you can make your customer not only like your product but feel good about themselves for buying it, you have a customer for life. California wineries are taking this issue on and even have a conference. At which a California winery was awarded the Governor’s Environmental and Economic Leadership Award. C’mon Gregoire, you’re not going to let the opportunity to promote a $3 billion state industry pass you by, right?

So, now we get to where the rubber hits the road – you and me aka – the consumer. What are we going to do to promote greener purchases beyond taking our shopping home in cloth bags? If you live in the state of Washington and drink wine from any further away than Oregon or the Okananagan Valley, you are not drinking green. If you are drinking from Europe or South Africa you need to rethink your priorities. Hey, I get it. I love a great Bordeaux, Nebbiolo, Rioja and even a Stellenbosch Pinotage but I would rather spend my carbon going to those places and drinking locally while I am there. Being on the left coast makes wines from Chile, Australia and New Zealand not exactly green, but greener than European wines; the opposite is true for our friends and family on the East coast. It is actually greener for them to drink the wines of Europe than California or Washington. A greater reliance on rail transportation over trucking and air might help balance that out but I am no transport specialist.

Oh, and if you live in a state that has a wine region, support it. Visit wineries, buy the wine in your local store, sign up for the club if you like their product. Buying direct ensures more profit for the winery and helps them to thrive so you can keep buying local and being green.

Now is where I tell you to get your nose out of the air and seriously consider alternative packaging. Twist top and artificial “cork” wines have less spoilage than traditional cork wines. The condition of the cork tells you the wine has survived its shipment and storage – that’s it. You still have to taste the wine in order to truly determine that it is in the condition the winemaker wanted it to be when it is served. So can all the silly cork rituals and taste the damn wine already. The fact that a cork can be a major failure point in packaging should be enough to move people away from its use. Unfortunately, the wine snobs of the world continue to vocally prefer cork thus promoting the continuing depletion of cork trees and the reluctance of wineries to move away from its use.

Another thing that needs to be seriously evaluated is the glass bottle. It’s heavy and cheaper to make from new material than from recycled. Not all wine regions have a good source for recycled material bottles (and by good I mean one that is local, competitively priced and with consistently high quality) so it undermines the purpose of paying more for recycled material and then burning a lot of fossil fuel to put it in the winery.

I think consumers need to seriously consider “the box.” After all when wine was first produced they put it into clay jars that were sealed with less appealing things than a cork. A 3 liter box of wine weighs the same as a 750 ml glass bottle of wine and all of its materials are recyclable. “Box” and TetraPak containers are completely capable of protecting wine without imparting any foreign taste to the wine. There are many quality producers of recycled material box components and shipping the packaging is significantly cheaper than shipping empty glass bottles. Yes, losing the bottle means losing the ritual and romance of opening a bottle of wine. Decant it, light some candles and get over yourself.

I doubt that we will see any winery anywhere in the next year announce that they are switching to all box or TetraPak containers. But if a winery was to announce to its club members that they will be doing exclusive alternative packaging vintages I would be interested to see the reaction. If you love wine and you love the planet, perhaps you can give up the bottle.

So go drink some local wine (if you are in a western state without a resident wine industry Washington wine counts as local) and make your voice heard on issues of sustainability in the wine industry. Here are a few of my local favorites:

Sleight of Hand Cellars – Spellbinder is a great red blend for $18
DaMa Wines – Their Riesling is a lovely little prize at $16
Ash Hollow – The Somana is a great white blend at $20
Spring Valley Vineyards – Their Nina Lee (100% Syrah) is one of my favorites and my go to gift wine – $50
Cullin Hills Winery – Thanks to Nabil at Seattle Wine Co for turning me on to their Viognier (sold out)

Cheers!

Aloha, nonfamousi. It’s been ages and mostly I blog at my own site now, but given JPs occupation, I thought you might find this interesting. Plus, I totally want to go to Martinique, don’t you? Crossposted from Nerd’s Eye View.

First things first. I was asked to participate in a 25 entrant writing contest to win a trip to Martinique. You should totally vote for me because, duh, of course I want to go to Martinique. One of the 25 bloggers “recruited” for the contest is going to go, it might as well be me, doncha think? Yes, you’re going to have to hand over an email address, but then you get entered in the contest also, and wouldn’t you like to hang out with me in Martinique? I’d sure like to hang out with you, eating excellent seafood, drinking tropical cocktails, watching the sun go down, or having a leisurely breakfast before we head off for a strenuous day of lolling about the beach… you get it. Go here.

Okay, here’s the deal. The whole thing is a marketing program for whoever is handling Martinique tourism these days, isn’t it? They contact me and offer me Martinique-esque swag and a shot at a trip to the island. I tell you and off you go to the website, and they get your email address and send you stuff about the island and all of a sudden, you’re thinking, huh, Martinique! There’s an idea… It’s clever marketing, a little back door media through an unconventional channel. Thing is, you don’t have to sell ME on the idea of a getaway to the tropics, hell, I’m always up for it and as far as passing the word along to you? I feel okay about that. Come on, don’t tell me you wouldn’t like a sun break about now. Unless you’re sub-equatorial, in which case, I’m sorry.

But check this out, too. On the heels of the Martinique pitch comes another PR mail. “Thought you’d be interested in this travel blog…” says the mail. Meh. okay, I click through and I don’t get it. It’s a nice enough blog but shockingly free of advertising. What’s the pitch? I click through a few times and I give up. Why is the PR company promoting this one guy’s blog? And, in a more self-serving question, why aren’t PR companies promoting Nerd’s Eye View? What gives here? What the hell, I email the PR company back and ask them.

Here’s the deal. The blogger is an artist. The artwork is displayed at a restaurant chain. The idea is that I point you to the blog, you get interested in the art, you go to the restaurant to see the work and there you are, eating your franchised meal. This one, no can do. I can’t vouch for the quality of the food, I don’t think you should eat a chain unless you’re out of options, and even then, are you sure you wouldn’t do better just going to the supermarket? But I do have to say that I appreciate the honesty from the PR folks. When I asked, they told me exactly what the deal was. I wonder how many people ask.

I can totally get behind the idea of a vacation to Martinique; I can’t get behind the idea of a chain restaurant meal. I might eat at a chain restaurant if I had to because I’m not really a snob, I just don’t think you’d believe me if I said, “Dude, you have to go to Olive Garden to check out this artwork.” (It’s not Olive Garden, FYI, but you get the gist.) Interesting stuff from the land of marketing to blogs, through blogs.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSZYHl0EfQc

So what’s it about? Well, it’s one of those trends that is really hard for me to wrap my head around, though rationally I can see it clearly. Basically, more and more parents have stopped being uncool: as 40 has become the new 30, parents have become the new hipsters–or as Adam Sternbergher of New York Magazine calls them in his insightful look at the new mode of adulthood, grups. And as many have observed for a while now, Gen Y just doesn’t seem to require the period of teen rebellion that has been the mainstay of youth culture since at least the 1940s. They actually like their parents, and don’t see them as uncool.
The result? A thorough re-ordering of how we need to think about parent-kid interaction–especially in terms of marketing. The old wisdom was that kids would hate whatever parents like, but we see evidence all over the place that this isn’t true anymore. Parents are turning kids on to their favorite music, be it Johnny Cash or Death Cab for Cutie. And in return, kids are sharing fashion tips and Xbox 360 cheats with parents in a way that a Gex Xer would have cringed at. It’s not always pretty–I recall running into a lithe late-30s mom at Bellevue Square last year with her two tween kids, all of them sporting Von Dutch caps in different pastel colors–but it is significant.

This also has huge impact on family dynamics, obviously, and I’m not sure all of it is good. I was close with my parents, to be sure, but if only I had a dollar for every time Big L said “I’m not here to be your friend, I’m here to be the parent.” Kids still need parents to set boundaries and say no. Certainly some kids are happy to be “friends” with parents who give them anything they want. But I’ll happily take any evidence that our psycho-babble culture has actually broken some of the destructive cycles that fracture families and cause kids to put up walls from their parents. Parents and kids who enjoy spending time together and share common interests are bound to have an easier time talking frankly about sex and drugs–as well as rock and roll. (There is at least some evidence, though, that kids with perpertually young parents may have a hard time keeping up.)
At any rate, this is a trend I’ll be keeping my eye on. We’re always on the lookout for circles of influence we can tap into, and conversations that unlock new insights.
If anyone out there has any comments or examples, I’d love to hear them. Oh, and I hope nobody minds, but I’m going to start blogging on these topics a bit more. Let me know if you hate it–I might just need to spin off my marketing musings onto a new blog.