I have always been a supporter of Cloudy Bay/Cape Mentelle/ Veuve to the point that I have always order my entire allocation irrelevant of how much I have needed (ie over ordering to ensure future allocations..). Due to the prestige some of their wines are always limited, especially the wonderful and very limited Te Koko. Over the years I would have spent in excess of 200 K with Cloudy Bay alone! Never mind Veuve or Cape Mentelle. Veuve is my "house" champagne for crumbs sake( I would use harsher language but I recognise there are those with sensitive ears out there.)

Well I received with much trepidation my single six pack of Te Koko to go around my customers. Two of which are going off shore ( GMT and Vino Me as thanks for helping me with some things)leaving me with four. I rang the appropriate customers to inform them of the incredibly small amount this year. No problems there. Those that didn't purchase then thanked me for informing them and passed on the opportunity. A couple of grumpy replies but I offered them some Cloudy Bay Dessert Gewurzt and they were placated.

This is where I get mad. Last night I went to a restaurant. Its a basic steak house with a western theme. You know Cow Boy hats on the wall, big steaks, long bar with lots of corona and budweiser, and kiwi beers, bourbon, tequila etc..

The wine list is relatvively small but what got me was they had listed Cloudy Bay Te Koko. This is a restaurant that has been open two years. It did have "limited" beside the wine on the list so I asked to find out how much they had recieved. The maitr'd a great guy who had served us numerous times before came over, sat down with us and we got talking. They had recieved 5 12 bottle cases!!!Recognising it had nothing to do with him I thanked him and enjoyed the rest of my night hiding my growing anger.

Ringing the winery today as they dictate to the distributor the policy with regard their rare wines I recieved this answer after explaining....
" We are trying to raise the profile of our label amongst a larger market than many of our boutique retailers and restaurants are capable of reaching. We want to broaden our brand recognition outside of NZ and we feel that certain restaurants target tourist that market better than others."
" Yeah but a steak house?!"
" Well as you know Lone Star (the name of the restuarant) has outlets in Queenstown, North Shore, Auckland, and Wellington. We feel they are an opportunity that we can't pass up."
" What so they recieved five cases each?"
" I can't discuss their allocations."
" Fair enough...... what about mine? Can you discuss that?"
" Yes. We can gaurantee that you will always have an allocation of our rarer wines."
" Thanks, please understand that I appreciate any efforts to help my allocations with regard to those wines, but why only six bottles?"
" Its just our policy."
" So theres not much you can do right?"
" Yes."
" Thanks anyway. Have a nice day."
" You to."

So I'm stuck being a second rate customer in their eyes because I don't fit in with their marketing well enough......I want to cancel all of my orders but its Cloudy Bay so I can't really without cutting my own arm off. Bastards!!!

If this thread should be elsewhere please move it.

Cloudy Bay at a Lone Star?

The marketing geniuses that came up with that one probably aren't long for the World of Marketing. That pairing makes little sense to me. What they DO need is a few pallets of Shiner Bock, IMO one of the single best exports from the Republic of Texas.

A sad state of business. Probably some short-signted jerk in the marketing office they probably pay a six figure salary to just made this decision. Bummer!

In all fairness,
The Lone Star here is a little differant to the US version (Speinglau glass ware for certain wines is an example.). But even so I wonder what they are thinking.

I see this all the time here too. The long time, loyal customers get screwed so that the winery can "raise its profile". The funny thing is that even if you got a much bigger allocation, it wouldn't all go into one cellar anyway - it would get spread around.

Duke,
You're right of coarse, but this was a wine I wanted to bring to the US at the Napa Event for people to try, now I simply can't. That would leave one bottle and whats the use of that? I guess thats my frustration showing through.

Jeremy,
Simple solution.
Win the lottery. Open a high profile restaurant and... voila!
Up goes your allocation.

See how simple the solution to this type of problem is.

Budman,
Of coarse, I knew I was missing something.....

This is standard marketing policy. A winery gets much more attention being represented on appropriate wine lists then being sold from behind the counter at retail wine shops. If I were Cloudy Bay I would do exactly the same thing. Distributing rare wine through retailers comes in a distant third behind restaurant lists and direct sales.

Jones, what about those retail shops that have successfully sold (lots of) it in the past. Shouldn't that count for something?

In practice, it often does however there is no obligation. Wines that are rare by definition cannot be sold at all outlets that want to sell the wine. A retailer is the first one to feel the pain. Why give the retailer a cut of the money if one does not have to do so. Selling wine retail involves additional risks (credit risk primarily) as well.

While it is unlikely that there is a difference in revenue to the winery between selling to a restaurant and a wine shop, there is a difference in exposure. At a restaurant you can pretty much guarantee that a case of wine will drunk at 12 different tables, exposing the wine to many more people than if sold through a wine shop, where a case may get divided three or four ways. Additionally, the restaurant will probably put the wine on its menu immediately, exposing the current release to more people more quickly. A collector will probably hold onto at least a portion of their purchase for some time.

This is, in essence, a cold-blooded business, and the winery will do what they perceive to be in their best interest. Over the long term, this may or may not be the right decision.

A number of wineries up here followed a similar strategy prior to 9/11. Today they'll sell to anyone they can find. Of course there aren't many local wine shops particularly interested in stocking or promoting these wines. After all, there are lots of 90 point Pinots up here from more relationship oriented wineries.

The current experiences of some Oregon wineries does not equal the current experiences of all wineries.

Retailers just like consumers chase the hot products. When your product is hot it only makes sense to capitalize on the heat. The assumption that loyalty is rewarded at any level of the distribution process is a questionable one. Consumers, retailers and everyone else are fickle. Conducting a business plan that assumes otherwise is folly.

Many Napa vintners still remember the '88 vintage. Up through the '87 release, several wineries had moved to mailing list and restaurant only. One for margin, one for exposure. Then 1988 and 1989 happened. Bad wine, worse reviews (not for everyone, of course, but in general). There was a lot of scrambling to get retail back on line - and believe me, the retailers remembered being snubbed all those years. So, a little bit of balance is probably good.

I agree that all wineries are not like those in Oregon, or like the one I mentioned, but with respect to wine making, New Zealand is much more like Oregon than it is like California, Washington, or Australia (small production wineries, most of the production consumed in the home market, many wines are self-distributed).

I never suggested building a business plan based solely on loyalty, but I would suggest that building strong, long term relationships with clients and suppliers can be an important aspect of many business plans.

Jones,
I would agree if I felt that the restaurant was a "high" profile restaurant. VBG, Cibo, Antoines, O'Connel St Bistro, French Cafe all get large allocations and I agree with this, they have a high standard and a level of wine knowledge that would sit beside such an allocation. It is of benefit to CB. I aware of this because the maitr'd's and sommeliers from all these restuarants buy wines from me personally. Wines they don't stock on their lists.

What I don't get that this is effectively a flash version of a steak house, I eat there and enjoy, but looking at the beverage list they have more bourbons and tequila listed than wine.

Am I missing something? I actively promote outside of my shop- yeah I am a smaller retailer ( I only have one outlet) but I have over three thousand people on my database as ACTIVE customers(purchase more than once a month). I send wine off shore, all in all I think CB's policy sucks- not just because it precludes me, but it precludes me to someone who in my mind will do more dammage to their label than I would ever. For crumbs sake, the maitr'd didn't even know that Te Koko is a sav blanc, he thought it was chardonnay.

Here's what I don't get. The winery chooses to sell the wine through high profile restaurants to maximize exposure. O.K. I understand that. And the purpose of doing this is to increase its customer base so that the new and loyal customers will go out and buy the wine. Presumably via retailers. But if the retailers don't receive any wine to sell to customers, what was the point of broadening the customer base in the first place?

jimmyv,

i suppose the demand would increase &, without an increase in supply, so too would the prices . this sounds like a good marketing strategy on the surface, but in this situation with the restaurant as jeremy has described, i would say they are missing the mark somewhat & would be better served maintaining a loyal & happy group of core retailers.