Wine Brats.

I missed one aspect of the demise of "Wine X" recently announced by Robin. According to the "Decanter" arcticle: "Wine X also funded Wine Brats, a wine appreciation club aimed at 20-somethings that organised 'WineRaves' and had members in 31 cities. It too is 'out of business due to lack of wine industry support,' Roberts said."

My impression had been that the national organization wasn't very important but that the local groups were sometimes very active indeed. If memory serves, Craig Camp was president of the Minneapolis group for some time, for example.

Are any of the local groups going to continue?

There was a Houston TX Chapter of the Wine Brats...but it went belly up last year. I never heard why exactly...

But our local AWS (American Wine Society) picked up a few of the former members for awhile.

Richard

[Robin Garr]

I missed one aspect of the demise of "Wine X" recently announced by Robin. According to the "Decanter" arcticle: "Wine X also funded Wine Brats, a wine appreciation club aimed at 20-somethings that organised 'WineRaves' and had members in 31 cities. It too is 'out of business due to lack of wine industry support,' Roberts said."

I missed that too, Bob. If I'm not mistaken, Wine Brats was around for years before Wine X, and it used to earn some respect - it was intended for younger wine enthusiasts, yes, but was, um, "mainstream."

My guess is that when the Wine X guys brought in funding, they may have also brought in their wacky ideas and poisoned the water. We used to have a regular columnist from the Rochester Wine Brats and gave the national group some link support, but I believe that particular group faded some time ago.

[Jenise]

Kriss Reed was once part of a Wine Brats club in The O.C. IIRC, he said the wines were generally "donated" and therefore tended to be easily available, mass produced corporate stuff so the meetings, if that's the right word, were more about happy hour hooking up than wine.

It looks like the Brats have been in deep trouble for some time; I missed this article from three years ago in the Chronicle:

Extracts:

The Wine Brats are having growing pains.

Wine Brats, a wine appreciation group that launched 10 years ago, revolutionized wine education by reaching out to the previously-ignored 20- something population -- a demographic that has become one of the most avid segments of wine drinkers in the country.

The Brats' anti-snob approach, combined with youthful parties and tastings like wine "raves," has spawned 31 chapters nationwide, all run by volunteers. Its 45,000-plus members in 18 states make the Brats the largest and most visible consumer wine organization in the country.

Wine Brats plays a unique role in wine marketing because it is one the only organization that can mobilize tens of thousands of consumers nationally. The Brats are much sought-after by marketers to co-host tastings; vintner groups like the Rhone Rangers or Sonoma County Wineries Association or the Bordeaux Wine Bureau provide the wine, and the Brats provide an audience eager to try it.

The Brats "certainly have raised the level of consciousness about wine," says John Deluca, executive vice chairman of the Wine Institute, which provided seed money to launch the Wine Brats a decade ago. "They've demystified wine. I think that's where they've made their strongest contribution."

But there is trouble in Bratsville.

Corporate sponsorship by wineries has dropped dramatically since the wine industry started tanking three years ago. The Brats, headquartered in Santa Rosa, are down to four full-time employees from a peak of seven.

The group's leadership turned over last fall when its eight-year executive director, Joel Quigley, 42, resigned to work for a public relations firm. He was replaced by Steve Richardson, 26, the Brats' former chapter operations director.

The group has also lost its founding visionaries, the three Napa Valley high school buddies who started the group to much fanfare years ago. Jeff Bundschu of Gundlach Bundschu, Mike Sangiacomo of Sangiacomo Vineyards and Jon Sebastiani of Viansa Winery, now in their 30s, have all burned out on Wine Brats and left the board of directors in 2002, leaving it with a single director.

Now it's up to Richardson, his staff of three, and the remaining director, Mimi Gatens, 38, to bring in more revenue and spiff up their lineup of events, which they believe has become monotonous over the years.

"If we continued with our current model, I don't think the organization would remain successful," says Gatens, the marketing director for Kuleto Estate Family Vineyards in St. Helena and a Brats board member since the early days. "The sponsors want to commit less and the ones that have been with us since the beginning are realizing that the (events) material is the same."

The solution is a controversial restructuring that takes most of the control away from the local chapters and centralizes event planning and funding in Santa Rosa. In an effort to professionalize the events and make them more consistent from city to city, volunteers will no longer have a hand in event planning. The volunteers will lose their Wine Brats bank accounts, since all future cash flows will run through headquarters.

Some 180 hard-core Brats volunteers around the country received e-mails from Brats management at the end of February advising them of the changes. Richardson says most of the volunteers are supportive. "A lot of them are really excited. They still want to help out and do whatever they can at the events," he says.

Brats executives have a new role in mind for their most trusted volunteers: They want to recruit seven people from around the country to join the depleted board of directors.

But not everyone is happy with the restructuring. Sherri Relerford, the chapter leader for San Francisco, says "it was a shock" to receive the Brats e- mail absolving her of her duties.

Relerford, a paralegal who has spent five years and untold hours organizing Brats tastings, is now considering starting an independent wine group with four other volunteers. Richardson says such spin-offs have formed before and Brats management welcomes them.

A key reason for restructuring the Brats' event planning is to assist the large winery sponsors who stage events in multiple cities. Last year, for example, Robert Mondavi Corp. co-hosted "Meet your Match" singles events with Wine Brats in 15 markets and had to coordinate with 15 sets of volunteers. Going forward there will be just one contact.

Googling the local chapters is very depressing work -- I haven't found any with events later than mid-2004 or so. Sad.

Regards, Bob

Wine Brats...hm.


TBH, it sounds like a Sangria or Gallo party wine group.


Call me spoiled.




And pass the M&M's....

The Wine Brats 'Chapter' in MPLS is now meeting under a new name -"Uncorked" or something. I think it is a group of heavy-drinking lonely ladies who know nothing of wine and use the group to procure free hooch in the name of wine education. I suppose it's like shooting fish in a barrel -if picking up drunk old women is your thing !


Prost!
Bill

[Jenise]

The Wine Brats 'Chapter' in MPLS is now meeting under a new name -"Uncorked" or something. I think it is a group of heavy-drinking lonely ladies who know nothing of wine and use the group to procure free hooch in the name of wine education. I suppose it's like shooting fish in a barrel -if picking up drunk old women is your thing !

Let's give them Bucko's phone number.