Tag Archives: Tweeters

Cape wine drinkers and restaurant-goers are misled by unethical ‘reviews’!

Tweeters are starting to express their frustration at being misled by two Cape Town based reviewers, Lionel Lelyveld, Tweeting about restaurants as @IntertwEAT, and Michael Olivier, Tweeting as @FoodWineGuru about wines.

What the two Tweeters have in common is that neither reveal to the readers of their blogs/websites nor in their Tweets (nor to the Fine Music Radio FMR listeners) that they have received their meals for free in the case of Lelyveld, and that the wine reviews are part of an advertising package offered by Olivier, showing that both the reviewers have no ethics in misleading their Twitter Followers and blog readers, and radio listeners.

Michael Olivier has been around for a while, and appears to have needed a new source Continue reading →

Twitter goes on Trial at Franschhoek Literary Festival, receives poor reception!

Twitter had a poor reception literally and figuratively at the Franschhoek Literary Festival on Friday, when its session ‘Trial by Twitter’ was so poorly booked that hordes of learners were bused in to save the organisers from embarrassment. This was particularly visible as the learners were late in arriving, making the start of the session late too!  Only 16% of the attendees, including learners, admitted to being Tweeters, and after an hour, almost none of the non-Tweeters were persuaded to convert to Twitterism!

The panel of four was led by chairman and Tweeter author Fiona Snyckers (second right), with Tweeters Sam Wilson (Social Media Strategist for Woolworths – right) and Julian Rademeyer (author of ‘Killing for Profit’, shortlisted for the Alan Paton Award for non-fiction, and journalist – second left), as well as non-Tweeter and Business Report journalist Ann Crotty (left). Heavily dominated by Wilson, to the irritation of the audience, as she interrupted her fellow panelists continuously, the one hour session came across as a debating society type discussion pro and contra Twitter between Wilson and Crotty, with Rademeyer and Snyckers withdrawing from most of the discussion. Ironically Vodacom was overloaded at the start of the session, so that there was no 3G reception for the Tweeters present to Tweet the proceedings!

By far the most Twitter literate, Wilson sang the medium’s praises for it being her most important social media platform, her dominant source of breaking news (no longer needing TV or newspapers), and an important connection with friends and trusted knowledgeable persons. She does not follow Tweeters who annoy her (this was undefined), and praised Twitter as a ‘fantastic curative tool’. She explained that it is important to her to be one persona, business and personal, and that she should be able to express herself in both capacities, calling this her feminist right. She also multitasks, Tweeting while she was speaking on the panel, and reading what had been Tweeted during the panel discussion! Shortly after joining the company, she was addressed by Woolworths about her Tweets, she admitted, but told them that they should have researched her timeline before appointing her!  Asked whether she had changed her Tweeting habits when she joined the corporate, she was hesitant in admitting this, saying that she had made some life changes too at the time she moved to the company just over a year ago. Being a follower of Wilson’s Tweets, we can observe that Wilson certainly is less sharing about her drinking, and has vastly reduced her use of the f-word.  She did however Tweet from Franschhoek Literary Festival Director Jenny Hobbs’ home after the session: ‘You think you’re popping in to #flf13 for one event… and then you find yourself tweeting drunk from the organiser’s spare room’.  A number of Tweets on the drinking theme followed!

Crotty attacked Twitter for bringing even more ‘noise’ into her life, saying it was not for her, as she is used to 100 – 800 word limitations for articles, and could not communicate in 140 characters! Her criticism of ‘noise’ was countered by the fact that one controls who and how many one is following, but that could give one an unbalanced one-sided view of the world. ‘To Google more is to learn less’, she said!  It was evident that Crotty did not have a good grasp of Twitter, and Wilson had a go at every comment she made, challenging her in criticising a medium she had no experience of, having sent only a handful of Tweets and only having six followers.  ‘Living in an era beyond privacy‘ is of grave concern to her, having observed how privacy has reduced greatly over time.  She commented on the book ‘1984’, and said that instead of Big Brother following everybody, we are following Big Brother now, describing her view on Social Media!  It was noted how newspapers are obtaining story information from Twitter, and how articles have been seen just containing a Twitter stream!

An attendee expressed her frustration in following someone for their technical knowledge, who then would Tweet personal photographs of his/her lunch or rugby Tweets, which is not why she follows the person.  Wilson told her that huge numbers of people love seeing photographs of food, and what others are eating, which we can confirm.

While Woolworths was criticised for not acknowledging receipt of Twitter feedback, being slow to respond if at all, and for not Tweeting outside of corporate Monday – Friday 9h00 – 17h00 days and hours, Wilson shared that they are looking to be more Social Media interactive.  For example, a new online florist service which the retailer offers is used to send flowers to someone who has had a particularly bad day.

Snyckers warned about the legal implications of Tweeting what one wants to, and also of Retweeting defamatory content, as one can be sued for libel in both instances, as a lawyer at Webber Wentzel has recently written.  Rademeyer works in a sensitive field in his journalist job, and for family security reasons he reveals as little private information as possible on Facebook and Twitter, having recently received a death threat!  Alternatively, as a journalist, one can gather a great deal of information about a person one is researching, in their sharing of information about themselves on Twitter and Facebook!  Rademeyer sees Twitter as a ‘self-promotional‘ tool, and as a way in which he can interact with his readers subsequent to the book or article having been published.  He does not like Retweets of compliments.  Wilson said that self-promotion on Twitter is a no-no!  Rademeyer said he has a problem with journalists no longer sticking to their job description, with them expressing their opinions on Twitter.  Whilst news had a 24 hour time frame in the past, it is now ‘nanosecond news’. He did warn that the speed of news breaking means that it is wrong sometimes.

It was surprising to hear and sense so much resistance to Twitter, a number of attendees coming up to Crotty afterwards and telling her privately that they agreed with her views about Twitter.  If one does not get Twitter now, one probably never will!  Whilst the topic of the session was ‘Trial by Twitter’, Twitter certainly was on Trial, and did not perform well!  Wilson may have been to blame.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Food and wine PR companies: few professionals, many mediocre!

Yesterday I met up with a fellow writer at the Franschhoek Summer Wine festival, and we had an interesting discussion about PR companies, and how professional or mediocre they can be. Unfortunately there are many mediocre PR companies, and few truly professional ones.  Smart Communications & Events, the PR agency of the festival, was a prime example of mediocrity, with no presence at the event nor providing a media pack.

The discussion arose when the writer shared his pet peeves about PR companies, being particularly sensitive about not having been invited to a wine-related function earlier this week, yet he was sent a media release after the dinner, which highlighted that top Tweeters and Bloggers had attended the prestigious dinner at The Greenhouse, he obviously not being one, in the opinion of the PR company, he felt!  I shared a similar incident when I was not invited to the launch of a winter menu of Reuben’s in Cape Town, obviously seeing all the Tweets about it, and then received the media release whilst the lunch was on the go!  Media invitation lists are a sensitive issue, and an invitation exclusion can be held against a PR company and/or its client’s brand, especially as we were reminded by one PR company recently that it is not the communications representative but often the client that decides on the final attendance list. This can make things awkward for the PR agency, especially when they represent a number of clients in the food and wine industry.

While we were on a roll, we shared the following peeves about PR agencies:

*   not saying thank you for coverage received – a ‘thank you’ is a rare treat and much appreciated

*   being chased for coverage – attending a function is no guarantee that any writer will write about it, although one does feel obliged to write.  Most events attended are covered on Facebook and Twitter by the writers.  Many PR agencies charge their clients for the number of Tweets achieved for an event, and hence the use of the hash tag to track this easily, it was explained to me.

*   being asked to list an event on one’s ‘Events page of the blog’, even though our blog does not have such a page!

*   being asked to send a link to the PR agency when the blogpost has been written and posted, an absolute no-no!  Not all PR agencies follow one on Twitter, and are rarely ‘Likers’ on Facebook, so they don’t pick up the coverage their clients’ brands achieve on these Social Media forums.

*   being sent media releases with large format photographs in the body of the media release, and on a colour background, make it impossible to print.  The information is what counts, even though the ‘packaging’ of it does look impressive.

*   being sent media releases regularly about clients’ wine and restaurant brands, yet never having been invited to the restaurants or sent a bottle of wine to try before using the media release!  Such media releases have a very low chance of receiving coverage on a blog, and even on Facebook and Twitter.

*  functions that are too long and start too early in the day, especially day-time ones, given that most writers have paying job commitments which must take first priority, especially in summer.

*   not being introduced to fellow attendees, as not all writers know each other, the media mix changing for every function.  Name tags are rarely seen.

*   functions being held far out of Cape Town, where most writers live and work.  Many wine writers will insist on accommodation for evening functions, or a transport service, which covers the issues of drinking/driving and the cost of petrol, and usually leads to great camaraderie on board.

*   functions/launches being too similar – one takes one’s hat off to PR agencies that can find a new angle for their clients’ brands, and always search for new venues to host their clients’ functions.

When a media release was requested of the Franschhoek Summer Wines event yesterday afternoon, Franschhoek Wine Valley CEO Jenny Prinsloo contacted her PR company, and they promised to send a release.  It was the same two paragraph e-mail we had been sent to attend the function.  The PR company head said she wanted to wait for the attendance figures before she issued a media release, a total waste of effort, as most writers would write almost immediately or not at all.   The ‘release’ only contained the names of 12 of the 28 wineries participating in the festival.  Each winery only offered one white wine, Rosé, or MCC for tasting, yet there was no information provided about each of the 28 wines, and what makes them unique. With a few exceptions, it seemed as if the B Team had been sent to man the ‘stands’, which was just a wine barrel per winery.  Very few of the winery representatives offered information proactively, being pourers of wine rather than sharers of information.   Only Morena had a booklet of information one could take from its stand, always stylish with its owner Nick Davies hands-on and in attendance.  There was no information provided about the specialist tastings that formed part of the festival.

Leopard’s Leap was an ideal venue and the perfect weather helped the event greatly. Additional parking was opened up, and golf carts drove one to the entrance.  It’s a pity that a (outsourced security company) boom operator is persistently rude when one arrives at Leopard’s Leap.  The invited media guests had to buy their own food (the wine tasting was on the house), something one would rarely experience if one is the guest of an event – the petrol alone for the journey from Cape Town and back would have cost around R375.  The invitation’s description of the ‘mouth-watering deli-style food from the Harvest Table‘ was completely misleading, as they had changed their menu for the event, being chicken and a few leaves (R60), salmon quiche with a good helping of salad at R45, and a vegetarian wrap (R30), not representative of the fantastic food that The Rotisserie at Leopard’s Leap usually serves.  Even though we wanted to pay for an ice cream when ordering our food, payment was not taken, and consequently the ice cream had run out at 16h00, an hour before the close of the event!

The Franschhoek Summer Wine Festival was organised for the second time, by professional event organiser Darielle Robertson of DnA Events.  Franschhoek can do much better than it did yesterday to attract attendance, given its excellent track record in hosting the Franschhoek Cap Classique and Champagne Festival, Bastille Day festival, and Franschhoek Uncorked.  It is unfortunate that the festival clashed with the Cape Town Carnival yesterday, the Spar Ladies Race this morning, and the start of the ABSA Cape Epic today, which would have kept many wine tasters from Franschhoek.  From Twitter and spending time at the festival it appeared that the media attendance was extremely low (only three we picked up), which means that it will take longer to establish the event in years to come.  We Tweeted twice only from the festival, the food and most of the stands not being attractive enough to photograph and Tweet. As a brand Franschhoek and its excellent wine estates and good restaurants are far too special and unique to be represented by a mediocre PR company!

POSTSCRIPT 8/4: Epic Communications, organisers of the publicity for the RE•CM Top Ten Year Old Wines dinner at the Greenhouse last month, sent this e-mail today: ‘The RE:CM 10 Year Old Wine Awards 2013 winners were announced at a gala dinner held in Cape Town on 14 March 2013 where valued clients and judges were treated to a three-course dinner at the award winning Greenhouse Restaurant by acclaimed chef, Peter Tempelhoff, who specially designed courses to pair with each 2013 RE:CM 10 Year Old Wine Award winner.  Please see attached social images, as well as images of the dishes served on the evening and the handover of the awards.  I have also pasted below captions for the images and a press release with further information.  Would this be of interest for your blog?’ Our bogpost about the event was posted on 18 March!

POSTSCRIPT 7/5: It appears that we were removed from Smart Communications & Events media list after posting this blogpost.  We have just been added back to the list again, after sending a request to the Franschhoek Wine Valley CEO!

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter: @WhaleCottage

Fine wine is a good financial investment! SA’s Top Cabernet Sauvignon wines a good investment!

Whilst many wine farmers may not feel that they make money out of their wines, Sanlam Private Investments Director of Investments Alwyn van der Merwe said that one can make money by investing in fine wines, quoting a 6,5 % return on 2006 wines. The Livex Fine Wine 100 index, tracking a hundred of the world’s most desired wines, has increased by 40% since 2006. There is a good supply of quality wines, with heritage, a legacy, and with craftmanship.  Creating successful wines are the ‘passionate people of the industry’.  It was on this note that the Christian Eedes Top Ten Cabernet Sauvignon wines for 2012 were presented on Thursday, sponsored by Sanlam Private Investments.

Whilst being a judge in a number of wine competitions, including Veritas Awards, Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show, and Platter’s Wine Guide, Christian Eedes remarked that he is ‘bemused at the state of wine competitions in South Africa’,  and he said that some of their results ‘are curious’.  He feels that wine competitions should be held for ‘talent spotting’, to identify the ‘best of a bunch’, especially the undiscovered wines, and to recognise those wines that deserve to be at the ‘top of the pile’.  ‘Cabernet Sauvignon is a much-loved variety, and a category in which South Africa traditionally does well’, and this led Eedes to choose this variety for evaluation, showcasing the ‘potential of this variety to produce wines that can compete with the world’s best’. It is the second most planted variety locally, at 12%, but is often overlooked against other varieties, he feels.

Eedes therefore invited 50 Cabernet Sauvignon wine producers to participate in his competition, and this grew to 60 after he received requests by others to be included too. He explained the methodology as being blind tasting of the wines, a responsibility which he shared with Roland Peens of Wine Cellar and James Pietersen, the Group Sommelier of Belthazar and Balducci restaurants. The winning wines were rated on points out of 20/stars out of 5, as per the Platter rating system. The majority of winning wines were 2009 vintages. The list of Top 10 Cabernet Sauvignons was announced as follows:

Delaire Reserve 2009 (5 stars)

De Trafford 2009 (5 stars)

Graham Beck The Coffeestone 2009 (5 stars)

Tokara 2009 (5 stars)

Cederberg Five Generations 2009 (4,5 stars)

Rickety Bridge Paulina’s Reserve 2009 (4,5 stars)

Stark-Conde 2009 (4,5 stars)

Stark-Conde Three Pines 2009 (4,5 stars)

Kleine Zalze Family Reserve 2007 (4 stars)

Louis 2008 (4 stars)

The function was held at French Toast wine and tapas bar, and they served a selection of tapas dishes including goat’s cheese tomato tarts, chicken empanadas, and a prawn and calamari dish.

Eedes highlighted the role of Social Media, praising the ‘mutually supportive ethos amongst Bloggers and Tweeters’, especially as he comes from a print media background (past editor of Wine) which still is cynical towards the ‘New World’ communication style.  Eedes has left the print media world, and has embraced Social Media, writing the Blog ‘What I drank last night’, Tweets (@ChristianEedes), and Facebooks.  He added that his Social Media colleagues have ‘exceeded his expectations‘.

DISCLOSURE: We received a bottle of Graham Beck The Coffeestone 2009 with our media pack.

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com Twitter:@WhaleCottage