Amateur is Fine

BusinessWeek: For decades, wine consumption in the U.S. was hobbled by a lack of understanding of wine combined with lame or confusing marketing and labeling by wine producers, both domestic and international. But as increasingly clever marketers find success with simple, compelling labels — think Yellow Tail and Marilyn Merlot — they’re discovering another way appeal to the $10-wine buyer: Make fun of the $30-and-up buyers. Think about how Rush Limbaugh talks about liberals, and you get the idea.
Brown-Forman (which markets wines such as Jekel, Fetzer, and Bolla) recently jumped into this vat hand-in-hand with Virgin Atlantic Chief Richard Branson in launching Virgin Vines. Starting with two California wines, a Chardonnay and Shiraz, the partnership seeks to promote wine consumption by dissing those who take wine too seriously. The label’s pitch goes like this: “Dare to enjoy this wine without dashes of pretentiousness or hints of snootiness. Virgin Vines believes wine should be all about having fun and loving the taste…not waxing poetically about meaningless wine-speak and food pairings.”
Virgin Vines Says It’s Hip to Be Dumb [BusinessWeek]