Wine Peddling

Today was my first day on the road, the first incarnation of the “wine-lady,” and hopefully not the last. Because there is nothing quite like a trial by fire, I figured the first place to go and try to market our wines solo would be none other than the beating heart of the wine region itself—Stellenbosch. Surrounded by wine farms, Stellenbosch is South Africa’s Napa and the center of all the nation’s wine activity– a perfectly over-saturated market to try to squeeze into. I was certainly intimidated by the idea of going and trying to peddle wines to those who bathe in it, but my fears were rather unfounded and I ended up receiving quite a positive welcome. If it was a trial by fire, it was a baptism of water.

Actually trying to sell wine is quite an interesting concept. To begin, you have a product which is highly valued by a large percentage of the adult population (especially the well-fed, well-educated, well-paid adult population,) and which reflects the high-flown conceptions of its consumers, and, yet, to actually sell your wine, you are like any other used-car salesman forced

to tout your own horn. You may know you have a great product, but many of the buyers just aren’t that interested in getting to know or really test the quality of your wine. Many would rather be sold on a concept or a name, (hence the importance of Robert Parker,) than actually have to sit down and taste for themselves. In a store full of diamonds, it is hard to prove just how specially cut yours is unless you take them outside to see how it looks in the sunlight, and very few want to leave the comfort of their cozy, little stores.

That said, I came across quite a lot of very interested, very knowledgeable people in Stellenbosch—though knowledgeable may be the wrong word, and interested is probably the only important adjective. Following on my diatribe before, the second fascinating thing about wine is that though it is highly specialized and, hence, only intellectually interesting to a small segment of the population, it is sold to people at large. It’s a bit like asking a Comparative Literature doctorate student to sell their thesis to a group of people in a restaurant. Invariably the information would be inaccessible and completely unimportant to about 98% of the population, and within that 2% of the population, you would find as many assenters as dissenters. People would much rather be given the highlights from the dissertation and be told the value of these insights for the progress of modern society, than actually have to pick out those nuggets for themselves. In the same way, most people would like to be given good wines and told their value without having to go and expose themselves in a personal search for their favorites. No different really than literature, art or music, (where there is always a right book, painting or song even though all the above are highly, highly subjective,) there is always a right or better wine; the trick is finding the person to tell you which it is.

After all those comments on the difficulties with wine, why is it that I love this industry so much?—for the interesting people I got to meet today. Though not all are equally enthusiastic, selling wine to the right audience can be quite fun, like being an art broker instead of the used car salesman. To those who are interested in discovering new things and really testing things for themselves, you can become the positive bearer of uncharted frontiers. Once they’ve tried the wines for themselves, it may or may not be their new favorite Sauvignon Blanc, just as you may or may not buy the new painting in the gallery, but even if it isn’t 100% to their taste they can still appreciate the chance to experience something different. With good books, you may have 10 favorites and 10 more you just love, but there is always a place for new, undiscovered treasures. This is the space I would always choose to operate in, as the “peddler” of treasures from a wine trove instead of the greasy salesman out of Detroit. At the end of the day, I love our wines, and I hope they will too, but, almost as much, I hope they will enjoy the foray into new wine territory.

So at the end of the day, my first venture as a wine "peddler" was not all too bad, now let's see how the next round goes when I have a kilt to back me up.