Branding a Wine Successfully

Yesterday, I wrote about branding a wine, but I was really focused on what are known in the wine world as premium wines -- those that retail for more than $10 US or 10 British Pounds. But, I found a web page that tells me what the 10 most powerful wine brands are and while most of them have at least one or two premium SKUs, they are producing predominantly poorly flavored alcohol that happens to be made from grapes.

Who is #1 on the list? Yellow Tail. Yes, that bottle with the wallaby on the label. You haven't had it? Consider yourself lucky. It's rough and inconsistent, but it's a cheap buzz. You can get a regular (750 ml) bottle for less than $5 at many wine shops and you can get a magnum (1.5 L) for about $9. At 10 glasses per magnum, that's 90 cents per pour. Most beer costs more than that although if I went to buy a similar quality beer in large quantity, the beer costs less. 

But, wine is supposed to be more refined and polished. And, drinkers of wine have the reputation of being a bit more chic.

So, I went and searched for reviews of the wines of these 10 great brands. So long as I stuck to the wines that did not fall into the premium category, I found a lot of ratings that I usually just don't see. Frankly, Yellow Tail was one of the best with its wines being consistently rated in the low 80s. That's not good, but it's not horrible.

I searched for reviews of some of the other wines on the list of 10 top brands. For the most part, no serious reviewer will go near them. But, I did find one review of a Barefoot wine from a serious reviewer. 74 points. Yes, 74. That's bad. Really bad. That's a wine that is not just not pleasurable to drink, but a wine that makes you want to run from it. But, in a more "interesting" review I found the reviewer tells us that Barefoot Riesling is one of her favorites because "It distinctly reminds me of dates with the boy I met in September of my freshman year; not only because we shared it on our first date, but because they both taste the same."

If that's what you are looking for in wine, go for it. Not me, however.

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