The World of Fine Wine magazine' s latest issue (#19) contains a must-read article called "Every one a critic: The future of wine writing." Mike Steinberger provides a fascinating, state-of-the-market assessment of what he references as the "twilight era" of Parker. He makes many valid observations about the inroads being made by what are essentially lower-cost (often free) substitutes for professional (fee-paid) wine criticism. What's going on and how can the professionals respond?
The "good enough" effect enabled by the Internet
Several trends are at work to shrink the size of the "fee-paid" wine criticism market. There's no question that the Internet has provided a platform for talented amateurs via blogs, forums, and community review websites (Note: Vinfolio is introducing community reviews in our upcoming version of VinCellar). Many of these reviews (although typically free) can be on a par to those of a professional critic's. Pragmatically, free amateur reviews need only be "good enough" for the reader to substitute for a paid review. Moreover, if an individual amateur reviewer is prolific enough and/or focuses his reviews on a particular category of wine, regular readers can calibrate their palates in the same way they do with professional reviewers.
What will happen to the fee-paid wine criticism market
Despite increased competition, there will always be a market for fee-paid wine criticism. Quality in most areas of life is worth paying for and there's no question that the mainstream professional critics are highly talented. Moreover, the cost of "paying" (typically $75-$125 annually) is relatively modest compared to the cost of a buying mistake. However, the "business model" of the professional wine critic may need to evolve to maintain their income.
Advice for professional critics
The theme to my advice is to become more aggressive in disseminating one's professional content to combat the rising "noise" levels. This can be done in a controlled manner while developing new sources of income to the critic. Here are some ideas to consider:
- License content to wine websites and online services - Vinfolio pays annual fees to Steve Tanzer, Allen Meadows, Roy Hersh, and Richard Juhlin for licensing their wine reviews for specific uses within our free VinCellar cellar management software and within our ecommerce site. Certain access to full text reviews requires a separate paid subscription to the reviewer's site so we can help drive new consumer subscriptions. As we expand the utility (uses) of a paid subscription beyond the reviewer's own site, I'd argue that we also increase subscription renewal rates.
- License content to retailers - If consumers are more reluctant to pay, maybe members of the trade who rely upon the reviews to help sell wine will not be. Right now, the trade must manually cut-and-paste reviews from the professionals' websites (or otherwise enter data) for what may be thousands of items. These reviews may need to be refreshed if a review is later updated. If these reviews were available in an automated way via an electronic API, I believe many retailers would pay material annual fees just to obtain the labor savings.
- Create foreign language editions - Asian markets are emerging as major wine buyers. Why not offer a Chinese language edition?
- Generate advertising revenue - Sell online advertising to support access to selected free content.
- Go "on tour" - Wine critics are analogous to rock stars. Even if the music (content) is free, fans (readers) pay heavily to attend concerts (wine events).
I could go on but you get the idea. What would you do if you were a professional critic in this situation?
