By TasteTV

February 24, 2007 12:25 PM | Link to this

I think that there have been a lot of good comments that Wine X should have expanded more the web and changed its editorial style. Unfortunatley, no one of influence was able to successfully convey these concepts to them while they were still in business.

By Erwin Dink

February 21, 2007 12:17 PM | Link to this

I’ve never posted the same comment on more than one blog but I hope you’ll indulge me this one time and approve this one that I just posted to Fermentations. This is in response to your line, “Although I�m not in the target demographic that Wine X sought so hard to cultivate, it always seemed to me that the magazine was, well, trying too hard to appeal to that demographic.” I may have more years in the bag than the target market but as a tattooed, earing wearing, goateed, gadfly yoga instructor I was thrilled when I stumbled on Wine X. I live for true alternatives to anything. Unfortunately, it only took a couple issues for me to be turned off by this poseur magazine. Yeah, some of their wine writing was good but they blew it by focusing too much on celebrities and non-wine topics like cigars and music. There was nothing authentic about their editorial voice or stance. I so much wanted them to be what they were decried for but in the end they were just another glossy ad vehicle pretending to be hip. I thank the goddesses that there are so many truly alternative voices in the wine blogosphere.

By http://www.grapethinking.com

February 21, 2007 9:52 AM | Link to this

In my opinion this is more of a medium vs. message paradigm. The message was right, but he couldn’t have been more off with the primary medium he chose to communicate it. Personally I haven’t subscribed to a magazine other than Decanter and Wine Spectator in 5 years. To try add another magazine to that heavyweight category was either brave or plain stupid. I think in these days of global warming and mass deforestation, the last thing the world needs is another physical magazine. With banks and corporations going paperless and switching to electronic-statements and PDF, its not a long before the Green crowd broadens their criticism of SUVs and gas-guzzling and focuses their critical lens on the mass-wastage caused by daily-newspapers and magazines. We live in a world that is becoming waste-conscious, and once media tools like the iPHONE, Treo and Blackberry replace the ordinary cell-phone there will soon be no excuse to not switch to digital for news and culture consumption. The only time I ever read a physical newspaper is on the subway, because I don’t have a palmtop (something I hope to change.) As Generation X grows older, the Millenials and echo-boomers are storm. We’re linked in with friends from afar and close through digital communities and our tastes for media consumption change everyday with Digg, there’s nothing we can’t find the answer to with Wikipedia and there’s virtually nothing we can’t have access to (except wine online.) Wine X failed because it’s a magazine, and their target market is already decreasing their consumption of magazines. Mr. Roberts’ assertion that the wine industry is stuck in the eighties is rather amusing, considering he himself seems to be deeply entrenched in the nineties. Y2K never happened and whilst we spent our last days in the nineties scared of what would happen when the bios clocks hit 2000, we could never have known how drastically the world would change. I speak for myself, but I feel that this is true amongst many other millenials: I want to be hooked in, I want to learn something new everyday, I want to exchange ideas and I want to interact with the media I use. Having grown up around the wine industry in South Africa and now being in New York as a part of this exciting industry in this rapid and exhilarating time I can’t help but feel that Mr. Roberts was wrong. There is a great opportunity out there, someone just has to have the balls and the vision to grab it and make it happen. You can’t immediately interact with a magazine. You can’t connect with other readers of similar interest with a magazine. You can’t order wine directly from a magazine. You can’t watch videos and have unlimited access to all the audio-visual you could possibly wish for with a magazine. Magazines are a static medium, and we’re an electric generation. Thus I’d have to concur with you — Wine X’s failure was due to the fact that it didn’t live up to its promises, and the Wine Industry evolved before it had the chance to.

By wine-o

February 21, 2007 9:36 AM | Link to this

As someone who both represents their hard-fought-for demographic (or at least did until very recently) and has read their fishwrap, I would say this: 1) This rag was not good. You can’t be appealing to the young, bold in your writing, anti-establishment, AND still want to fit in with the old guard. 2) Anyone who thinks that they are the hot new thing that no one else has done or seen before is in for a harsh reality — someone else has probably already tried it. I see it in the restaurant industry all the time- “We are going to do things this town has never seen before.” Great, so you spent $40k on a Chihouly-esque chandelier, that doesn’t change the fact that your food is neither cutting edge nor good or that you will be out of business in less that 3 years. It just means you have a bad attitude. In their defense, I am not sure if anyone in the print industry was prepared for what the internet and blogging have become.

By Lenn

February 20, 2007 11:52 AM | Link to this

I think calling him a crybaby is being too nice. Given his target audience, he shouldn’t have been trying to play the same game as Wine Spectator, Parker, etc. It’s like playing in the NFL with an NBA roster. Is the “wine industry” often stuffy, shortsighted and snobby? Hell yes, but he should have recognized that long before his magazine started to tank. Wake up man…it’s the WEB…not print pieces…that speak to that audience. Duh.