Wake up! Stupid Winery Marketing in Action!
I like the winery, so this will not be a tell all post. This post is only to show you that electronic media is not a strength in our Iberian home.
Today I received this email:
Dear Sirs, dear Partners, dear Friends,
Here are the last comments received from Stephen Tanzer:
90 points
xxxxxname of winexxxxxxxxxx(A 50/50 blend of garnacha and carinena) Bright ruby.
Strongly mineral aromas of vibrant cherry, blackberry, graphite and cracked pepper.
Brisk and sharply focused, with racy cherry and mineral flavors and fine-grained tannins.
A clean, brisk wine that offers impressive clarity and energy for the money, finishing with lingering cherry skin character.
Let’s not talk right now about the stupidity of sending an email that directs me to the reviews and scores from someone else, when my job is to review and talk about wines. This doesn’t give me any new information, nor an idea of what your wine is worth. I like Tanzer, but I AM NOT GOING TO PUBLISH HIS REVIEWS! Surprisingly, that’s his job! 
Now what is more interesting to me is what I found attached at the bottom of the email:
This message goes exclusively to its addressee and may contain privileged or confidential information. If the indicated addressee is not you, be notified that the use, spreading and/or copy without authorization are prohibited by law. If you have received this message by error, we request to immediately communicate it by this same mail and comes to its destruction.
So you just spent time sending me something that #1. I would not publish if you paid me, and #2. is a crime to tell anyone about it? WTF?
If you enjoyed this post, please let us know. We have several others up our sleeve if they tickle your fancy.
Cheers,
Ryan Opaz
Yep, I always enjoy a post that shows how silly are the disclaimers of dull firms and that make the recipients of the e-mail the guilties of their own silliness. In addition to this the content of the e-mail is a TN with a boring score into it… so well… here we're to read more of these overhere.
Cheers,
Jose
I hear you, I get ridiculous stuff like this all the time. Presumably there's one email list, that of potential customers, and press just gets added to that, which is a mistake, since the email a winery sends to press contacts should be a different message than that sent to customers.
On a completely different note, as a lark I used Able Grape to see if I could find out which wine this was, and it didn't show up (not a surprise, as many of Tanzer's notes are not published on the web because his is a subscription site). However, 8 of the top 10 results for the query “Strongly mineral aromas of vibrant cherry, blackberry, graphite” (minus the quotes) were Tanzer reviews of other wines. Makes one think about how strongly tied certain turns of phrase are to a particular critic, and thus about how personal and subjective wine descriptors are.
Great points Doug on the Tanzer score. As you know the wine note for me is not a tool to communicate about your wine. It means nothing to your target consumer. UGH! Never thought of searching for the note though. I do wonder how often Garrigue or Brambles would show up in a Parker note search?
You get worse email than I do.
God save the spammers.
Definitely post more of these!
And, excellent use of work time fun to convey your confusion with the received e-mail. I assume you've played it before due to your use of the image. What was your favorite part time job, Ryan?
Dylan no clue what Work Time Fun is! Just found it on the web when searching for WTF!
It always amazes me how many of my new clients want to include the reviews of other journalists in their press kit. I have gently, but firmly, let them know that that is a tactic sure to doom any PR program to failure. PR is not brain surgery. It just takes a little bit of homework and a commitment of time. Unfortunately, there are a lot of lazy marketing people out there.
[...] Wake Up, Stupid Winery Marketing in Action [...]