{"id":16646,"date":"2011-02-07T10:33:59","date_gmt":"2011-02-07T08:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.whalecottage.com\/blog\/?p=16646"},"modified":"2011-02-10T17:22:53","modified_gmt":"2011-02-10T15:22:53","slug":"winestyle-and-taste-crush-crush-digital-food-and-wine-magazine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.chrisvonulmenstein.com\/blog\/wine-news\/winestyle-and-taste-crush-crush-digital-food-and-wine-magazine\/","title":{"rendered":"Winestyle and TASTE crush Crush! digital food and wine magazine!"},"content":{"rendered":"

We have written about Crush!1<\/a>,<\/span> Crush!2<\/a> <\/span><\/strong>and Crush!3<\/a><\/strong><\/span>, Michael Olivier’s digital food and wine magazine, which he launched last year.\u00a0\u00a0 As other publications are being launched which embrace food and wine, both digitally and in print, I chose to evaluate Crush!4<\/strong> against its competitors,\u00a0putting myself in the shoes of a food and\/or wine marketer, deciding where to spend a marketing budget, and as a food and wine lover, deciding where to spend my time reading.\u00a0\u00a0 I evaluated Winestyle<\/strong>, TASTE, <\/strong>and Crush!4,<\/strong> all three magazines focusing on food and wine, with a Postscript on Crush!5.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Winestyle<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The first (Summer) issue of\u00a0Winestyle<\/strong><\/a> was sent to subscribers (note one does not pay to receive the magazine) in December, and\u00a0its concept is a most creative and environmentally-friendly “print on demand” one.\u00a0 This saves the publishers from over-printing, saving paper and costs, and\u00a0ultimately the environment.\u00a0 It is published quarterly.\u00a0 What makes it unique is that a weekly newsletter is sent by e-mail to each subscriber, updating them on food and wine news.\u00a0 While the brand carry-over is not strong in terms of the banner design of the newsletter (initially I thought the newsletters were from wine consultant Nikki Dumas, who has a similar company name).\u00a0\u00a0 This builds brand awareness weekly, and bridges the quarterly print publishing period.<\/p>\n

The 88-page magazine is larger than the standard A4 size, and has an attractive cover, although it is not photographed in a vineyard.\u00a0 The paper quality is outstanding, as is\u00a0the photography.\u00a0 Editor Jenny Ratcliffe-Wright is\u00a0from Warwick wine estate originally, where her mother Norma and brother Mike\u00a0make excellent wines, and this makes Jenny well-connected to the wine industry.\u00a0 In her editorial Jenny writes: “It is our intention to help everyone make full use of every wine-drinking day …. it’s your passport to all things enjoyable, to in-the-know wines, delicious and simple-to-prepare food and accessible travel – all in a large, sexy, glossy, collectible magazine”.\u00a0\u00a0 The theme of the Summer edition is celebration, and therefore champagnes and sparkling wines are predominantly featured.<\/p>\n

Advertising support\u00a0is impressive\u00a0for a first edition, and reflects the confidence of the advertisers in the publication, and wine estates Graham Beck,\u00a0 Glen Carlou, Clos Malverne, Kleine Zalze,\u00a0\u00a0Nederburg, Highlands Road Estate, OBiKWA, Creation, Eikendal, Adoro Wines, Muratie, and Morgenhof\u00a0have taken full-page ads.\u00a0\u00a0Jenny anticipates having 2500 subscribers by the time the next issue is launched in March.<\/p>\n

The editorial content\u00a0includes a focus on sparkling wine producers in Franschhoek and Stellenbosch, including JC le Roux, Simonsig, Villiera, Morgenhof, Cabri\u00e8re, Graham Beck, Anura, and Sterhuis, and recommends accommodation and restaurants in the area.\u00a0 A profile on a very casual looking Jean-Philippe Colmant, making excellent bubbly in Franschhoek and importing\u00a0champagnes, is\u00a0written by Cape Talk’s <\/strong>John Maytham.\u00a0 A travel feature focuses on the Champagne region, which is informative and has beautiful photographs.\u00a0 A food feature focuses on Tapas, with short recipes, and amazing photography by Christoph Heierli.\u00a0 A Restaurant feature recommends places offering ‘alfresco dining’ in Johannesburg, Durban, the Winelands\u00a0and Cape Town.\u00a0\u00a0 A feature on cocktails has some that call for sparkling wine.\u00a0The\u00a0results of\u00a0a wine-tasting, a panel\u00a0comparing South African sparkling wines Silverthorn, Colmant Brut, Villiera, Jacques Bru\u00e9re,\u00a0and Simonsig, with champagnes Mo\u00ebt & Chandon, Veuve Cliquot, Piper-Heidsieck, Pol Roger and Tribaut Brut Tradition, are featured.\u00a0 Joint first winners were Silverthorn the Green Man Brut and Tribaut Brut Tradition.\u00a0 A tasting panel evaluation of the 2010 vintage Sauvignon Blanc of Groote Post, David Nieuwoudt Ghost Corner, Neil Joubert, Arabella, Sophie Terblance, Delaire, Diemersdal, Klein Constantia, De Grendel and Du Toitskloof ranks them in this order.\u00a0 An article on cigars concludes what must be the most excellent food and wine publication available locally now.<\/p>\n

I cannot wait for the Autumn edition.\u00a0 I do recommend that there\u00a0be more synergy between the magazine and the newsletter as well as its website in terms of branding and design.\u00a0\u00a0Of the three magazines reviewed in this blogpost, Winestyle<\/strong> is the best by far, and we congratulate editor Jenny on this achievement for\u00a0her maiden issue.<\/p>\n

TASTE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Woolworths’ in-house magazine is written and published by New Media Publishing, and they have regularly won ADMag and Pica Awards for Customer Magazine of the Year for it, most recently in 2009.\u00a0\u00a0 It costs R20,95, is published monthly, and is sold in outlets other than Woolworths too.\u00a0\u00a0 It is A4 in size, with 134 pages, and does not have\u00a0a statement to describe what it stands for, but its cover photograph\u00a0represents food.\u00a0 Wines appear to be a secondary focus.\u00a0\u00a0The editor is highly regarded Sumien Brink, with Abigail Donnelly ably at her side.<\/p>\n

Advertisers are a mixed bunch, including car retailers, liquor brands (Darling Cellars, Krone, Bombay Sapphire, Veuve Cliquot, Brand House), watch brands, kitchen suppliers, decor brands, food brands (Lancewood, Lindt), investment companies, a restaurant (Cape Town Fish Market), and accommodation, most of the brands not sold by Woolworths at all.<\/p>\n

The editorial content of the December issue includes a Trends feature, and food related trends are featured with beautiful large photographs by Lee Malan and Jan Ras.\u00a0 Where recipes are featured, they are short and sweet, and do not dominate the look of any page (something competitors House and Leisure Food<\/a><\/span> <\/strong>can learn from).\u00a0\u00a0A Foodstuff feature focuses on products that are sold at Woolworths, but most are non-branded items, and the Woolworths link is very low key. It even has an interview with and one done by Andy Fenner, who writes the JamieWho? blog, a contributor to Crush! <\/strong>issues 2, 3 and 4, but he has withdrawn his support, probably due to his new (not yet clearly defined) involvement with Woolworths, and not wanting to be associated with his friend David Cope’s disparaging\u00a0Twitter campaign<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>against ourselves, in retaliation to our review of Crush!3<\/strong>.\u00a0\u00a0 A chicken feature by man-of-the-moment Justin Bonello, a fish focus by Sam Woulidge, a canap\u00e9 feature by Mariana Esterhuizen of Mariana’s, a feature on Dewetshof by Woolworths wine consultant Allan Mullins,\u00a0and a feature on\u00a0Oded Schwartz of Oded’s Kitchen and his relishes, chutneys and preserves,\u00a0follow.\u00a0 Christmas recipes are featured, but are few in number.\u00a0 Restaurants featured are the fabulous\u00a0Babel on Babylonstoren (next door to Backsberg), and the heavenly Hemelhuijs.<\/a>\u00a0 Blueberries are featured, with recipes, as are Summer lunch recipes.\u00a0 An exclusive extract from Australian Bill Granger’s receipe book “Bill’s Basics” is featured. \u00a0A travel feature by Judy van der Walt focuses on the Dordogne region, and the magazine ends off with a month’s worth of recipes for snacks, lunches, tea time, and suppers.<\/p>\n

I hadn’t bought a TASTE <\/strong>magazine for a while, and remembered it to be more attractive and impactful.\u00a0 The focus may be too much on recipes, and too little on wines.\u00a0\u00a0 The features are written by\u00a0good quality journalists, and could possibly be expanded.\u00a0\u00a0 I liked the way Woolworths as a brand is not ‘in your face’ when reading the magazine – in fact I wouldn’t have minded more direct brand-linkage, to know what to look for when next I\u00a0shop.\u00a0 There are so many organic and other quality suppliers to Woolworths of fruit and vegetables and other foods, as well as of wines, which could all be the subject of\u00a0features, not necessarily linked to recipes only.\u00a0 A “new Woolworths products” feature would be welcome.\u00a0\u00a0For a marketer, TASTE <\/strong>would be an important advertising medium to consider, given its association with Woolworths, and the profile of the Woolworths shopper, with a reasonable disposable income.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is little carry-over between the magazine and its website.<\/p>\n

Crush!4<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The digital food and wine magazine Crush!<\/strong> has no print partner, and is haphazard in its publishing frequency. On Twitter the editorial team hint at how busy they are in doing work for the publication, but on average it appears to take them two months or longer to publish a new issue.\u00a0 The arrival of the new magazine is announced on Twitter and by e-mail, as one has to subscribe to receive\u00a0a link to it, and is free of charge.<\/p>\n

Crush!4<\/strong> <\/a>\u00a0has 44 pages and was published early in December.\u00a0 It appears to have lost its restaurant reviewer JP Rossouw, and\u00a0Olivier has taken over writing the restaurant reviews, something we suggested in one of our earlier Crush! <\/strong>reviews.\u00a0\u00a0 We are delighted with another of our recommendations that Olivier adopted, which was to let (lady) bloggers participate in his\u00a0magazine, and he has done so by giving highly regarded blogger Jane-Anne Hobbs from Scrumptious blog<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0a recipe feature, and he has introduced a recipe competition, in which the recipes of bloggers Colleen Grove, Jeanne Horak-Druiff, Meeta Khurana-Wolff and Nina Timm\u00a0can be\u00a0evaluated by readers.<\/p>\n

The navigation of the pages, and more particularly the content on each page,\u00a0remains tedious. The front cover looks better, the\u00a0copy on top of the photograph being easier to read, but it is not yet perfect, especially when one compares the ‘less is more’ covers of the two other magazines above.\u00a0 Most flashing gimmicks have been removed from the front cover, and have largely been discontinued. \u00a0 Advertising support is poor, and appears reduced relative to previous issues, and\u00a0compared to the two other publications above, with only Hidden Valley, Pongracz, Laborie, Old Mutual\u00a0and Ultra Liquors advertising.<\/p>\n

The content consists of a wine page written by Olivier, and features premium brandy cocktails, a vineyard dog, wine finds, a wine myth and an overview of Sauvignon Blanc.\u00a0 The Essentials page, as before, has products with poor brand recognition, but the names are typed alongside\u00a0each product.\u00a0 A Plaisir de Merle feature is a good promotion for the wine estate.\u00a0 The recipe pages by Jane-Anne Hobbs\u00a0have fantastic photography done by herself\u00a0(perhaps she should become the Crush!<\/strong>photographer!), but I could only get to see three recipes (soup, dessert, gammon)\u00a0– I am sure there were more, judging by the six bottles alongside the opening recipe, and Olivier recommends\u00a0a wine per recipe.\u00a0\u00a0 The names of the wines are not typed alongside the bottles.\u00a0\u00a0 The JamieWho? page by Andy Fenner\u00a0is blocked by a Laborie promotion box, still has silly moving balloon captions,\u00a0and focuses on\u00a0Absinthe, Champagne, Hangover Cures,\u00a0Jardine’s Christmas cake,\u00a0 and Christmas cocktails.\u00a0 In two of\u00a0his mini-stories the copy ends mid-sentence.\u00a0 The review of Babel Restaurant at Babylonstoren is blocked by a competition\u00a0box, and one does not know how to close it.\u00a0 Restaurant names at the bottom of the Babel article are harder to read on the right hand side, especially ‘Cafeen’.<\/p>\n

A seven-day recipe card feature by Carey Boucher-Erasmus (a food consultant to the Pick ‘n Pay Cookery School, according to Google) is easy to follow and read, but no information is supplied about who Carey is.\u00a0 There is no consistency in the colours used for the names of white and red wines alongside the bottles, the white wine names typed in blue (High Five)\u00a0or in green (Quaff Now).\u00a0\u00a0 Sophia Lindop\u00a0does great food features, but has used herbs in the last two issues (rocket\u00a0in the current issue and rosemary last time), making it hard to see dishes prepared with these, and thus to have attractive photographs, even if they are photographed by star photographer Russel Wasserfall.\u00a0\u00a0 David Cope outs himself as a guest house reviewer,\u00a0of South Hills, presented on a messy red and white check background which is similar to that which he uses on his ‘The Foodie’ blog.\u00a0 A summer picnic spead looks good enough to eat off the screen, and is prepared by Luisa Farelo, but there is no indication as to who she is (I could not find any information about her on Google).\u00a0 The focus on Parlotones wines,\u00a0named after the group, is fun in having their music videos, but I did struggle to get one to play properly.\u00a0 I also struggled to find the way to open the Prince Albert feature by Russel Wasserfall, eventually finding it at the bottom right, in the smallest possible type size.\u00a0\u00a0A feature on trendy Artisan Breads tells the Knead story, with colour photographs, and mentions the names of only five other artisanal bakeries around the country –\u00a0there are that many others in Cape Town alone!\u00a0 Helen Untiedt’s\u00a0organic vegetable garden, and a Book Review page conclude Crush!4.<\/p>\n

My overwhelming frustration with Crush!<\/strong> is the difficulty of reading it, and the struggle to move forward or to close what one has opened.\u00a0 The promotional boxes blocking copy remains a\u00a0problem, which cheapens the magazine and is irritating to have to close.\u00a0\u00a0Perhaps Olivier and the design team can look at Opulent Living’s e-magazine<\/strong><\/a>,\u00a0only 8 pages long but published regularly – it is easy to read, has no promotions, with beautiful photographs – a top class digital magazine!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I was interested to\u00a0see the Crush!<\/strong> blogger recipe rating, and the low participation is a surprise (the highest vote is by only\u00a0100 readers after two months), given Olivier’s claim that the magazine would go to more than 1 million readers!\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0If I were a marketer, I would not advertise in Crush!,<\/strong> as a digital magazine cannot present a food or wine brand with the appetite appeal that a print magazine can, especially given the poor pack presentation.\u00a0 I would therefore love to see a print version of Crush!,<\/strong> as it contains lots of good information, and could make for beautiful pages of copy and photography, something one would want to keep.<\/p>\n

POSTSCRIPT 8\/2<\/strong>:\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Crush!5<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0was launched today.\u00a0 JamieWho? (Andy Fenner) has been replaced by Neil Stemmet, a talented interior designer, and he adds an Afrikaans dimension to Crush!, <\/strong>with all five his recipes in Afrikaans on his “Soutenpeper” page (this is causing a problem for English readers!).\u00a0 David Cope has lost his name, and is only referred to as “The Foodie”, with no red and white check background to his contributions anymore, and both his article on Paternoster, and on FoodWineDesign\u00a0in Johannesburg (held in November!!),\u00a0are long-winded and boring, with few attractive photographs.\u00a0\u00a0 Jane-Anne Hobbs (unfortunately) has been replaced by Clare Bock (owner of Appetite catering company, I learnt from Google)\u00a0in a food\/wine matching feature – by chance I worked out how this feature works – if you click on a wine bottle, an appropriate recipe pops up, rather than finding an appropriate wine to match the recipe!\u00a0\u00a0 The five food bloggers in the recipe rating section are complete unknowns.\u00a0 Luisa Farelo (with an introduction in this issue – she is a chef and food stylist) does another feature, this time on Sunday lunches, and the styling is good enough to eat again.\u00a0 A food and wine events calendar is a good new addition, while a classifieds section probably is not, the ads being so small that one cannot read them.\u00a0 A feature on The Test Kitchen, and owner and chef Luke Dale-Roberts, is good with great food photographs, as is the one on Jordan Winery, but the labels underneath the bottles are so tiny that one may not see them.\u00a0 The interview with Bertus Basson of Overture (Michael is a stickler for spelling, but misspells the restaurant name in his introduction)\u00a0is weird, and probably does not do him a favour.\u00a0 Advertisers are Fairview, Pongracz, Old Mutual, and Avocado magazine.<\/p>\n

Chris von Ulmenstein, Whale Cottage Portfolio: www.whalecottage.com<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 Twitter: WhaleCottage<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We have written about Crush!1, Crush!2 and Crush!3, Michael Olivier’s digital food and wine magazine, which he launched last year.\u00a0\u00a0 As other publications are being launched which embrace food and wine, both digitally and in print, I chose to evaluate Crush!4 against its competitors,\u00a0putting myself in the shoes of a food and\/or wine marketer, deciding […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false},"categories":[124,266,21,19,293],"tags":[4814,2803,9822,9807,9814,4505,9808,7942,9856,5961,8033,9854,8238,8239,3160,64,9833,9826,9803,9827,1397,9838,4134,2392,9839,9812,4915,32378,9813,9852,2656,9835,2521,7939,7940,7938,9798,9853,9825,6813,9818,2196,3212,6096,4301,5550,6814,9820,3999,333,270,30,9855,32369,2645,287,226,2311,9844,8369,215,9805,9622,2164,9815,4331,9829,4792,40,2827,9810,7076,9804,9811,6235,2688,9834,9830,413,1335,8441,227,1136,275,9828,7977,9843,555,9800,9832,1361,9836,2788,3602,698,2832,7038,399,4001,7421,2875,7075,2790,9806,924,9845,3817,33,3019,4932,9823,9840,9816,2377,2883,229,830,9802,252,4907,6874,9831,422,4823,2835,230,8153,9819,9842,4916,32376,400,9801,9824,1074,9799,4573,8732,7518,9817,1587,9837,3211,2837,2172,32373,365,3336,7967,171],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t