The Rise of Snooth?
Adegga, Cellartracker, Cork'd, Snooth, Wine-Searcher
I’ve been hearing a lot lately about Snooth becoming the number one wine site (in terms of traffic) for people logging in wine reviews, keeping track of their cellars, and searching for wine to buy. Personally, I still use Cellartracker and Wine-Searcher for these purposes, and I wonder if I’m really that far behind the curve.
It’s not that I don’t believe the folks at Snooth; I think Philip et al are nice people with an interesting business model — not to mention an amazing ability to raise VC (I wish I had the latter skill). It’s just that I see many people remain attached to the same patterns as mine, patterns that involve using multiple sites that with inferior graphics compared to Snooth, but powerful abilities to perform a singular, dominant task. I’m just looking for some insight.
Can you let me know what sites you use for logging your inventory, entering tasting notes, and searching for online sources of product? You can select up to two of the answers in this poll, but if you select multiple sites, any explanation you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
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16 Responses to “The Rise of Snooth?”
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get your wine on
2008 “Bebame” Red, El Dorado County, California
Cabernet Franc (65%) and Gamay (35%) from - gasp - California! And only 13% ABV, pretty modest by California standards. If I tasted this blind I would probably have said it’s from the Loire Valley. It has pretty much nothing in common with the full bodied iterations of Cab Franc coming out of Napa. Juicy, light, delicious quaffing wine.$18 a bottle
2006 Telegramme Chateauneuf-du-Pape Rouge
Really balanced and smooth, this is a bargain of a Chateauneuf. Yeah, the 07s are lauded but what would I prefer to drink? This! It’s the second label of Vieux Telegraphe, from the same property but from younger vines. And it’s a deal at $33 a bottle.2006 or bust!
NV Barcino Cava: LA Times Wine of the Week!
Delicious and just in time for New Year’s Eve…this is the LA Times Wine of the Week, and we have plenty in stock. Order online, pick-up in-store!$14 a bottle!
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freshly pressed
The Business of Saying No:
No, I am not a natural wine merchant.
And no, I am also not not a natural wine merchant.
So what exactly is my store, Domaine LA? This is a tricky question that I try to answer here.
________
A couple of months back, I participated in the first annual Los Angeles Natural Wine Week, spearheaded by Lou Amdur of Lou Wine Bar. At that time, I took some heat from a few folks around the Internet who felt I might have been merely capitalizing on a trend and didn’t see me as a true natural wine merchant.
The thing is, I’ve never claimed to be a natural wine merchant. When I started my business online a few years ago, I stated plainly that I wanted to sell wines I loved. I was an enthusiast with a fairly receptive, wide-ranging palate, and I considered learning about wine a journey I would be going on alongside my customers. While I’ve since expanded my business to include a brick and mortar space, my self-conception and mission statement haven’t really changed. But my palate has.
To be absolutely blunt about it, I used to love wines that I simply can’t stomach anymore. There are blog posts archived on my website that in retrospect make me cringe, paragraphs singing the praises of some of the most blatantly manipulated wines in the world. I once criticized a wine bar for not having any Southern Hemisphere selections; it’s now my favorite spot in Los Angeles. And today I carry barely a dozen Southern Hemisphere SKUs myself.
By and large, my palate-shift is reflected in what I bring into the store. Chris Ringland and Mollydooker have been replaced by Eric Texier and Thierry Puzelat; the California fruit- and alcohol-bombs, for the most part, have given way to wines from La Clarine Farm, Donkey and Goat and LIOCO.
As a result of my largely obscure inventory, almost every day I’m faced with customers asking for items that I don’t stock. On a regular basis, I hear:
“Do you have Rombauer Chardonnay?”
No, I answer.
“Do you have Caymus?”
Afraid not, I reply.
“What about Blackstone Merlot?”
So sorry, but no.
“Where’s the Veuve Clicquot? This is a gift. I need the recipient to know it’s nice!”
Sigh.
Saying no to people sets up a potentially risky relationship that may start and end with that one exchange—many customers want what they want and aren’t open to alternative suggestions. In other cases, however, that simple “no” can be the beginning of something beautiful, a dialogue that winds up with a customer who came in looking for the Prisoner instead going home with something like Morgan Twain-Peterson’s Bedrock Heirloom Red, a wine which, while perhaps not 100% natural, is a more honest “made in the vineyard” (yes, I know this is also a cliché) version of what the Prisoner purports to be.
Of course, sometimes that customer really just wants the Prisoner. Which leads me to my major confession here: despite more than a bit of ambivalence, I continue to sell the Prisoner, along with other wines that are by no means natural, wines that are quite frankly manufactured. The Prisoner sits on the shelf right next to the Bedrock Heirloom Red, and for the time being, it will stay there. At least twice a week people come in asking specifically for this wine, and, for several reasons, it’s a request I’m not—yet—willing to deny.
Even though I no longer drink the Prisoner, there was a time–not too long ago–when I did so happily. When I first started getting interested in wine, it was a bottle that captured my imagination and helped launch me on the journey I remain committed to today. So maybe I keep the Prisoner around out of a sense of nostalgia. Or maybe I keep it around to remind me how far I’ve come. Maybe I keep it around hoping that for those who ask for it, it will simply be their starting place just as it was mine.
Or, more cynically, maybe I keep it around because people buy it. Maybe it’s a crutch to lean on when I’m too tired to hand-sell the less familiar items on my shelves. Seeing something recognizable is comforting to consumers, and that comfort somehow lends me credibility; credibility is a precedent to trust. Trust is what enables me to recommend something different to a customer who normally drinks the Prisoner.
In this sense, the Prisoner is of great value to me, not just as an easy sell, but even more so as a gateway to all the other wines I have available. I don’t know that I’d be able to move as much of the Bedrock, an unknown wine with a tiny case production, without the Prisoner right next to it.
______
Saying no is extremely hard. Right now, I’m willing to do so 90% of the time, maybe even 95%. Call me a coward or a fake if you want. But I know where I started out, and it’s been a logical evolution. And while I’m headed in a particular direction, guided by my palate, it’s safe to assume I won’t ever be a 100% “natural wine merchant.”
I like to think there’s room for somebody like me—somebody with confidence in her tastes, who also takes into account modes of production in buying decisions; someone who has a particular point of view, yet retains an inclusive attitude. I am strong in my opinions, and enthusiastic in my passions. I never judge my customers, and hope that they’ll be as open-minded and respectful of my offerings as I am of their preferences.
So far, it seems to be working out. In recent months, I’ve brought in only one case of the Prisoner (less than a thousandth of a percent of its total production) for every three cases of the Bedrock (1.3% of its total production).
So, what am I?
I’m not a natural wine merchant. And I’m not not a natural wine merchant.
I’m a work in progress. And I’m okay with that.
The Business of Saying No
Los Angeles Natural Wine Week: Taste California Terroir on 5/15/2010 at Heath Ceramics
Meet the Reps: Amy Atwood
wine jargon
Frizzante
From Wikipedia: Frizzante is an Italian wine term term for semi-sparkling wine (as opposed to Spumante, which is generally used for fully sparkling wines). Frizzante wines generally owe their bubbles to a partial secondary fermentation in tank. You might notice a light fizz or tingly sensation on the tongue with a Frizzante wine, compared to the more carbonated sensation that more fully sparkling wines yield.
Scorekage
Okay, so we made up this word yesterday after a great restaurant experience. We brought a bottle of wine with us, expecting to pay a corkage fee. But the restaurant either forgot to charge us the $15, or decided to be nice to us. We scored! Hence, “scorekage” has entered our lexicon. This can also refer to BYO friendly restaurants that don’t charge for corkage under any circumstances.
grapewise
DomaineLA Store Contact Info
If you’re looking for our brick and mortar shop, here’s where it can be found:
(323) 932-0280
Hours are 11AM to 8PM, Monday through Saturday and noon to 5PM on Sundays.
Read more…Fabulous & Frugal!
Our friends launched a new site and domaine547 is a featured wine columnist in their premiere edition! Go check out Fabulous & Frugal for some fantastic lifestyle tips for living the good life during what, for most of us, is an economically challenging time. There’s much more than wine there, and we’re thrilled to be a small part of the start of what will surely be a successful venture. Congrats to Brandi & Steph for their achievement!
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February 9th, 2009 at 10:34 am
I actually don’t use any cellar mgmt program. I use a simple word doc to keep a list of my current inventory. My own blog serves as my source of my prior tasting notes.
To me, it seems a lot of extra work to have to type in my inventory and tasting notes into any of the online cellar mgmt services. And I don’t see any real payoff for me to do so.
As I rarely order wine online, muchly due to MA laws, I also don’t spend much time checking online prices.
February 9th, 2009 at 10:36 am
I find Snooth pretty clunky for entering wines and for posting reviews.
February 9th, 2009 at 10:59 am
I really like Snooth’s interface, their community features are slick (though I’m not sure if I would participate), and they seem to have a great crew, but a huge challenge for me is that I can only locate a fraction of my wines on their site. (I do have some weird stuff, but 99% of it is on cellartracker)
I’ve been a cellartracker user for years. The UI is a bit dated, but their database of wines, years of notes, pricing data, reporting, drinking windows, etc. is insane.
I’d love to see a best of both worlds site.
February 9th, 2009 at 11:05 am
Is anybody getting Snooth spam comments? I like Snooth. I think they’re working hard. But I got a comment at 2 Days per Bottle pimping Snooth, and I already have a link to it on the site. That always makes me uncomfortable.
February 9th, 2009 at 11:40 am
I use CellarTracker. It’s simple and you don’t have to go through 75 windows to enter information–not that you do on Snooth, but there definitely are more steps involved. And the sheer amount of information on CT versus anyone else is staggering.
What will be interesting to see is if the CellarTracker upgrades slotted for this year take a great thing and make it better, or if they add so many bells and whistles and pop up gizmos that they make it worse. The new Twitter feature for CTracker is great, and suggests new features will be as well.
Time will tell. In general, I think people stick with their first choice in CManagement Tools, so the thing is to get new users. Once you have them, my sense is they stick with you.
February 9th, 2009 at 11:53 am
@dhonig: Sorry about asking you to link to Snooth when you already do. Thanks for doing that in the first place, though.
February 9th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
I use CellarTracker. I really want to like Snooth — it’s SO MUCH better-looking and the interface is more intuitive, but the data just isn’t there yet.
1) The community at CT contributes much better tasting notes. The ones at Snooth are like “dude, this wine is awesome!” Not helpful. :/
2) I never have to enter wines at CT, no matter how obscure, and it’s always clear which wine I mean — at Snooth there’s lots of dupes, garbage data and missing wines.
CT is redoing their interface. The Snooth database is getting bigger and smarter. My guess is that the playing field will be a lot more even in the coming months, when CT looks better and Snooth gets better data.
February 9th, 2009 at 12:37 pm
I use Vinfolio’s Vincellar. I tried Snooth but couldn’t figure out how to add a wine to my collection.
February 9th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
Anybody using http://www.vinoo.eu? It’s European and they are launching in different languages soon. Personally I like that, Snooth in my opinion is to much a .com type of environment. Isn’t it interesting what the French think of their ‘own’ wine?
February 9th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
I use Vinfolio’s VinCellar for cellar management and Wine-Searcher for wine searches.
February 9th, 2009 at 2:33 pm
All interesting responses. Of course this poll lacks any sort of scientific methodology, but it’s intriguing nonetheless. Hopefully more people will weigh in with their thoughts!
Deb, I hadn’t thought about people sticking with the tool they start out using (and therefore attracting new users being the primary goal for these sites) but that’s a particularly strong point.
Somewhere out there Steve Bachmann is probably cursing me for leaving off VinCellar, so my apologies for that oversight.
I’m intrigued by Adegga getting so many of the early votes here but nobody actually mentioning them in the comments. Anybody who chose Adegga, feel free to elaborate! Please!
February 9th, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Does adegga really get much traffic? Google trends suggests they do not; http://trends.google.com/websites?q=adegga.+com%2C+cellartracker.com%2C+corkd.com%2C+snooth.com%2C+wine-searcher.com&geo=all&date=2008&sort=1.
Vinogusto.com and verema.com are two European sites that get as much traffic as the US based wine commuinity sites.
February 10th, 2009 at 2:10 am
Martin, traffic doesn’t vote, community does!
Jill, thanks for posting this. It’s really interesting to understand how we all use different sites and all for different reasons. I would say that wine sites are at least as diversified (and complex) as their beloved social object.
February 10th, 2009 at 8:37 am
I’ve tried all the sites but Adegga, never heard of that. I’ve invested my time in Cellar Tracker for ease of use and most of my wine buddies use it as well, fun to read what they are drinking and have cellared.
February 11th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Oolah - I just saw that Snooth released a tool that allows people to import their notes from other services:
http://www.snooth.com/notes-import/
I’ll be interested to see if that helps them get the content you talk about any faster.
February 23rd, 2009 at 7:36 pm
I used to track everything on an Excel spreadsheet. Snooth, while pretty, doesn’t do a lot for my “function is the only purpose” mentality. Some things I just don’t need pretty pictures with. I can download Cellartracker into Excel to check my inventory, and I can take a look at everything in whatever order I want. That’s all I need. Cellartracker rocks.