Great insights, George! I do think that you are right that by and large "more information" isn't what will "save" the industry so to speak, but I would argue that it can be uncomfortable to pull out your phone and start Googling or Chat GPTing or w.e. it may be to find information on wine when you are out at the grocery store or wine shop. There's still an ingrained sense of shame or embarrassment around lacking knowledge because of the image that wine has developed, so I think finding ways to help people familiarize with great value options or tactics for navigating the store independently is still valuable. Especially since an AI model can't (at least currently) do more than average out a bunch of information it found online to make broad recommendations that won't help people sift through the low quality wine they find on shelves in a reliable way. And if the rest of the information is just a Google search away, hopefully they'll find us ;). Anyway, great stuff, thanks for sharing!
Very true, I don’t think people would necessarily do that in situ. I suspect though that rather than dealing with it, weighing their options, they either go for something they’ve had and enjoyed before, or buy something else entirely. Besides if someone were to google yellowtail… I don’t even know what would come up, but if there’s a review I’m sure it would misrepresent the contents of the bottle.
Yeah absolutely, much easier to go with the familiar. In a way that highlights how more (reliable) information is worthwhile, but to your point, if people aren't already interested they probably won't seek that kind of guidance in advance. Makes it more of a challenge for sure, but one that merits consideration!
I'll go one further here, and say that while "more information" may not be the solution, per se, simplified and more direct information is. You can call this "condescending", but it's more a plea to stop talking about wine in classroom terminology - we need to write and talk about wine in ways that don't use words you need a textbook to define.
For example, you see a bottle that says "Trockenbeerenauslese" at the store. If you Google that, you get:
"Trockenbeerenauslese or TBA, is a German or Austrian botrytized wine made entirely from the individually selected grapes fully "dried" from Botrytis cinerea..."
This is NOT helpful information. No one knows wtf "botrytized" means, or what dried grapes means in terms of wine. The simplified version should be "it's the sweetest kind of Riesling, dessert wine levels of sweetness." But that is not an easy simplification to find via Google or ChatGPT without wading through paragraphs of text and info that isn't useful to the uninitiated.
Let's even just take the word "Trocken". Plug "Trocken" + "Riesling" into Google and you get variations of:
"A dry wine with ~9 g/l RS or less."
But guess what? Not many people actually know what "dry" means. They think it's the dry feeling in your mouth. They think it has to do with intensity or power of the wine, etc. And even I'm not sure where "9g/l RS or less" lies on a spectrum, outside of already knowing tht Trocken = dry so it must be not much.
"Information" about wine is stupidly confusing even when you search for it. It's all written in insider jargon that is impenetrable to the outsider. This is were "simplification" comes in, or "demystification" (the word choice is irrevelant, really). We have to learn how to write and talk about wine in plain freaking English, free from classroom level terminology. Not always and forever, but we should be *able* to. And try to make those versions of wine information the more common. Leave the classroom and cellar jargon to the classrooms and the cellars.
Love the passion Dave. I don’t even disagree with you here. When I say it’s condescending, I’m referring in part to the notion that consumers need to be taught what good taste is, which is what some of the demystification efforts seem to be trying. You like a smooth wine? No sir, I think you mean you prefer velvety tannins rather than the more textured feel you might get from this young Barolo you can’t afford anyway… people know what tastes good, even if they’ve never read a word about wine, or even seen the label. I think the point stands that unless the contents of the bottles that people can actually afford improves, we should not be surprised that regardless of how much we simplify the subject, people will gravitate to more dependable alternatives, that also don’t need an explanation to be enjoyed.
Ahh, gotcha, makes sense. That example is the very point - let them call it “smooth”, THAT is “simplifying” wine. Correcting them to “velvety tannins” is the opposite!
I loved what you had to contribute to the conversation. I definitely agree. Wine will survive!
Great insights, George! I do think that you are right that by and large "more information" isn't what will "save" the industry so to speak, but I would argue that it can be uncomfortable to pull out your phone and start Googling or Chat GPTing or w.e. it may be to find information on wine when you are out at the grocery store or wine shop. There's still an ingrained sense of shame or embarrassment around lacking knowledge because of the image that wine has developed, so I think finding ways to help people familiarize with great value options or tactics for navigating the store independently is still valuable. Especially since an AI model can't (at least currently) do more than average out a bunch of information it found online to make broad recommendations that won't help people sift through the low quality wine they find on shelves in a reliable way. And if the rest of the information is just a Google search away, hopefully they'll find us ;). Anyway, great stuff, thanks for sharing!
Very true, I don’t think people would necessarily do that in situ. I suspect though that rather than dealing with it, weighing their options, they either go for something they’ve had and enjoyed before, or buy something else entirely. Besides if someone were to google yellowtail… I don’t even know what would come up, but if there’s a review I’m sure it would misrepresent the contents of the bottle.
Yeah absolutely, much easier to go with the familiar. In a way that highlights how more (reliable) information is worthwhile, but to your point, if people aren't already interested they probably won't seek that kind of guidance in advance. Makes it more of a challenge for sure, but one that merits consideration!
I'll go one further here, and say that while "more information" may not be the solution, per se, simplified and more direct information is. You can call this "condescending", but it's more a plea to stop talking about wine in classroom terminology - we need to write and talk about wine in ways that don't use words you need a textbook to define.
For example, you see a bottle that says "Trockenbeerenauslese" at the store. If you Google that, you get:
"Trockenbeerenauslese or TBA, is a German or Austrian botrytized wine made entirely from the individually selected grapes fully "dried" from Botrytis cinerea..."
This is NOT helpful information. No one knows wtf "botrytized" means, or what dried grapes means in terms of wine. The simplified version should be "it's the sweetest kind of Riesling, dessert wine levels of sweetness." But that is not an easy simplification to find via Google or ChatGPT without wading through paragraphs of text and info that isn't useful to the uninitiated.
Let's even just take the word "Trocken". Plug "Trocken" + "Riesling" into Google and you get variations of:
"A dry wine with ~9 g/l RS or less."
But guess what? Not many people actually know what "dry" means. They think it's the dry feeling in your mouth. They think it has to do with intensity or power of the wine, etc. And even I'm not sure where "9g/l RS or less" lies on a spectrum, outside of already knowing tht Trocken = dry so it must be not much.
"Information" about wine is stupidly confusing even when you search for it. It's all written in insider jargon that is impenetrable to the outsider. This is were "simplification" comes in, or "demystification" (the word choice is irrevelant, really). We have to learn how to write and talk about wine in plain freaking English, free from classroom level terminology. Not always and forever, but we should be *able* to. And try to make those versions of wine information the more common. Leave the classroom and cellar jargon to the classrooms and the cellars.
Love the passion Dave. I don’t even disagree with you here. When I say it’s condescending, I’m referring in part to the notion that consumers need to be taught what good taste is, which is what some of the demystification efforts seem to be trying. You like a smooth wine? No sir, I think you mean you prefer velvety tannins rather than the more textured feel you might get from this young Barolo you can’t afford anyway… people know what tastes good, even if they’ve never read a word about wine, or even seen the label. I think the point stands that unless the contents of the bottles that people can actually afford improves, we should not be surprised that regardless of how much we simplify the subject, people will gravitate to more dependable alternatives, that also don’t need an explanation to be enjoyed.
Ahh, gotcha, makes sense. That example is the very point - let them call it “smooth”, THAT is “simplifying” wine. Correcting them to “velvety tannins” is the opposite!