Surfin'

Wines & Vines, August, 2001

Wine on the Internet has become a black hole, a vast silence and a sense of emptiness, a bit like Van Gogh's painting of "Starry Night" if you took out the stars.

Only a few months ago, Netboy was deluged with perky e-mail from highly-trained public relations folk who wanted to share with me the just-around-the-corner success of their pet dot-com wine enterprise. I was told of multi-million dollar support from investors. Big Deals About to Happen were mentioned.

Oh, those were heady days indeed!

Each breathless press release that arrived promised that all of those millions of people who were not buying wine in supermarkets would suddenly logon to the Internet site of the hour and order hundreds of dollars worth of wine, wine gadgets, bottling lines, barrels or several thousand gallons of Chilean Chenin blanc, or good advice. Whatever happened to be on offer.

Oh, dear. Where, as Pete Seeger almost said, have all the startups gone? Gone for bankrupt, one by one.

You can gauge the depth of the disaster by looking at your local business section. The San Francisco Chronicle publishes a Technology page. On a recent Friday, I found these stories.

"Symantec's stock sinks after warning," the headline says. "Symantec Corp. said yesterday that fiscal first-quarter sales and profit won't meet forecasts because consumers and small businesses spent less on its computer-security software."

Headline: "Micron posts loss of $301 million." The story reads: "Micron Technology Inc., the biggest U.S. maker of personal-computer memory chips, posted a fiscal third-quarter loss because prices for its chips sank as PC demand tumbled."

Hmmm....

"Tibco Software's loss hits 9 cents per share," the headline reads. "Tibco Software Inc., whose shares have fallen 69% (!) this year, said yesterday that its fiscal second-quarter loss widened...."

Headline: "Maxtor to cut up to 1,500 more jobs." The story, from Bloomberg News, reported: "Maxtor Corp., the biggest maker of computer disc drives, said it plans to fire as many as 1,500 more workers in the United States and Singapore, which brings its total to more than 2,000 or 19% of its staff." The company blamed continued weakness in the PC market. The company stocks fell to $5.55 on reports of an expected second quarter loss of between $340 million and $355 million.

Oh well. Easy come, easy go.

The interesting thing about all those stories is that the companies involved sell not to consumers but to computer and software companies. In other words, the personal computer market has apparently hit the wall. Splat!

It isn't a pretty picture.

Netboy is not about to name names because of a healthy fear of libel suits and a dedication to responsible reporting, but he has it on pretty good authority that several of the Internet wine sites still standing are in deep hurt, cutting staff, not paying bills and whistling in the dark.

About the only press releases Netboy sees these days tend to natter on at great length about "improvements in software." Give me a break. That would be like this magazine issuing a press release bragging about a really neat new voice mail system recently installed, "to better service our customers."

I can see the story in the Chronicle tech section: "Wines & Vines Can Now Receive Eight Phone Calls All at the Same Time. We intend to service our customers big time," publisher says.

Wow!

A Site To See

The French may be losing share in the global market, but they are beginning to fight back. A good example is the new drive by French Vins de Pays in the United Kingdom, which is California's biggest export market. Vins de Pays producers are finding good reception in UK supermarkets, at a price Brits like to pay. Part of the campaign is an education Web site, aimed at the UK market. Netboy says check it out at vinsdepays.co.uk. Especially if you are a California producer hoping to move more boxes in the UK.

Netboy

German Dry Wines Receive New Designations

Two new designations for German dry wines have been introduced. "Classic" and "Selection" were designed to facilitate consumer choice and ease confusion developed over classifications like Spatlese trocken, Auslese trocken and halbtrocken. The new classifications, to take effect with the 2000 vintage, signify Germany's fine and finest drier wines for positioning in upper middle and premium market segments.

The "Classic" designation is applicable to dry style wines typical of their regional varietal that satisfy high criteria of quality. The wines must fulfill the taste profile of harmonisch trocken (harmoniously dry).

The "Selection" designation is applicable to wines originating from an individual/single site where reduced yield and hand-selection of the ripened grapes is practiced. Release is not permitted prior to September 1 of the year following the harvest.

A media campaign will educate consumers on the designations, and labels for wines with the new designations will indicate region, producer and varietal.