Well It's been a while since I've posted here on ThePour, a lot has been going and I've been headed down a few other avenues but I'm back! That much awaited Gruner Veltliner review is in the works and expect to read it early next week.
But for now I have this for you.
Well as you probably don't know the 2013 Penfolds Bin Release has just happened. As I was putting away some of the allocation I noticed a few things, which got me thinking. I compiled a few ideas in regards to the Penfolds name / brand. Right now I'm going to write an open letter to Penfolds to express these.
To Whom It May Concern,
My name is......... I'm 27 years old and I work part time in a wine shop in Adelaide, South Australia.
I’m just writing to share some of the observations I’ve made over the past year or so. Working on a shop floor selling wine has been a pretty interesting experience and I have noticed many changing trends when it comes to the general public consuming wine.
The retail shop I work in is primarily focused on wine and our sales would be 65% wine on average. Our customer base is a good mix between the “savvy” wine drinker and just your everyday wine drinker. What got me thinking is our 2013 Bin allocation just got delivered and I noticed that we still have the 2012 and 2011 in our store. I wouldn’t say that we order in excess or to put away for museum releases either.
I see the wine drinker becoming younger and younger, a lot more people my age and younger drink and appreciate wine. I have noticed that your brand doesn’t appeal to people my age at all. I see that as time goes on the Penfolds brand following is growing smaller and smaller as my generation and the next come through.
I asked a lot of my friends recently again who are good mix of savvy wineo’s and people who just like wine but don’t think about it as much, if they would buy Penfolds and ¾ responded no. Whilst working the shop floor I have ask at random what people think about Penfolds and they believe the wine doesn’t represent good value for money anymore. Other comments suggested that you are currently trading on a name that represented good quality wine 10 years ago and that your current Bin range isn’t as good as it used to be.
Another experience I had recently with the general public was I was tasting at the Bremerton stand at the cellar door festival in Adelaide. A women approached and asked to try the Old Adam Shiraz, she mentioned that she had just come from the Penfolds stand and had just paid $50 to do the Grange tasting. She was amazed at how well the Old Adam drank compared to Grange and that she would be only a few dollars short of being able to buy a bottle for the money she had just paid for the Grange tasting.
I must admit myself out of the 250 odd bottles I have in my cellar (which may not be that big in the grand scheme of things), it only contains one bottle of Penfolds, of which I didn’t purchase myself.
I was wondering if you have any marketing plans to appeal to a younger wine drinker, and how to grow the brand appeal?
I mean no offence by this letter and are only wishing to share my thoughts and ideas
with you. I look forward to hearing back from someone. You can contact me at.........
Hills Hoist, Holden, Penfolds next? only time will tell.........
Well I will see how well this goes down and will post any reply I get from Penfolds.
So for now Ciao,
B
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