A Wine Marketing Disaster
By Tim on Jul 27, 2006 in Articles
The other day I blogged about Cam Wheeler’s troubles with Graeme Miller Wines for posting his opinion of some of their wines on his blog. This was after reading what others had to say and a few days after Cam had first written about his situation. Several readers commented to my post, including Joel from Wine Life Today and Vivi’s Wine Journal who spread the news further. Yesterday Tom Wark, from one of my favorite blogs FERMENTATION, picked up the story and this provoked more discussion. Now the entire wine blogisphere knows the story and I’m sure others will post more about this in the next few days. When you Google Graeme Miller Wines today, 6 of the 10 first page results are blog posts covering this episode. Within a week, I predict this will be 8 or 9 posts deep. So I’d say this qualifies as a wine marketing disaster. It also illustrates the power and reach of wine blogging. I can’t imagine an issue like this tackled from all sides in such a thoughtful and comprehensive way anywhere else.
This entire situation could have easily been avoided through direct communication with the blogger in the comments and some additional samples mailed out for retasting. Alternatively, the winery could have just done nothing and let the issue die on it’s own.
Update Aug. 2: Today’s Google of Graeme Miller Wines yields 8 of 10 posts discussing this issue including both of my posts here. If bad news travels this fast, imagine the benefits of a discussion of how good your wines are. I’ll keep track of how long it takes for these posts to clear from the Google cache.
