Wine at Your Fingertips

By Mike Muirhead, Sommelier, CMS, ISG

In a time when we carry tiny computers and entire communities in our pockets, we have access to wine advice that is prolific and exponentially expanding. With all of this chatter, how can you zero in on the voices that will lead you to new wines to sip, pair, and talk about?

Marketing wine in the last 15 years has moved from strictly traditional media (snail mail, billboards, advertising, reviews in newsletters, etc.) to mostly online through email blasts, social media, websites, and apps. Within this context, the popularity of wine reviews and ratings has drastically changed how and what people buy—but who is doing the reviewing has also shifted from industry expert-based evaluations to crowd-sourced and AI-based suggestions. Your in-store research can now be amplified with the help of apps that capture a label and tell you what the last 200 people to taste this wine thought of it—for better or worse.

From Micro to Macro Reviews

Published wine reviews were popularized with the launch of Robert Parker’s The Wine Advocate in 1978. Wine Advocate ’s “Parker Points” still have sway on shelf talkers attached to wines, and we field phone calls at the wine store each time Wine Spectator ’s annual Top 100 Wines are released to see if we carry any of these (instantly very scarce) wines. Wine education and reviews were available in books and magazines, and though they came from industry insiders with vast knowledge about wine, access was undoubtedly less democratic.

When reviews moved online, a diverse range of voices— including professional and amateur wine lovers—joined the conversation. At its best, the Internet and social media give the microphone to wine experts traditionally poorly represented in the wine industry—women, people of colour, the 2SLGBTQ+ community, and young, upand-coming mavericks in winemaking. At its weakest, it gives equal weight to the reviews of new, inexperienced wine enthusiasts and those with experience, education, and wisdom, rendering the overall crowd-sourced “scoring” of wines a lot more diluted.

From print publications, we moved to email blasts. You can now join countless e-newsletters and email lists to receive the latest wine news directly in your inbox. Wine lovers that used to count on their local wine merchant to relay trends and hot buys now receive (sometimes multiple) emails daily proclaiming the “Second coming of Screaming Eagle” or a “100-point Winemaker who has ‘Struck Gold Again.’” While many newsletters are a great way to receive information about your favourite wines, some are simply email lists purchased by wholesalers, who use clickbait to entice you into opening their emails (and their wines)—they are by no means balanced reviews.

A casual Internet search of popular wine apps about an unknown wine in a shop can call up a score of 4.9 out of 5, with a raft of suggestions for “similar” wines. That number has a lot of power. And those specific suggestions for alternates—wow, what great advice! How the review

was assembled and what wines are suggested can be a mishmash of AI algorithms; a community of people with widely different palates, preferences, and tastes throwing in opinions; and some pointed marketing. Compared to advances in wine technology, these advances in wine marketing technology are staggering. But none of these advances mean anything if you, the consumer, don’t end up with the wine that you are searching for.

Using an app with a wildly broad user base can give you a sense of the popularity of wine, as thousands of consumers’ tastes are influencing your decision at the store. These published reviews can be extremely persuasive, but it is their large user base that damages their credibility.

Popular choices don’t mean educated choices—and they certainly don’t mean choices tailored to your needs. Apps are populated with subjective metrics that look precise but are, in fact, anything but.

Online and in Person

As Manitoba’s biggest private wine merchant and wine educator, Jones & Co. wants you to come into the store to talk to us, learn about our winemaking friends, and let us find you the perfect wine for your needs. However, we are also excited about the opportunities that online communities give us to connect with our customers. We are not just sitting back and watching tech pass us by! We are finding ways to best reach our customers—even if we are not face to face.

One of our first forays into the digital sphere was 6 years ago when we launched our Text A Sommelier program. There is no AI involved here: when you text 204-400-0499, one of our eight wine professionals (including five Sommeliers and three WSET Diploma holders) will answer any wine question you might have. Our customers have texted us wine lists from restaurants as far away as Tuscany to ask for pairings, sent pictures of wines from their cellars to inquire

if they are ready to drink, and sent suggestions from faroff vineyards about new wines we should carry. We do this because we love talking about wine, and we love sharing our knowledge with our customers.

In addition, we recently revamped our website and online store CornerVine. On this site, you can create your own profile where you can access your wine shopping history and add to a favourites tab that follows you to every page. We have streamlined the search and added Winery Notes that introduce you to the people behind the labels and provide tasting notes. These notes are written by our JoCo experts, who have visited the wineries and are eager to share their stories. You can shop by style, see all of our new arrivals, and filter all of our wines to zero in on your favourites quickly and easily.

Even as the Internet shrinks the world around us, personal connections feel like they are moving further and further apart. While we do not want to appear to be luddites when it comes to how wines are marketed in this new reality, we persist in making the connection between our customers and the families we work with. As for wine apps, yes, they have a place in buying wine— but if you want my real opinion on them, you’ll have to come see me in person…

The five mostrated wines on CornerVine

Claude Val Blanc LanguedocRoussillon, France ($15.99)

Cantine Colosi Nero d’Avola Sicily, Italy ($21.99)

Joseph Mellot Destinéa Sauvignon Blanc Loire Valley, France ($23.99)

Majella The Musician Cabernet Sauvignon/Shiraz, Australia ($25.99)

Mullineux Family Wines Kloof Street Rouge Swartland, South Africa ($32.99)