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+--- Thread: UK Wine sales (/thread-17972.html)
- herbaljoe - 10-29-2007
Hi All,
New to the forum, so a big hello.
I have been reading with great pleasure so far but i just had comment on a few issues from England UK.
Recently i have been seeing an increase in so called "Wine Consultants" selling Pieroth Wines www.pieroth.de and Jakob Gerhardt www.jakobgerhardtfinewines.co.uk I know that both of these brands have had bad press in the past for different reasons but i wanted to know more about how quilified their "Wine Consultants" are? Do they hold a current Bsc, Diploma or Degree in Wine? I am currently studying for my diploma in wine studies and i do feel that it takes more skill, experience and passion to learn and communicate about quality wine. Don't get me wrong i'm not knocking the idea of enjoying the experience of tasting and buying wine in your home or using a regular company to supply your wine. But i do feel disheartended with these companies if they are only out to make a fast buck. My real issue is the lack of information about the companies, who owns what, the bad feedback from customers and if they are really using "sales people" in a "wine consultants" clothing. I think a true wine consultant should have a good mix of academic knowledge about the subject or industry they are working in, plus on the job experience, and good few years wine experience in general.
A company is currently asking for Sales Representatives in the local area. They are Vicomte Bernard de Romanet www.romanet.co.uk
But the strange this is! If you go to the career page of www.romanet.co.uk and also the career page on www.pieroth.de they seem to be using the same photography. Is it by chance? Or are they the same company?
It all seems very confusing! I think i'll stick to my whiskey. :-)
Herbal Joe
- wondersofwine - 10-30-2007
Welcome to the board. We enjoy hearing from participants in other countries.
As I understand it, the qualifications of the "wine consultants" are minimal. It's mainly just a telephone marketing ploy. See the past comments:
http://wines.com/ubb/Forum37/HTML/003641.html
We have several past threads about wine brokers over the telephone if you do a search under Montesquieu, Gerhardt or Pieroth. One of the most negative contributions was from someone who worked for the company for one day. I would guess that the Romanet company (seeming to capitalize on the name Romanee) is another iteration of Pieroth. Unless the consumer is an invalid confined to the house, in which case wine might clash with their medications anyway, he/she is probably better off going to a wine shop and speaking to a well-informed retailer about potential purchases and taking part in tastings to discover personal preferences rather than relying on a phone advisor who has certain wines they must push.
[This message has been edited by wondersofwine (edited 10-30-2007).]
- Kcwhippet - 10-30-2007
Romanet, Pieroth, Montesquieu, PRPWines and Jakob Gerhardt are all the same company. It just depends on which country you live in and which portfolio of wines they're selling. Their wine "consultants" are nothing more than telemarketers who are given a script to read from along with a list of the wines they are to sell with glowing notes on the wines. They aren't required to have any knowledge of wines at all, let alone any wine related credentials or experience. They're given a call list to work from, and all they do is read from the script which has directional cues. If the person called replies with a key word on the script, then they go to that section of the script and proceed accordingly. We've found from previous posts that the wines are generally quite ordinary and the prices are above to way above average for the quality of the wine being sold. We suspect that they have people who comb the web for hits on one of their company names and they have people reply (as they have done here several times) with glowing comments about the wines and the service. Occasionally we'll get a reply from someone who's worked for one of the companies and universally they tell us they're all essentially rip offs. So, let's see what this thread brings from the faithful.
- herbaljoe - 10-30-2007
Yes i had a feeling that all of the above may be operated by one company, with the influx of sales people from these different brands all coming to the area at the same time.
Alot of alcholic companies do operate this way with a number of different brands coming from one company. I don't have an issue with that. But i just wanted to make sure that people who are new to this style of wine selling in the UK to be careful if they are thinking of working for them and by this i mean, to question your moral and professional status as a "wine consultant" or "sales representative".
Does the company have a proven history?
Is the product worth the money?
Is the product of quality?
Does the product come from where it says on the bottle?
Is the training sufficent?
etc... etc...
Joe :-)
- winoweenie - 10-30-2007
HJ I think all of the questions you posed have been answered in full. This is a boiler room operation that sells dreck for incredible pricing and they prey on the uninitiated and uninformed. They have been laughed out of the US. Don't under any cercumstances get involved with this company. WW