The Thinking Cellar #1: vouching is heard, warnings are silent

Extracted from “The Thinking Cellar”, doctoral research notes by Benjamin Birot.

Someone recommended me last month. I know because the importer told me: "X said we should talk."

That is how vouching works. It travels, and it often arrives back to the person being vouched for.

Now the other half. Seventeen years in this trade, close to seven of them running my own agency, and nobody has ever told me "someone warned me about you." Not once. I find it hard to believe it has never happened. Despite doing my best, I've encountered my lot of quality issues, failures and fall outs.

The warnings are out there. They just never reach their subject. The meeting does not happen. The sample request goes unanswered. The reply never comes, you file it under "slow market", and you move on.

Two things follow:

First, my picture of my own reputation is built on half the traffic. Every agent, producer and importer who has ever wondered "how am I seen out there" is answering from a sample that only contains the good news.

The second is worse. You can repair trust when you know it was damaged. A silent warning is a veto with no appeal. You never get to answer it.

My research at Paris-Saclay is on trust between producers, agents and importers, and this is one of the things I would rather test than assume. So, honestly:

1. Have you ever been warned off a producer, an agent or an importer?

2. Did that person ever find out?

I suspect almost nobody will answer yes to the second question. That is rather the point.

Further reading: Collective reputation · The Contact Ladder · FAQ: wine export to Asia