You can now call the shots when it comes to making and naming your own choice in wine or whiskey, writes Haydn Shaughnessy. It's all part of a new trend in personalising products.
The mandarins in Brussels who control the EU's research and development spending have a vision of an infinitely adaptable world powered by computers and the Internet. When you walk into a hotel room, for example, the walls communicate with the microchip in your jacket and discover that your favourite colour is blue. The walls obligingly turn blue.
That might be the ultimate in personalised experiences, but the drinks industry has beaten the geeks to the drop. "Chateau You" is already out there. As is personalised whiskey. And the Bourbon that makes you feel like you belong.
Crushpad (developers of the concept of getting bottles of wine with your name on the label - made to your requirements), member-owned Ladybank whisky distillery and others are not only redefining luxury retailing, they are redefining the very principles behind consumer purchasing.
Founded by computer industry executive Michael Brill in 2004 with its headquarters in San Francisco, Crushpad allows you to create and bottle your own wine. Everything from selecting the grapes, deciding on the character of the vintage, the harvest, crush and fermentation, is in your hands as a Crushpad member. The only thing you don't need to do is get those hands dirty - though even that is possible if you live locally. Crushpad throw in the e-commerce (order taking, tracking and distribution) that lets you become a seller of your own wine.
Ladybank Distillery in Scotland is the first Scottish whisky distillery owned by a group of members who are in control of its whisky production.
"It's difficult to define what we're doing," says founder James Thomson who formerly headed up a company providing website marketing for the Scottish whisky industry. "The jargon is evolving all the time. I'm trying right now to describe it to our members who of course are different from consumers."
Ladybank members get to decide on the style of the whisky, release dates, labelling and numerous aspects of the "business".
"People join for a variety of reasons," says Thomson. "For young people, many are bankers, and they see this as a fun hobby. Older people see it as something to pass on a generation."
Though the idea behind Crushpad and Ladybank harks back to the era of small producers known to their customers, Crushpad's business is evolving rapidly.
"We've grown from roughly 120 barrels in 2004; 400 barrels in 2005; 650 barrels in 2006 and are planning on 1,000 barrels this year, so we were a 16,000-case winery in 2006 and will be 25,000-case winery this year," explains Crushpad's spokesman Dave Gifford. Crushpad's 300 members account for half that production.
There are those who see active prosumerism - the convergence of production and consumption - as an extension of the traceability and personal service familiar now from farmers' markets and box schemes. But let's face it, farmers are not inviting us to dig up their land. Producing for oneself as an active part of the business is about more than knowing who's growing your carrots.
"When it's about 'creation'," argues trend-watcher Reiniers Evers, "it's about status skills, ie showing off one's skills in making something out of nothing."
Evers argues that we are increasingly looking to develop new skill-sets and then produce and display a product or item that is unique because it's ours.
He equivocates however. "Yes, traceability is an extra plus for some consumers: they know where the product comes from, either giving them an extra story to tell (the other story being that they made it themselves) or helping them feel at ease with the product for health or environmental reasons."
Make-your-own may be the ultimate in affordable luxury, ensuring you will always have something to make your friends' jaws drop. But it seems to be more than simply a matter of constructing an extra dinner party conversation piece.
"This is the experience economy," argues Gerard O'Neill, CEO of Amarach consulting in Dublin and an expert trend-watcher. "Giving you the experience of creating the bottle, personalising it, that's what we're beginning to see emerge, but it's a trend identified nearly 40 years ago."
"Technology is driving consumers in the ways that they deal with non-technical things. They are now used to accessing companies online," explains Thomson, arguing that Ladybank offers access which in turn signals respect.
Arguably it reflects a growing distrust in what the manufacturing and retail sector have to offer and, perhaps more worrying to traditional companies, a distrust in the marketing messages that accompany products we buy.
The message for big business is: get real. We can do this ourselves if we have to.
