In This Issue:

• Marketing Strategies for Chip Companies: Part III - The Art and Science of Positioning Strategy
• Success Strategies for Startups: Gaining Customer Traction
• Tobak's Great Wine for Techies:

Marketing Strategies for Chip Companies
Part III - The Art and Science of Positioning Strategy

In the last segment we discussed the unique positioning dilemma that most IP companies face. We discussed how confusion and misperception about the IP business model, the value of "ingredient technology" and litigation can lead to issues with customer trust and market valuation. Finally, we highlighted several key directives that will help IP companies to overcome these issues:

1) Focus on winning and maintaining customers
2) Strive and position for clear market leadership
3) Develop a strong ecosystem that supports your technology
4) Develop a compelling, unique value proposition

The Critical Role of Positioning Strategy

Positioning strategy determines how a company behaves, internally and externally. It determines how a company goes to market, including how it interacts and communicates with customers, partners, shareholders and employees. In addition, positioning strategy defines a company's distinct value proposition, or its claim as a unique provider of a product or service that solves some critical customer or market problem. As a result, positioning strategy can have a dramatic effect on virtually every aspect of a company's business, including operating strategy. Since this interrelationship is not entirely intuitive, consider the following feedback loop:

The idea is a simple one: A company will alter its positioning strategy and operating strategy based on input from customers, competitors and other market sources. As a result, the company behaves differently which has an effect on customer and market behavior, and so forth. As a result of this feedback loop, there are two interesting phenomenon I'd like to highlight. The first is that positioning strategy can influence operating strategy directly. For example, at Cyrix - the microprocessor maker - we developed a positioning strategy to create a sub-$1000 PC market and become the leading processor maker for that new segment. The average PC selling price was about $2000 at the time. This strategy, however, led us to the conclusion that we would also need to become both a low-cost provider and a high-volume provider, of which we were neither. This led to a change in operating strategy that resulted in the company's merger with National Semiconductor, a company with low-cost, high-volume manufacturing capability.

The second phenomenon is that positioning strategy can influence a company's operating strategy indirectly, as well. Let's look at Intel's "The Computer Inside" or "Intel Inside" marketing campaign. The customer acceptance and success of the co-branding campaign - clearly a positioning strategy - eventually led to an operating strategy that included significant investments in motherboards, chipsets, and Ethernet and graphics controllers. It even led to investments in memory chip companies. Intel eventually became "The Computer Inside." Interestingly, the ripple effects of that positioning strategy caused a restructuring of the entire PC industry. It allowed Dell to rely largely on Intel for R&D, opening the door for their razor focus on supply chain management and direct customer interface, thus creating the new leading PC maker. The ripple effects of Intel's original positioning strategy are still felt today.

The fact is that many of the most well-known breakthrough strategies in high-tech began with positioning strategies. In addition to those above, you can add Apple Computer's controversial anti-IBM positioning, Sun's "open standards" positioning and, of course, IBM's mammoth repositioning from the original "big iron" company to a service company.

Right Brain / Left Brain Balancing Act

Now that we understand the critical role positioning strategy plays in shaping companies and their ultimate success, let's take a look at its anatomy. Well, you may be surprised to know that positioning strategy is both an art and a science; which is to say that it requires a balance between an analytical, or left brain thought process and an inspirational, or right brain thought process. Why is this? With respect to the right brain, positioning strategy relates very much to the behavior of people. In fact, it relates to the behavior of individuals - those who make design or purchase decisions, for example, as well as to the behavior of groups - vis-a-vie the herd mentality often associated with investors and industry-wide reaction to de facto standards and trends. In terms of the left brain, if positioning strategy is to have a high probability of success in meeting strategic corporate goals, clearly an analytical or methodical approach must be employed. In fact, why don't we start with that, since it will likely appeal more readily to a more technical audience:

The Science of Positioning Strategy

There are a number of factors that enter into the equation to determine the right positioning strategy for a specific company or product line. If you focus on ensuring that these principals are well understood, then the probability that the positioning strategy you derive will be successful in meeting corporate goals increases dramatically. These are my top six:

Start with an accurate, objective baseline. Don't build your strategy on potentially false assumptions. It's critical to get an objective baseline that tells you what your customers, employees and other key constituents really think of your company and its products. This data will serve as a baseline for measuring the success of your program. Analysis of the data will also enable you to uncover issues that may become stumbling blocks down the road.

Agree on quantifiable strategic business goals. If you don't know where you're going you won't get there. Moreover, the company's management team must be in consensus on the strategic direction and goals of the company. The process of deriving and achieving consensus on the company's strategic direction and goals can also be used to resolve issues uncovered in the baseline research. Metrics used in determining the success of positioning strategy should be consistent with the company's strategic goals.

Know your distinct value proposition. Every company and product line must offer customers a credible, compelling value proposition. I'm not talking about just price and performance, here; those have become more "tickets to entry" than "winning tickets" in today's highly competitive technology markets. Sure, price/performance and other such metrics can be part of it, but more importantly, you need to articulate how your solution uniquely solves a critical customer problem and gives them a distinct competitive advantage. This is the essence of leadership positioning which should be at the core of any positioning strategy.

Know your target audience. The target audience "bull's eye" is most likely to be your customers, the folks who pay you for your product, technology or service. Your paying customers are typically the folks whose behavior you want to influence most. If they're chip companies or OEMs, there are probably hundreds of them, at most, so marketing to them will be relatively inexpensive. A creative positioning strategy targeting customers can typically be designed to pull in investors, employees, and other key audiences, as well. Targeting end-users is typically cost-prohibitive and ineffective, but it's amazing how many "ingredient technology" companies throw their money away on it.

Don't try to break the laws of physics. This is a pithy way of saying don't expect your customers, partners or infrastructure to do unnatural things. Also, don't try to change the company's DNA. Sure, it can be done, but it requires a somewhat different process than the one we're discussing here. To paraphrase Einstein, the universe is beautiful in its simplicity. I like to say "if it looks like a duck and walks like a duck, it probably is a duck." Don't try to turn the duck into a lion. For one thing, it won't taste very good.

Walk the Talk. Contrary to popular belief, a successful positioning strategy cannot be just a communications strategy. It's a competitive market and your customers are smart and savvy. The same goes for your investors, employees and others. If you don't walk the talk, they will know it and your strategy will likely fail to influence them. Moreover, it's a small, networked world; you'll live a longer, happier, less stressful life by assuming that everyone knows what you're doing and saying to everyone else. As for market segmentation, yes, it can be accomplished by an orchestrated effort, but it's tricky and cannot be accomplished by positioning alone.

The Art of Positioning Strategy

As for the art of positioning strategy, that's quite a bit harder to explain in a unidirectional forum like this. One of the reasons is that mastering an art typically comes from innate ability combined with experience. So, either you have it or you don't, but whichever it is, it may still take a decade or more to catch on. As a result, teaching it usually requires hands-on, problem-solving oriented methods. Second, the art of positioning strategy deals primarily with human behavior and that sounds remarkably like human psychology, which folks have been trying to understand for centuries.

On the other hand, I can still provide you with six guiding principals that I've found to be effective with "ingredient technology" companies over the years, but I would view them as somewhat more subjective than the scientific ones:

CEOs and technical people have left and right brains too. Just because your audience is made up of technical folks and highly accomplished C-Level executives, that doesn't mean they're not human too. In fact, I've found that those folks are just as likely to react to their right brain as their left. Marketing to them should anticipate and account for their emotional as well as their analytical response.

People don't do as you say or as you do. They do what they believe is best for them. What you think are the key features or benefits of your product or even your company is not relevant to anyone else but you. Customers, partners, investors and employees will act on their perception of what's best for them. Your positioning strategy must take this into account by answering your target audience's question, "what's in it for me?" or "what critical problem of mine do you solve?"

You can dress up the pig, but it's still a pig. Don't get me wrong, I've used this strategy many times myself, and when it's done right, it's a beautiful thing. Just remember that it can only be a temporary solution, for it will eventually violate the fifth scientific principal, above. Knowing when to use it and for how long is indeed an art form.

Find a credible way to position yourself as a leader. If you can't lead, don't despair. You can still find a way to position yourself as a leader, through creative market segmentation or by other means. Just remember, it has to be credible and, at some point, supportable. If you can't come up with leadership positioning that passes muster with your employees and partners, then your business or product strategy may be flawed.

Marketing people alone rarely invent breakthrough positioning ideas. The best breakthrough ideas typically come from brainstorm sessions that combine 1) a bunch of smart people from your company, and 2) someone with a good marketing / positioning head on his/her shoulders who knows how to lead effective brainstorm sessions. The reason is that you know your technology, products, customers, markets, strengths and weaknesses best, and the marketing person knows marketing and positioning strategy best. The combination never fails.

If you can't answer "why are we doing this?" then don't do it. AKA beware of great marketing ideas with no business context or metrics, AKA beware of marketing strategies du jour. Everybody's got a brilliant marketing idea: a mission statement, a tag line, an ad campaign, a way to get your brand on your customer's box, a segmentation strategy, a pricing strategy, it goes on and on. As a simple rule, if it doesn't fit into the context of your overall positioning and operating strategy, and if it doesn't have associated metrics to measure it's effectiveness in helping your company achieve it's strategic business goals, don't do it.

The Positioning Wave

By now you're probably beginning to wonder, "If positioning strategy is such a critical success factor for chip, IP and other ingredient technology companies, then why don't we see more of it at work?" The answer, however unsatisfying, is that, although the industry is maturing, it hasn't yet reached that level of maturity. Innovation typically rules the day in young industries, while marketing becomes more dominant in mature industries. The bottom line is that chip, IP and other ingredient technology companies are just beginning to realize that positioning strategy is a critical factor in the long-term success of their business. As a result, there is an undersupply of expertise in this functional area, but one that will inevitably be fulfilled over time as the industry continues to mature and priorities shift to meet new challenges. But don't be surprised if that change comes rapidly; I believe we are already in the early stages of the positioning wave.

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Invisor Insights – a monthly letter – provides direct perspective and analysis on issues critical to high-tech industry leaders.

Coming in the May Issue of Invisor Insights:

• Exploring the Tradeoffs in Growing from a Single-Product to Multiple-Product Business
• What is Branding and is it Relevant to Chip Companies?
• Tobak's Great Wine for Techies - Focus on the Hottest Red-wine Trend: Rhone wines

Success Strategies for Startups
Gaining Customer Traction

Once upon a time, if you designed it, they would come. But the technology markets have matured since then. Competition is tougher and the barriers are higher. Today's startups - at least the successful ones - are based on more than just great technology; they're based on great technology that fulfills a critical market need. And while that's a step in the right direction, it takes a lot more than that for a technology to become a successful product. Somewhere in between invention and IPO lies the nebulous world of "customer traction."

Without customer traction, there's no "next round" of funding. VCs are pretty smart about that kind of thing. They know that, without customer traction, you're likely to design a great product that nobody buys. So what if you did design the wrong product? Is that the end of the world? Maybe in the bubble it wasn't, but in today's highly competitive, lean and mean market, it may very well be the end of your company's world. It certainly lowers the odds of your company's success, and they were pretty slim to begin with. In fact, even having to reposition a product line in midstream on limited funding (is there any other kind these days?), may decrease your odds of success from slim to none. Not only that, but you'll have an ulcer to go with your poverty.

To avoid this scenario, it's always best to operate under the assumption that you have one shot and your company's life depends on it. It depends on obtaining solid feedback from real customers on your product's partitioning, architecture, specs and infrastructure. It also depends on getting "inside" the customer and gaining real insight into their business. This will not only improve your design-win potential, time-to-revenue, and time-to-positive cash flow, but it will also enable you to more accurately forecast your business and its financial needs. Sounds like a good idea, right? Damn right it is. So let's take a closer look at customer traction: what is it, how do you get it, and most importantly, how do you avoid its many pitfalls?

What is Customer Traction?

Since I'm an engineer myself, I like to approach these things rather analytically. And when discussing a new or complex topic, I often find it useful to define the topic, so we're all talking the same language and share a common baseline. Here's my definition of customer traction:

cus'-tom-er trac'-tion noun 1: that which startups need in order to raise their second round of funding; 2: customer feedback on market requirements and design specifications that result in design wins; 3: dialog and engagement with potential buyers of a technology or product resulting in business commitment. Also verb: to gain customer traction, e.g. "If we don't gain customer traction with this design our investment won't be worth doodley squat."

Contrary to popular belief, gaining customer traction is not a mystical event. It's more typically a fairly methodical process made up of several somewhat distinct phases. And like the video games you play on the PS2 you bought for your kid - not for yourself, of course - each phase represents a successive level in the game. You gain access to each successive level by passing tests in the prior level. In addition, customers will tell you more about their specific needs and commit more to your design in each successive level, which is also a good thing. Let's take a look at what it takes to gain customer traction:

The Four Phases of Customer Traction

Phase 1 - The Paper Chase. This first phase begins with the entrepreneur gaining introduction to a few potential customers through friendly channels, such as investors, research analysts, business associates, next-door neighbors or somebody you met on line at the grocery store. This phase includes endless Powerpoint presentations that result in one or more potential customers providing feedback on your technology, product specs, wardrobe, etc. If you succeed in this phase you will get the inevitable, "come back when you have samples."

Phase 2 - It's Alive. This is where you actually demonstrate the feasibility of your technology or approach. There are many ways to do this, including the nail-biting in-house demo that only works at three o'clock in the morning on odd numbered Thursdays. This phase may also include actually delivering alpha samples to the customer so they can get it to wiggle in their own environment or test bed. This is usually the phase where potential customers begin to think you're real and start to engage with you and provide incredibly valuable information about their system environment.

Phase 3 - Plug and Play. After much interaction and feedback, you have beta samples and your big customer is hopefully waiting anxiously to plug it into his/her system to see if it actually works. When, of course, it doesn't work, you may then find yourself debugging your customer's system, only to find out that the problem wasn't your product at all. In any case, you've proven in the real world everything you promised on paper, leaving the customer only one choice.

Phase 4 - Design Win. Congratulations. You've delivered working beta samples or preproduction units, gotten your first design win and your sales guy has forecast millions in revenue to the board of directors. That's typically when you find out that 1) the customer has no intention of letting you make any reasonable profit margin, or 2) they've cancelled the project in favor of a more "disruptive" next-generation product scheduled to launch in 18 months. C'est la vie.

I know, it all sounds so easy, doesn't it. You get a name and number, you make a call, you get a meeting set up, you show them what you've got, they tell you what they need, you go off and design a product, they design it into their system, and voila, instant customer traction. Not so fast, Kimosabe. This process is filled with enough pitfalls and tradeoffs to scare any sales and marketing VP into a career in the food services industry. Here are some tips that will help you avoid some of the more common issues.

Avoiding Common Customer Traction Pitfalls

Get the right information from the right people. You know the scene from Return of the Pink Panther where Peter Sellers asks a guy on the street "does your dog bite?" When the guy replies no, Sellers pets the dog, which promptly bites him. Sellers then says, "I thought you said your dog doesn't bite," to which the guy replies, "my dog doesn't bite … that's not my dog." Well, customer contacts are a lot like that guy; they don't volunteer a lot of information, and even if they do, they may not be the right contact. It's hard to find key decision makers.

Timing is everything. When exactly do you begin to interact with customers, anyway? Too soon and your technology isn't fleshed out enough for customers to get excited about. Too late and you may go too far down the design cycle with invalid assumptions. The answer, of course, is to take somewhat of a phased approach; you give a little, you get a little. It's also important to have an experienced sales/marketing person on board who has good relationships with the top customers in your target application.

What if you throw a party and nobody comes. What if you can't get any customers interested? Sounds scary, but all is not yet lost. Get hold of a couple of research or investment analysts that are specialists in your product space. They have visibility into a broad range of customers, competitors and applications, and are typically happy to provide feedback and guidance. Not to mention that analysts relationships are beneficial for a whole host of reasons, such as customer and investor references and referrals.

Develop a compelling pitch and unique value proposition. Customers see lots of great pitches about great technology. Everybody's product is higher-performance, cheaper and lower-power than the other guy's. One of the ways I can tell that a market's matured is that cool, whiz-bang technology doesn't cut it anymore. I'm not saying that performance and cost are irrelevant; they're more like "tickets to entry' as opposed to "winning tickets." What customers really respond to is great technology that uniquely solves a critical problem and gives them a significant, quantifiable competitive advantage. But remember, the pitch can only open the door. It only stays open if you deliver the goods.

In summary, it's really competitive out there and technology alone won't cut it. If you understand that getting customer traction is a critical success factor and manage the process methodically, you'll have a much better chance of turning your startup into a real company with customers, sales and someday, profits.

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Tobak's Great Wine for Techies

I’m truly amazed at how much this column is resonating with folks.  People are passing it along to friends and associates interested in wine.  I’d also like to extend an offer.  Anybody with wine questions, just send me an email and I’ll do my best to answer them.  I can be reached at stobak@invisor.net.  As for this month’s column, we’re going to discuss one of my favorite topics: new world Pinot Noirs, and then I’ll give you the real lowdown on serving wine.     

New World Pinot Noirs

Pinot Noir is called “the heartbreak grape” because it’s difficult to grow successfully, compared to other noble grape varietals.  But folks in the Burgundy region of France managed to figure it out, and the Pinot Noir grape now accounts for virtually all of the red wine production of the second largest wine growing region in the world.  And of course, the regal Pinot Noir grape represented quite a challenge to new world wine makers, who went for it in a big way.  Today, Pinot Noir is among the top produced red wines in America, alongside Merlot, Zinfandel and of course, the market leader, Cabernet Sauvignon. 

In addition to making wines of great distinction and finesse, Pinot Noir’s primary advantage is its food friendliness.  Pinot Noirs are generally a bit lighter bodied than Cabernet Sauvignons, and therefore pair far better with California diets.  If you’re out to dinner and folks are ordering anything from Salmon or Portobello mushrooms to chicken or pork, Pinot Noir’s a safe bet to blend nicely with everyone’s meal.  There’s no other red grape I can think of with that distinction, and the only white that’s similarly versatile is Chardonnay.  I guess the people of Burgundy really knew what they were doing when they planted primarily Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grapes.    

In fact, the thin-skinned Pinot Noir grape is incredibly versatile, creating everything from light bodied wines that should be drunk young, to rich and complex wines that are quite age-worthy.  The finest wine-growing regions in the United States are Sonoma’s Russian River Valley, the Carneros region just north of San Francisco, Central California’s Santa Maria Valley and Oregon’s Willamette Valley. 

Why these particular regions?  Pinots seem to thrive in cooler climates.  Indeed, much of the great new world Pinots are grown in or near coastal regions.  Although each of these regions contributes Pinot Noirs of great distinction, in general, I find the Oregon and Santa Maria varietals to be somewhat lighter and should be drunk younger than their Napa and Sonoma counterparts.  Outside the US, New Zealand has also had good success with Pinot Noirs.  Lastly, unlike their Bordeaux counterparts – like Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot – Pinot Noirs are rarely blended with other grape varietals. 

Here are some of the leading producers of American Pinot Noirs: 

Acacia, Carneros; Archery Summit, Williamette Valley; Au Bon Climat, Santa Maria Valley; David Bruce, Santa Cruz Mountains; Calera, Mt. Harlan; Chalone, Monterey County; Dehlinger, Russian River Valley; Domaine Drouhin, Williamette Valley; Etude, Carneros; Gary Farrell, Russian River Valley; Kistler, Russian River Valley; Rochioli, Russian River Valley; Saintsbury, Carneros; Sanford, Santa Ynez Valley; Williams Selyem, Russian River Valley

How to Serve Wine: Temperature, Breathing and Glasses

People ask me all the time, “does it really matter which glass you serve wine in?”  And I tell them the same thing every time, “sure it does.”  Nevertheless, I was at a restaurant the other day and was really surprised to find a Leonetti Merlot, from Washington and one of the best Merlot’s on the planet, on the wine list.  So I ordered it, and you know what?  They served it in their plain, small, thick-rimmed glasses with the name of the restaurant branded on them.  And this is a restaurant with a great wine list.  Clearly, some folks don’t think glasses matter.  Restaurants also commonly store and serve wines too warm.  C’est la vie. 

On the flip-side, some wine experts and enthusiasts would have you sticking a thermometer in the wine before you drink it.  Being somewhat analytical but practical as well, I guess I’m somewhere in between.  So here’s my practical guide to serving wine.  Temperature, breathing and glasses all have one thing in common.  They relate significantly to the wine’s scent or bouquet.  Look, this is simple.  You taste mostly through your sense of smell.  So to the extent these three factors relate to the wine’s scent, they are a factor. 

Taking Wine’s Temperature

First, let’s tackle temperature.  The old adage says that you serve whites chilled and reds at room temperature.  Well, that’s pretty close, but there’s a bit more to it than that.  If you serve whites too cold, you slow down the molecules, they become less volatile and the wine’s scent is reduced.  As a result, the wine’s flavor will be reduced.  That’s a fact. 

To my pallet, cellar temperature, or 55 degrees or so is the warmest white wine should be served, and whatever temperature your fridge is at, as long as it’s not super cold, is probably okay on the low end.  But if wine is poured straight from the fridge, I like to warm the glass in my hands a bit while drinking it; it helps to excite those molecules.

As for reds, the old adage is fine, except for one thing.  Room temperature in France, back in the days before central heating, was considered to be in the mid-to-upper 50s.  That temperature tastes about right to me.  When I open a bottle of red from my wine cellar (it’s actually not a cellar but a converted sauna, but it is temperature controlled), here’s my routine.  If it’s just for my wife and me, I typically pour each of us a glass and then put the bottle outside on the deck on cool nights.  It’s just a few feet away from our kitchen and dining room.  If it’s warm out, I put the bottle back in the cellar, which is also not too far away.  You can even put it in a wine bucket or the fridge, but don’t leave it in too long, since the optimum temperature is in the 50s, not the 30s.  If there are more than two people drinking, I just leave the bottle out; it tends to get drunk fast enough.  If it’s the second bottle or beyond, you can put it anywhere you want and I guarantee you, nobody will notice its temperature. 

Breathing Life into Wine

Temperature is relatively straightforward, but the breathing thing still shocks me to this day.  Wine ages in the bottle primarily because there’s a little air in the bottle that causes chemical reactions to occur among various compounds in the wine.  Guess what happens when you open the bottle and either decant the wine or pour it into glasses?  That’s right; the wine comes into contact with lots of air.  So, in a way, you can think of breathing as accelerated aging.  As a result, the wine “opens up” and its character can change fairly rapidly and quite dramatically, in fact.  Just the other day we opened a ’95 Lancaster Reserve – the first year this Meritage was ever produced.  When I open a bottle I like to pour a bit into glasses just to taste it right away.  The Lancaster was quite acidic at first and, although it had aged for 9 years, it tasted young right out of the bottle.  But as we tasted it over the next hour or so, the wine really opened up and settled into a more rich and textured body with layers of fruit and tannins that had been mellowed by age.  The difference was amazing. 

Some people open sweet Rieslings a day in advance, but I admit that I’ve never thought that far ahead.  You can do that, of course, because all the sugar in a sweet Riesling keeps the wine from fermenting and turning into vinegar.  As for decanting, that just increases the surface area in contact with air, so the wine opens up faster.  Again, accelerated aging.  I typically decant fine wines, but I’m not sure if I do that for practical reasons or for effect.  I guess it’s kind of fun.   But some people say that young wines benefit more from decanting than old wines that have already had plenty of time to age in the bottle.  Just pouring some wine into large glasses and leaving the rest in the bottle has almost the same effect as decanting; you’re just decanting the wine into glasses, instead.  However, I think opening the bottle and just letting it sit there is silly … the surface area of the wine that comes into contact with air is no different than when the wine was sitting in the bottle for years.  I guess the best thing is to try it a few different ways and decide what works for you.  The bottom line: once you’ve opened a bottle of wine, putting the cork back in is like trying to put the Genie back in the bottle.  You just can’t do it.  Just leave the cork out.  That goes for reds as well as whites, which open up too.

What’s in a Glass?

How about glasses?  Do they really matter?  Yes.  Bigger glasses have more surface area and allow your nose to access the wine’s scent more readily.  They also allow you to more easily swirl the wine in the glass, which also enhances the wine’s scent.  Remember, you can’t taste the various flavors of the wine without your sense of smell, so this is all pretty scientific.  Drink reds in bigger glasses and whites in smaller ones.  Bigger glasses also help the wine to open up, just as we discussed earlier.  Get some nice machine made Reidel glasses from The Wine Club at discount prices.  You can even put them in the dishwasher and they have a nice, clean edge.  They’re really cool looking, too.  Forget crystal.  As for the fact that Reidel has a different glass for each varietal, well, that’s your call.  I would at least get the red Bordeaux glasses (for Cab and Merlot), the Pinot Noir or red Burgundy glasses (they’re a much different shape than the Bordeaux glasses) and the Chardonnay or white Burgundy glasses.  You can use the Chard glasses for all your whites, and then use the red Bordeaux glasses for other red varietals.  That’s only three sets … it won’t break you.  If that’s too much, forget the red Burgundy glasses.  There ya go.           

Finally, if any of this gets too serious for you, forget it.  Just open the bottle and drink it.  But don’t forget to breathe.  Cheers. 

Tobak’s Monthly Picks

Wines (you guessed it, all US Pinots)

Acacia.  The Carneros Pinot Noir is great for around $20.  The single-vineyard designated Pinot’s are mostly great, but expensive, around $50.  I like the Beckstoffer – powerful stuff.  FYI, Acacia’s part of the Chalone wine group.

Archery Summit and Saintsbury.  We discussed these fine Pinots in the January issue.  

Au Bon Climat.  The best is from the Sanford & Benedict Vineyard, but the other Pinots are excellent too.  Famed wine-maker Jim Clendenen actually believes in pricing his wines reasonably.  You gotta love that.   

David Bruce.  An early Pinot Noir pioneer in the Santa Cruz Mountains.  Vineyard designated Pinots from the Russian River Valley and Santa Cruz Mountains are his best widely distributed wines, priced in the mid-to-upper $20s.  He makes some more basic Pinots at better prices, as well: the Sonoma, in the upper teens and Central Coast, in the lower teens, I believe.  He also has a reserve Santa Cruz Mountains bottling that’s very pricy ($50) and available only at the winery.  

Calera.  From Mt. Harlan in San Benito County, wherever that is.  One of the great Pinot makers, Selleck and Jensen Vineyards are the best, but Reed is also very good.  They’re all very pricy ($40~60).  The Mills vineyard is good too, but maybe overpriced.  There’s also a Central Coast version that’s moderately priced for the masses.  

Chalone.  Good Monterey County Pinot at $20, overpriced at the list price of $26.  

Dehlinger.  Great Russian River Valley Pinots, several vineyard designations, all hard to find, but all the ones I’ve had are great.  If you find some, buy two bottles, drink one and send me the other.    

Domaine Drouhin.  One of America’s great Pinots from Williamette Valley.  The land was purchased by Robert Drouhin of France and the wines are made by his daughter Veronique.  She makes two Pinots, the standard Pinot Noir which is great for around the low $30s and Laurene which is great for around the low $40s.  I used to buy Laurene, but now I think I like the regular Pinot just as much.  

Etude.  Great Carneros producer.  Hard to find Pinot, but just one kind that I know of.  It goes for like $40 or so, if you can find it.

Gary Farrell.  Famous Russian River Valley Pinot innovator.  Allen and Rochioli vineyard Pinots are his best and maybe worth it, but the plain Russian River Valley stuff is overpriced, in my opinion.  

Kistler.  From Russian River Valley.  His Chardonnays are ridiculously expensive but worth it, but his Pinots are experiencing a feeding frenzy these days, going for at least $100+, even the most widely produced Sonoma Coast ones.  Crazy.  If you can get on his mailing list you can get them for $60-70ish, and I love em, but they’re still pretty pricy. 

Rochioli.  Great Russian River Valley producer.  His Pinots are also experiencing a feeding frenzy, going for $100+, even the Russian River Valley estate version.  This is all based on the acclaim of their vineyard designated Pinots: West Block, East Block, Riverside Block, etc.  Also makes one you can drink young called ???  But here’s a secret:  Just call the winery and order by phone – they’ll limit your quantity to like 4 bottles of the estate only, and you have to do it around release time before they sell out, but you’ll only pay list price, which is around the upper $30s.  A real bargain.  707-433-2305.  And while you’re paying thru the nose for shipping, pick up their Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc, too.     

Williams Selyem.  Various vineyard designated Pinots, such as Rochioli and Allen, are excellent but perhaps overpriced (>$100).  The Russian River Valley Pinot is also very good and closer to reality, but still pricy.

Winery

Pine Ridge Winery, Napa, California.  Napa is full of big-name, big-production wineries like Beaulieu, Beringer, Mondavi, Niebaum Coppola and Stag’s Leap.  I would pretty much steer clear of them.  Don’t get me wrong, each one of these wineries makes some great wine … and you’ll pay for them, too  But they make lots of not-so-great wine too, and frankly, there’s just nothing too exciting or unique about them.  On the other hand, Napa is also loaded with wineries that make excellent, reasonably priced, distinctive wines, and those are the ones that I think you’ll find most rewarding to focus on.  Names like Chateau Montelena, Duckhorn, Etude, Grgich Hills, Flora Springs, Merryvale, Schaeffer, St. Clement and, of course, Pine Ridge. 

I’m a member of Pine Ridge’s club because everything they make is great.  They also own Archery Summit, so you get great Oregon Pinots if you’re a member of the club, as well.  They make three Cabernets: Howell Mountain, Stags Leap, and Rutherford, which is less expensive than the other two but almost as good.  There’s also the flagship Bordeaux blend Andrus Reserve that’s awesome.  Pine Ridge makes two equally great Merlots, Crimson Creek and Carneros, that are well priced around $20.  There’s also a good Dijon Clones Chardonnay for around $20 and a great Stags Leap Chardonnay that’s pricier and harder to find but worth it.  There’s also this really cool Chenin Blanc / Viognier blend for around $8.  Pine Ridge makes other limited production wines under the name of Epitome (Chardonnay and Cab), as well as Onyx, a Malbec blend.  You’ve got to check them out when you’re in Napa.  www.pineridgewinery.com

Merchant

Beltramo’s  650.325.2806  1540 El Camino Real, Menlo Park, CA.
Huge brick and mortar shop with great selection of fine and hard-to-get wines, including lots of vineyard designated and reserve wines I recommend here.  Their prices are just a tad bit higher than K&L Wine Merchants and The Wine Club, but their red tag specials are on par with those two excellent discount retailers, and they often have wines that you just can’t find at the other two.  In addition to US, excellent selection of French and Italian wines, as well as other countries.  If you want to compare, K&L is a mile or so down the road.  

Resources

Sonoma County Wineries.  I especially like the alphabetical listing of all wineries, as opposed to the lists of wineries they happen to be promoting for whatever reason.  In any case, this is a great resource for planning a trip to Sonoma County wine country.  It tells you which wineries are open for tasting, including days and times, and provides phone numbers for making appointments for those that require it.  Here’s a hint: some of the best wineries are not open to the public for tasting, but they’re happy to make an appointment.  In those situations, you’re likely to meet the winemaker and perhaps even taste from a barrel or two … it’s a blast.  Sonoma’s a really laid back place with some of the world’s great wines, so don’t miss it.   www.sonoma.com/wineries/ 

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Steve Tobak
Partner, Invisor Consulting
Steve Tobak is a twenty-three year veteran of the tech industry and a founding partner of Invisor Consulting. His commentary is direct and he appreciates your equally direct feedback. He can be reached at stobak@invisor.net.

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