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| tatra805 Member Since: 16 Aug 2011 Location: Dolany Posts: 436   
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Hi again,
Been a while since I had the time to post but never quit reading. Would like the opportunity to ask for opinions and feedback on a project I was involved in during the past months. So as an intro, I live in the small karpathian Slovak wine region (migrated 10 years ago from Belgium) In our village the biggest family owned Slovak winery is situated. (125ha of vineyards and >1mil botlles yearly) While off-topic there is a Defender connection as the winery we are talking about is using a fleet on a daily base (2x Puma 110 STW, 1x TD5 110 HT, 1x 2.2 130 and a nice S3 2.6 109”) and the reason why we got in contact with each other (who is that lunatic in that defender waving at me?...  )
The owner really wants to take it a step further and take a new route where he can concentrate on making wines an end-user appreciates instead of what a market is asking for. This is a long complex debate where taste, quality, marketing and price have their share. After some mutual brainstorming we started a project where a wine enthusiast can now have his own vineyards on a lease-base, make his own wine using the (top I have to say) technology available and this while not facing the investments, work or pitfalls that come with the romantic ideas on owning a vineyard. Here you find the brochure explaining the whole setup: http://jmvinar.sk/data/files/Estate-vineyards-EN-v_0_99.pdf As each country has its own habits on private importing wine, and I am aware some people on here are getting their wines directly from France I would like to ask for opinons, feedback or thoughts. Positive or negative all is appreciated! Just to have it clear and open, my part in this project is the “foreign customer handling” (as I call it), so I am not neutral and there is a financial engagement from both sides in it. Alexander  |
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24th Feb 2015 10:17pm |
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| ericvv Member Since: 02 Jun 2011 Location: Near the Jet d'Eau Posts: 5816  
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Well Alexander, many many moons ago, the Argentine arm of our multinational company which is active primarily in grains and oilseeds business, set up a new division called "Nuevos Negocios". They ventured in the selling of Argentine wines in overseas markets and asked our help to try to market them to the main Belgian supermarket chains, GB, Delhaize, etc....
So we had one message for them at the time...... WE NEED SAMPLES FIRST !!!
Now........, we have Migros, Coop and Manor here in Switzerland.
Eric You never actually own a Defender. You merely look after it for the next generation. http://youtu.be/yVRlSsJwD0o https://youtu.be/vmPr3oTHndg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_GtzTT9Pdl0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABqKPz28e6A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLZ49Jce_n0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvAsz_ilQYU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8tMHiX9lSw https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dxwjPuHIV7I https://vimeo.com/201482507 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSixqL0iyHw Last edited by ericvv on 25th Feb 2015 5:54am. Edited 1 time in total |
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24th Feb 2015 10:36pm |
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| keith Member Since: 15 Aug 2012 Location: Edinburgh Posts: 2190 
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You can forget about your french , your South African , your argentine and your Californian wines . The. Best wine in the world is Georgian . The oldest known grapevines and seeds ever found are from Georgia . Every home , garden , balcony , office and street has grapes growing in it and every one makes wine .
My missus is Georgian and has a business in Tbilisi and Batumi employing around 200 and we spend the 6 weeks every summer there . I did a Military MOI ( method of instruction ) course some yrs ago and on my practical where we had to demonstrate how to do something in a 30 min class , I bought 15 bottles of wine for the other class candidates and did a wine tasting class  NO ONE had ever thought of that before and of course I got top marks and yes the class were sozzled |
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24th Feb 2015 11:40pm |
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| tatra805 Member Since: 16 Aug 2011 Location: Dolany Posts: 436
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EricVV: as you will see in the brochure we seized trade with supermarkets and chains back in 2005 as their policies were only compromising quality for margins. Owner got tired of "wine managers" not even looking at the products. Once discussions are not about having a good price for a good product but having 50% off on whatever it becomes silly. Not saying this is the case in all countries but overhere it proved to be the right choice. Regarding the samples, you're right and i am convinced that someone with interest will want to see the site before stepping in. So get in touch and we'll work something out! 
Keith: creative thinking to the benefit of all i would call it. I agree with your point that there are more countries having great wines that are still too unknown. One of the reasons i believe in this project but also one of the challenges as converting habits and opinions can be tough. Guess that takes us back to sampling....
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26th Feb 2015 12:13pm |
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| jomara Member Since: 26 Oct 2009 Location: Lanarkshire Posts: 1790 
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Hi Alexander
Have you tried contacting independent "boutique" wine selders? We regularly buy wine from one in Glasgow called Valhalla's goat and they have tastings where they invite they're client base to try sometimes unheard of new wines. Had a few nice ones from these tasting sessions
http://www.valhallasgoat.com Might give you a different path to try! Cheers John 2014 110 2.2TDCi XS Station wagon 1971 Bowler Tomcat 88 4.2 V8 Auto 2022 110 D250 XS Edition - Gone 2024 110 D250 X-Dynamic HSE |
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26th Feb 2015 1:16pm |
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| AWOL Member Since: 31 Oct 2013 Location: UK Posts: 222 |
Don't take this the wrong way but in the first paragraph you've identified a series of considerations that in the 2nd (and proposed offer) you seem to completely ignore. Ask yourself this: why would someone pay for a minimum of 20 cases of wine, at ~£200/case, that they've never tasted and appears to have no discernible track record (years in business doesn't really give it). That's a lot of wine (all the same) to get rid of if you don't like it and, unless it has some serious ageing potential, would get boring if you tried to drink it yourself! For that sort of price you can get some very good en primeur offerings from established vineyards, have some variety, and know that you can resell later if you want/need to - so that'd be the direction I'd send my money in. Unless you can get some serious endorsements of quality, and perhaps run some tastings in the UK, I struggle to see who'd put their money into this? |
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1st Mar 2015 10:51am |
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| tatra805 Member Since: 16 Aug 2011 Location: Dolany Posts: 436
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Thanks for the replies, finally back for a response.
AWOL Allow me to explain a bit better, the market is dominated by chains and megastores forcing pricing on their suppliers and offering their customers the result of it. While at first this might indicate that the consumer gets a cheaper price we see in reality 2 things; first of all the potential price advantage is directly absorbed as margin for the chains and secondly the people responsible for selecting the goods their first priority is price not quality. So the customer buys a 4£ product at 10£ thinking it would cost 15£ if bought directly from that winemaker. (not even mentioning the chain only offering 2.5£ to the winemaker for a bulk-sale) No way out of if you have to sell your produced volumes and have no other option; competing on that scale with them is virtually impossible. (I am convinced the success of the winery was defined the day the owner stepped out of this trade segment in 2005) In short, and what i wanted to say in my 1st paragraph, it means that for a producer the market is not the end-user anymore but the middle man. (well, maybe except for Nutella and coca-cola that is  )
The Private Vineyard project is aimed at the end-user not "the market". You are completely correct with your next points, however this project is not aimed at the customer group you are referring to. Private Vineyards is all about "making" of wine. So why put my money in this instead of a set of cases? Maybe because buying is a known experience and you have a full cellar of good investments already and you like the idea to create something yourself, or maybe just because you prefer making instead of buying in the first place. (or even the arguments mentioned in the brochure) The only endorsement of quality we value is a happy customer , with the volume we are selling i am very cautiously thinking we might be doing something right, but in case you refer to the medals and certificates from wine competitions we can show some pedigree there also (list of last years competitions here: http://jmvinar.sk/degustacia/97/pre-vas/ocenene-vina )
Anyway I see we’re back to the tasting, in case of interest in the project PM or mail and we’ll work something out! |
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17th Mar 2015 9:59pm |
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| AWOL Member Since: 31 Oct 2013 Location: UK Posts: 222 |
I've not bought wine from a supermarket or chain for more than 20 years, and it's obvious that for a small producer selling via those channels isn't viable... unless, as you say, you want to get seriously bent over on price.
My view would be the at the sort of price point/volume you're playing at the producer very much dictates the pricing to the enthusiast market via en primeur, or has to compete in the specialist trade with other smaller producers. A couple of years ago I seriously considered making some wine at Crushpad (glad now that I didn't after the way they ended up) as getting involved in the process and having something unique does appeal. They seemed to offer *much* more in the way of control than you're proposing but at a higher price point - USD 5-10k to get involved. Would have been a huge investment for me, but I ended up getting married instead... I think where you're at right now is priced in a "no mans land" between the "ooh, wouldn't it be fun to have our own wine" / rent a vine on impulse or for a gift type options (see this for an example: http://www.chapeldown.com/lease-a-vine - where the starting price is just £245) and the serious wine enthusiast market who are likely to want more provenance and control. The way I see it is: £ 245 (as per the option above) is a sum that lots of people could find (with varying degrees of pain, but doable) for a bit of fun / gift; £2000 is way past impulse buy territory for most people: if it's a considered big money purchase by an enthusiast, would they buy into your scheme instead of a bottle or two from their "grail" wine list? If someone *can* just drop £2k+ then is it 1) to impress friends / colleagues? (where some brand recognition is probably needed); or 2) To get properly involved in the process? I don't like to be negative but I don't see your offering fulfilling either of those goals. I still think your minimum volume is a huge problem: even people with big cellars rarely buy in large volume unless there is some known future need or/or investment potential. And if you've got a large cellar it's harder to get through a quantity of the same wine because you have lots of other options! In case you've not considered it, a typical consumer product development approach is to describe your target market in terms of a typical person in your target market, for example what does he/she: Do for a living; Earn/have in the way of disposable assets; Project in terms of their image (what do they want others to think of them, what do they drive, etc); Like/dislike (in terms of wine in this case - be specific - and in general); Have in the way of competing financial priorities; Want to achieve in life (and have left of it!). If you can get that nailed then you can probably make some real progress in critically testing whether they might actually be interested. |
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21st Mar 2015 10:14am |
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