Falling Flat...?

I have been wondering when we might hear from the Planning Inspectorate regarding their almost inevitable approval of the Vineyard Farms’ bid to build a billionaire’s vanity winery on the supposedly “protected” green belt area of outstanding natural beauty of Cuxton’s Upper Bush valley.

Apart from some wishful boasts in the Daily Treehugger (a.k.a. The Guardian newspaper – who somewhat hypocritically seemed to see nothing wrong in the proposed despoiling of a green belt AONB for commercial gain), our new feudal overlords at the winery have been rather quiet since the inquiry finished some two months ago at the start of April earlier this year.

I thought perhaps their dormant webpage might have sprung into life given their optimism, but at the moment it tells us that their “sparkling future” is still “coming soon”.

One new addition is a “shop here” tab, however. Clicking on that leads you to a promo page for their latest brew, the weirdly-named “Silver Reign”. In my (admittedly somewhat jaundiced) view, it seems a rather arrogant branding, redolent of Vineyard Farms’ imperious ambitions to reign supreme over the U.K.’s wine market.

I was initially impressed with the apparent five star reviews, but this seems to be a sleight-of-(Silver?)hand, however - when you click on the review link, the reviews are just general ones related to the supplier, (“The Wine Caverns”), rather than for the wine itself.

Indeed, quickly scrolling through the most recent comments for the past few months, none of them seemed to be about “Silver Reign” at all. Perhaps it’s more of a golden shower than a “Silver Reign”, as forgettable as their last effort. Who knows?  I can’t find any independent reviews of it on-line, anyway.

The boast about “Silver Reign” being a recipient of an award from the “Effervescents Du Monde” - “an international competition between The Best Sparkling Wines In The World”, apparently - also seems somewhat overblown. Only two UK wines featured, both from the Silverhand Estate, and neither of them made it into the top 18 of the final judge’s list.

However, what really did catch my eye was the marketing blurb on the so-called “Technical Sheet”…

…”Silver Reign is a reflection of our regal heritage. We invoke King Ludd's pioneering legacy to bring the unique terroir in the Garden of England to life, producing England's finest sparkling wines…”

All this “King Ludd” stuff is, of course, total nonsense. 

Claims to a “regal heritage” merely seem to be a rather desperate marketing ploy. However, even though their own real “heritage” is quite brief to date, Vineyard Farms can still claim some genuine history, at least when it comes to its past record of desperate marketing strategies.

The “Shop Here” tab on their “Silverhand Estate web-page” doesn’t refer to its earlier produce, such as their M&S branded “Bramble Hill” (which even The Sun only rated as a 3 out of 5)…

…and particularly not their “Harlot” (yes, you read that right) branded wines.

When I first came across it last summer, I initially thought the “Harlot” brand name was a clever play on words (along the lines of the famous jibe by Margot Asquith) and that the “t” was silent, as in “Merlot”.

From the "Harlot" web page - and everybody's answer to the question is, of course, "none of the above"...

A quick look at its awful, garish web-page (and be careful – prolonged exposure to flashing lights can induce epilepsy…) soon proved me wrong, however. The intended target audience very clearly seemed to be quite narrow and not very clever (e.g. Essex Girls out for a hen-night), the sort of folk who would almost certainly pronounce the “t” in Merlot, and probably in a “Sarf-fend” accent as well. 

I thought that perhaps MDCV UK Ltd had decided to let the Monty Python team run its marketing campaign for this one...

As with all things associated with Vineyard Farms/MDCV UK Ltd, the “Harlot” webpage is a strange one. There is no actual mention of Vineyard Farms, the Silverhand Estate or even MDCV UK Ltd itself.

The bottles bear the Silverhand logo, however, and some of the marketing blurb is undoubtedly MDCV UK’s, with the usual boasting of their “plans to revolutionise the English wine market” and how they “have established the largest vineyard in the UK and will be the biggest producer of English wine by 2025, with a production of up to 5 million bottles annually”.

Other marketing slogans for “Harlot” seem quite questionable. “The perfect fizz for a boozy lunch” is one such banner. Whatever happened to “Drink Responsibly”? Should their winery get built and the tourist traffic starts funnelling down Cuxton’s little Bush Road past the local primary school, I’m sure the school-run mums and dads will appreciate the thought of Vineyard Farms’s punters and their “boozy lunches” interacting with the local traffic flow.

Unfortunately, attempting to check the MDCV UK web-site for details on their “Harlot” brand brings up all sorts of hacker warnings. It seems their obsession with security doesn’t extend to IT…

It is clear that the brand line is very much an MDCV product though, but one that they seem to want to keep separate from their other premium lines, as if its parent company was somewhat ashamed of it and didn’t want to be seen with it in public.

It was Rupert Murdoch (anglicising a famous H.L. Mencken quote) who said that “No-one ever went broke by underestimating the taste of the English public”. It's clear that the MDCV UK team behind the “Harlot” brand agree with him.

The rest of the UK wine market doesn’t. Some critics were decidedly sniffy about its “fake fizz” method of manufacture and the “provocative" marketing campaign.

Obnoxiousness as a brand attribute...?

Others suggest that the English wine market to date has been all about building a reputable quality brand at premium prices, and that a bunch of johnny-come-lately arrivistes looking to drag that brand downmarket really isn’t a smart move for anyone in the long term

So why am I digging up last year’s history now? Well, I was reminded of it when I bumped into a young acquaintance of mine and her friends at the Moot tap room the other week, and who had come along to sample the ales on offer.

Whilst their “designated driver” seemed perfectly happy to drink the coffee, the others were trying halves of the various brews. I made an inane comment about “shouldn’t you all be drinking Prosecco?” and quite rightly copped some abuse, good-natured though it was. 

It seemed that this particular group of twenty-somethings really didn’t care much for “Prosecco culture” and its connotations, and so I thought it would be a good time to raise their awareness of MDCV’s premier products, the “Harlot” range (examples of which were indeed available to sample at the Moot bar).

After the initial incredulity and laughter, out came the iPhones or whatever for verification and then the data searching. Within about 30 seconds, they had found a lot of the references I used in this post and some more besides.

Their verdict on the “provocative” advertising...?

One of VF's "Harlot" lovers "having fun"...

“Yuk”. “Tacky”. “Naff”. “Insulting to women”. “Condescending” were the more printable ones. There followed a very amusing discussion about the naming of a male-oriented product along the same lines, with suggestions such as “Gigolo”, “Himbo” and “Manslut” as potential brands (again, just the more printable ones).

From there, things went downhill, morally speaking. If Vineyard Farms really wanted to shock and “be provocative”, then why not call their wine no I won’t type that here.

All of which brings me to my point. Just what are MDCV UK/“The Silverhand Estate” trying to achieve? Are they looking to “shock” in their quest (on all fronts) to be “different”? Believe me, I have recently learned first-hand that Gen Z are pretty much unshockable. They are also well-informed, incredulous and funny.

As one of my new acquaintances suggested in a more serious aside, the “Harlot” campaign seemed rather childish and outdated. It was like an attention-seeking toddler trying to upset its middle-class mummy by shouting “Knickers! Bum! Willy! Poo!” All this clapped-out “Refuse To Conform” shtick is a totem from my old generation, not their young one.

Another suggested that these days, only a woman could get away with devising an advertising campaign that seemed to demean women. The result? Four young women who now won’t touch the Silverhand/MDCV brand with a barge pole and who may be just the tip of the iceberg in terms of “brand poisoning”.

MDCV UK don’t seem to be playing a very clever game at the moment. What’s worse is that they seem oblivious to the long-term consequences for themselves as well as for everybody else.

Their behaviour has blighted the lives of the residents of the little hamlet of Upper Bush. The residents' powerful account of this on the opening day of the public inquiry for the Vineyard Farms billionaire’s vanity winery must have surely made an impression on the planning inspector.

Vineyard Farms’ distant attitude throughout the winery planning process has also pissed off many of their three thousand neighbours in Cuxton. Can they really, long-term, survive the hostility of so many alienated local people, many of whom will now be actively watching their every move?

And now in addition, their brash, boastful and just plain weird marketing seems to have pissed off both some of the UK wine trade and their potential customers. 

So won’t we all just laugh and laugh if, perchance, they have managed to piss off the Planning Inspectorate as well?