Tasting with the MBAs
Did my annual tasting session/seminar for the U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business Wine Club last night. This must have been my tenth year, something like that. This time, I brought along my friend and Jackson Family Wines colleague, Vito Parente, an expert on Italian wine. I figured the MBA students would want to learn more about Italy, and Lord knows, I do too. I think of Italian wine as the ultimate challenge: you could study if for a lifetime and still barely scratch the surface.
Vito gave a really instructive powerpoint and as usual these budding MBAs asked the greatest questions. You can always tell when someone asks a great question when the person being questioned says, “Wow, that’s a great question,” as Vito frequently did. I had told him that these supersmart young kids have curious minds that would surprise him with their ingenious queries, and indeed they did.
Vito explaining the intricacies of Barolo
After the slideshow the conversation turned towards things of a marketing nature and I told the students this: “Consumers your age are the obsession of the industry. They want to know what you buy, and why, and what you’ll buy in five years. They want to know if you’ll be as influenced by a handful of major critics as your parents and grandparents have been, or if you’ll turn more towards peer recommendations and crowd-sourced opinions like CellarTracker. And the truth is, nobody really knows.”
I shared my long-held opinion that, because wine is the most complicated thing to buy in America—there are something like 4,500 wineries in California alone, and another three or four thousand in the rest of the country, not to mention the thousands of imported brands—consumers will always value the reviews (and scores) of critics, without whom they would be helplessly overwhelmed in the supermarket Wall of Wine. Vito asked them if, while shopping for wine, they’re influenced by shelf-talker scores, and they said Yes—even if they don’t know the source of the scores, the number is a reassurance. And some of them didn’t know who Parker was and seemed surprised to learn that one person could have that much influence.
Anyhow, we had a great time, Vito and I, and I hope they invite me back next year!
This just doesn’t seem to be my year.
First I don’t get invited to the Napa Valley Professional Wine Writers Symposium (even though my Master Sommelier colleagues Geoff Kruth, Sur Lucero, Gillian Balance, Andrea Robinson and Doug Frost were.)
And now I don’t get invited to The Haas School for this event.
Hey, I’ve got a Master’s degree. And I’m Italian — who can tell those Millennial mooks all about vino!
Dear Larry M.S. don’t fret about the writer’s symposium. It’s just a big networking bore. Cheers!