How Fresh?

A while back, I signed up for the Stormhoek blogger’s wine freebie. Not the initial round, as I’m not that into wine, but there’s a limit to the amount of time I can pass up free alcohol…

I ended up not blogging about it when the bottle arrived because I didn’t think I had anything much to say about it. It’s pretty nice wine, and I’d consider buying some if it was on sale somewhere when I was buying wine. I found it quite drinkable, which I guess is an achievement given that (1) I don’t really drink wine, and (2) I much prefer red wine, and this was white.

To be honest, I was most impressed with the protective polystyrene box it arrived in :-)

One thing that seemed a little odd at the time, and in the light of Hugh’s post about the issue seems even odder, was the labelling.

The blogger’s wine freebie bottles all come with a personalised label featuring your name and blog, and a little booklet - “Wine Blogging as Marketing Disruption”. Just under half of the booklet is devoted to what makes the wine special (with the rest being about how the marketing approach is revolutionary) and apparently it’s because “Freshness matters”. To quote from their booklet:

“Hence the Stormhoek ‘Ultimate Freshness Indicator’ on the back of the bottle. It’s that little dial that tells you when the wine you’re holding in your hand is at its freshest i.e. when is the best time to drink it.

“This is the logical next step from the screwcap. It seems pretty idiotic to spend all this time making wine and not letting your customers know when the best time to drink it is.</i>

Now, I don’t know anything about the freshness of wine, but to me it seems pretty idiotic to spend all this time going on about a freshness indicator and then not include one on the bottles you send out to get people talking about your wine.

Unless of course Hugh is a marketing genius and realised that omitting the label from my bottle would be the only way to get me to talk about Stormhoek…