Five Minute Read – November 2002

News this month features the latest research proving that red wine is good for your health and Interbrew’s fears about retailers slashing beer prices in the run-up to the festive period.

Also in news, we reveal the identity of the celebrity fronting the new Johnnie Walker’s TV ads. Here’a clue – he’s a friend of Travis Bickle.

Around the World reports on Vincor, Canada’s biggest wine company, and its desire to be one of the top 10 global wine corporations with a sales target of C$1bn. This section also covers California growers request for federal aid to alleviate the problem of grape glut and the latest mergers new from Argentina and Brazil.

The Drinks Business was in New York to see the inaugural Vinexpo Americas event, and we’ve emptied our notebooks to bring you a selection of pithy comments from the great and good. Dominiqué Heriard Dubreuil isn’t sure which city she’s in, Bob Parker upsets British wine hacks and Fetzer’s Paul Dolan admits that the US consumer base for wine needs broadening.

Product news higlights Maxxium’s Christmas spending on promoting Cointreau in the UK – £600,000 – and introduces the latest entrant into the booming shots and shooter market. Guinness UDV is taking smirnoff Ice off the shelves in South Africa and is launching a new RTD product called Smirnoff Spin, while Scottish whisky group Kyndal has launched Superstition, a new Jura malt.

In the finance section, the resilience of the drinks sector while the broader market flounders has been a source of comfort. However, when the rest of the market picks up, it follows that the defensive qualities of drinks companies will no longer be in demand. Drinks companies underperformed both the FTSE 100 and the Dow last month.

The brokers, meanwhile, focus on SABMiller’s prospects, and pose the notion that Majestic Wine could be about to post a decade of record profits.

Our big interview this month is with the chairman of the board, president and chief executive of Bacardi-Martini, Ruben Rodriguez. Matthew Guarente finds out why he considers the strength of Bacardi to be unassailable, that he isn’t afraid of failing with new products, and that he would love to take his company back to Cuba some day.

The bulk prices table in our marketing section, introduced in last month’s magazine, show little changes this month which is probably a relief to beleaguered grape farmers the world over.

In our bi-monthly logistics round up, James Graham catches up with Tradeteam’s driver of the year and discovers what it takes to get the truck outta here in time for Christmas. He also takes a look at the LVMH/Moët Hennessy US distribution link-up, fears over the flexitank market and Punch Tavern’s new logistics deal with Carlsberg-Tetley.

In marketing, Jon Rees is doubtful that anyone really cares about which vodka James Bond has in his martini, and points out that, in any case, Ian Fleming was a populist and brand devotee.

Looking at press coverage for October, our In The Press pages highlight the excellent performances of both South African wines and also for Marks & Spencer and Sainsbury. Meanwhile we take a look at the retail revolution being plotted by First Drinks as Britain’s biggest off-licence group tries to reinvent the genre to battle the supermarkets’ domination of British wine sales.

W Reed Foster, co-founder of zinfandel pioneer Ravenswood is in the I Love My Brand slot, talking about the re-invigoration of the winery’s export fortunes and how it grew and grew from boutique to big business.

Are organics a real advance for our planet and for consumers alike, or just a marketing ploy to appease a small, middle-class sector of the market? David Furer looks at the arguments for each camp, and finds that the drive to make better wine, and the use of organic or biodynamic practices, goes hand in hand.

Phil Pemberton takes a dive into the world of whisky, and comes up with the conclusion that the truly global brands have a challenge to try and appeal to multiple cultural and demographic groups. Jack Daniels says it can market to the ‘LDAs and DNDs’ – legal drinking agers and damned near deads – but how do other brands follow that lead?

California’s wine production industry shows many signs of maturity, but perhaps the most telling is that there is a significant market for products at wildly different ends of the scale. David Furer investigates the dualistic aspect of the Golden State in Brands vs Boutiques, a look at the different methods, philosophies, goals and products of the big hitters and the micro-specialists.

In recent weeks the trade has been girding itself for the annual seasonal rush, but a key marketing tool in this rush is – or should be – the various gongs awarded to wines and spirits at the big London competitions. Matt Guarente looks into the value of awards and gongs, and asks whether they really have any impact on sales.

Last month we looked at the economics of top-tier restaurants. This month, Rob Griffin looks at the money in luxury brands and finds that the saviour of Gucci, Prada and the rest may be working women, rather than the idle rich, whose paper wealth has taken a battering.

Enotria, the British distributor famous for its Italian connections celebrates 30 years in business this year and Pat Straker has been to see Remo Nardone and reflect on three decades of success.

How do you stay brand leader when the competition just keeps on getting tougher and tougher? Well, Charlotte Hey has a good idea after talking to the management team at Baron Philippe de Rothschild SA – owners of one of world’s best know wine brands, Mouton Cadet, and keen to keep it that way.

Derived from a mechanism to extract stuck bullets from rifles, the corkscrew has come a long way – but the advance of the Stelvin closure might make all those hi-tech corkscrews in your drawers obsolete. We thought now would be a good time to look at an Anatomy of… these clever devices.

Pierre Szersnovicz, quality manager at Courvoisier, lets us have a look at his past month in Diary of a Producer.
Our Outside Drinks feature this month looks at how mobile phones have muscled their way into our lives in such a way that they are now viewed as commodity utilities, part of our expenditure plans like electricity or the mortgage. Could wine ever do that in the UK, or the US?

How hard is the cider business? You take apples, press them, they ferment on their own; that’s it. So why has HP Bulmer been such a calamity, asks Rob Griffin in The Story So Far.

We’ve had some problems with Jonathan Goodall; he will insist on writing sensible, funny, articulate columns in which he expresses his own opinion. This month, the focus of his bile is the common wine geek. In the best traditions of magazine journalism, try out his 10-point test to see if you qualify for a pocket protector, (burgundy) anorak or Sellotaped spectatcles.

© db November 2006