15 Tips For Raising A Young Mogul

The secrets (and perils) of nurturing a future Master of the Universe.

In Pictures: 15 Tips For Raising A Young Mogul

Sixth-grader Gabrielle McBay discovered she liked making sugar cookies from scratch at summer camp in Desoto, Texas. The following school year she filled Valentine's Day orders for her classmates.

"At first I just charged $1 or something, because my mom stopped buying the groceries for me," recalls McBay, now a freshman at Texas Christian University and a seasoned entrepreneur. Crumbs by Gabrielle now churns out eight varieties of cookies, including chocolate-chip and oatmeal-raisin. Renting space at a nearby cake bakery, McBay has pulled in a modest $8,000 in sales thus far, including a chunk from her school's foodservice provider. But she has far bigger plans: a chain of "cookie lounges" that are a combination of a bakery and a coffee house.

McBay is a late bloomer next to Paris Morris. Three years ago, at age 9, Paris Morris told her parents that she wanted to write a book for kids like her who were welcoming new twins into the household. Her father, David Morris, founder of New Year Publishing in Danville, Calif., was happy to oblige. He helped her publish three books, under the My Friend Paris rubric, all aimed at siblings of twins. Today young Paris hawks licensed apparel (made by Queensboro Shirt Co. in Wilmington, N.C.) through a handful of stores and, soon, at her own website--all while trying to fit middle school into her life, too.

Top Tips: 15 Ways To Raise A Young Mogul

Every parent wants to believe her child is gifted. For sprouts with truly serious potential, the pangs to blaze a trail (and maybe make a few bucks) can come on early and strong. For moms and dads, the blessing can be a tricky challenge.

"You can help with the books, and you can drive them to meet with clients," says Donna Fenn, author of Upstarts! How GenY Entrepreneurs Are Rocking the World of Business and 8 Ways You Can Profit From Their Success. "But the minute it stops being fun [for them], forget it."

Lindsay Phillips was fortunate to have supportive parents when she made ceramic flip-flops as an art project at age 16--and then began dreaming about making a business out of funky footwear. "They always told me that quitters never win and winners never quit, and they really believed in my idea," said Phillips, now 23 and an owner of Lindsay Phillips, maker of SwitchFlops, sandals with easily reconfigurable straps. The Cedar Knolls, N.J.-based company employs 35 people and is on track to pull in $30 million in revenues this year.

Rule No. 1 when mentoring a young mogul: Don't get overly involved. "It's really their project," says Larry Johnson, head of Johnson Training Group, a management consultancy. His daughter, Meagan, raised and sold rabbits as a young girl; now she's his business partner. "Your role is that of an advisor or mentor or coach, but it's not your role to do [the job]," adds Johnson. "And that's a big temptation."

Trigger their imaginations. "Expose them to possibilities through travel, talking about the environment, talking about the news and things that impact the world, and opportunities that may exist for business from all of that," says Bruce Bachenheimer, director of entrepreneurship at Pace University. Drawing their attention to a few magazine profiles of interesting entrepreneurs wouldn't hurt, either.

Run with it. This advice comes courtesy of Phyllis Cheung, founder of MyWeddingConcierge.com. Cheung's 5-year-old daughter, Olivia, recently asked her mother "if 'they make Frostingcicles'"--that is, Popsicle-shaped frozen treats made with frosting instead of flavored ice. "She said we could call it 'Frosting on a Stick.' The next day we made prototypes." When Olivia asked her dad, Philip, who creates mobile applications for his wife's company, if there might be an app that makes images that kids color, then erase and re-color, he wrote one. "So she understands if you ask about something, it really might be possible," says Mom.

Send them to boot camp. Kids go to summer camp for everything from music to athletics. Why not for entrepreneurship? A growing number of colleges, business-development groups and other organizations sponsor immersion camps for teenagers. Presentation skills, team building and innovation are common subject areas. Often there are simulations. Many camps culminate in business-plan contests or other competitions with prizes such as scholarships. At the summer Teen Entrepreneur Boot Camp in New York City, teens have learned to open temporary retail businesses that they create, design, market and operate, including a real espresso bar open to the public.

Charge interest. Say your daughter wants to start a candy bar retailer out of her school locker and she needs a down stroke of a few hundred dollars to buy inventory. Make sure she understands that capital comes at a cost, and that she has to pay back the benefactor who put her in business. "You're doing your child entrepreneur a disservice if you don't teach them the difference between revenue and profit," says Fenn. The same goes for any labor you contribute.

Stress savings. One caveat to the previous slide: When and if the profits start rolling in, don't be afraid to put the brakes on. Alex Rampel's parents were CPAs, so this was Lesson No. 1 for him. "I never had an allowance," says Alex Rampel, chief executive of TrialPay, who started selling his own software at age 10. Mom and Dad suggested that he invest most of his proceeds in certificates of deposit. "That incorporated a strong notion of fiscal responsibility in me," said the 29-year-old Rampel. "That's something most startups could use a lot more of."

Identify a mentor. Hockey prodigies have Sidney Crosby; budding vocalists have Beyoncé. Young moguls need mentors too. There are numerous mentoring and networking groups to choose from including Junior Achievement, Future Business Leaders Of America and the National Mentoring Partnership. For more resources, check out the U.S. Small Business Administration's teen business site.

Put it all in context. It's never too early to teach children the importance of entrepreneurship to the world at large. "Show them that they can make a buck but also make the world a better place," says Brad Hancock, director of the Neely Entrepreneurship Center at Texas Christian University. Steer them, for instance, toward Kiva.org, where they can lend some of their profits to other striving entrepreneurs in developing countries.

by Dale Buss and Melanie Lindner-forbes

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Coke vs. Pepsi: Beverage giants offer water footprint insights

In conjunction with last week’s worldwide push to champion sustainable water consumption practices, PepsiCo and the Coca-Cola Company have published extensive reports that detail their specific business practices around championing clean water.

The PepsiCo one, entitled “Water Stewardship: Good for Business. Good for Society,” amplifies the water stewardship goals that the company outlined in April 2010 when it released its broader update on its corporate sustainability efforts. At that time, it set out a goal to improve water efficiency for each unit of production by 20 percent by 2015. So far, it has managed a 15 percent efficiency gain against its 2006 baseline. Last year, that efficiency improvement amount to a savings of more than 12 billion liters of water.

Another big theme for PepsiCo is “water balance,” that is, the idea that it can use technology and new business practices to give back more water to the earth and particular regions than is actually used in its operations. This year PepsiCo (and Coca-Cola, too, as you’ll read in a minute) started working with the Nature Conservancy on initiatives focused on water balance.

So, for example, the water filtration and purification system that the company is using in Casa Grande, Ariz., is recycling and reusing approximately 80 percent of the process water used in production. In the United Kingdom, the company is working in way to capture the water in the potatoes that go into making its “crisps” (American translation = potato chips). Turns out there is a lot of water in raw spuds. This practice has helped the facility reduce water usage by 42 percent so far. There are a number of other examples in the report, notably ones that are related to agricultural practices.

The report published by Coca-Cola and the Nature Conservancy, “Product Water Footprint Assessments: Practical Application in Corporate Water Stewardship,” drills down more deeply into three specific examples of how Coca-Cola is working on this problem. The company defines a product water footprint as “the total volume of freshwater consumed, directly and indirectly, to produce a product.”

To put a finer point on it, Coca-Cola notes that there is a big difference between water footprinting and carbon footprinting. Here’s what it says in the report:

“With carbon footprints, one can compare similar products (if the same boundaries and methodology are used) knowing that lower carbon (or zero carbon) is better. On the other hand, water footprints help identify where water is used in the production of a production and what type of water is used. Water is local and thus water footprint numbers must be considered in the context of the local watershed.”

The focus of the Coca-Cola report is on water footprint assessments of the following:

• Coca-Cola sold in a 0.5 liter PET bottle, specifically one produced by Coca-Cola Enterprises in the Netherlands
• Beet sugar supplied to Coca-Cola in Europe
• Minute Maid and Simply Orange products sold into the North American market

Those assessments are provided for three different types of water uses:

• Green water uses, which pertains to the use of rainwater trapped in the soil
• Blue water uses, referring to surface and ground water
• Grey water, which is defined as the volume of water that is needed to 
  
  • assimilate pollutants
  The assessments break down all three of the scenarios described above for these different types of uses. The footprints differ depending on where products are sourced. So, for example, the Coca-Cola Simply Orange product, when sourced in Florida, has the following footprint per liter: 386 liters for green water, 154 liters for blue water, 100 liters in grey water. If you source the oranges from both Florida and Brazil, those numbers change: the greenwater footprint is 407 liters per liter of product, the blue water footprint is 127 liters, and the grey water footprint is 117 liters.
  Here’s the common theme in both these reports: The biggest piece of water footprints is related to the way different ingredients are grown in the field rather than the impact of factory processes. Here’s a comment from Denise Knight, the director of water and sustainable agriculture for Coca-Cola:

  “We see significant opportunity to engage more directly with our agricultural suppliers to advance sustainable water use for the cultivation of ingredients in our supply chain. Our initial efforts will focus on the sustainable sourcing of sugarcane, oranges and corn.”

  More evidence that water conservation technology in the field is a smart corporate sustainability investment.
  By Heather Clancy 

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Benefits of Coconut Water Prove Better than Soda and Sports Drink

A recent study claims that coconut water contains antioxidant benefits that prove better than soda and sports drink with added vitamins and sugar.

Coconut water, the clear liquid found inside the coconut, has five key electrolytes including potassium at levels 15 times higher than sports drinks. This has been used for years in tropical regions like Central America, Asia, Trinidad and Tobago as a perfect replacement for sports drinks that are on the market today. It has also reported that celebrities like Demi Moore and Madonna were spotted drinking it for its health benefits.

In addition, it is high in antioxidants which help body scavenge dangerous free radicals that can degenerate cells. Antioxidants are also known to help prevent cancer, ward off neurological diseases such as Alzheimer’s and degenerative diseases such as premature aging, sagging skin, wrinkling, and bone problems, just to name a few.

This liquid has been dubbed by UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization officer as “fluid of life” some ten years ago. Now, popularity of coconut water is growing fast as people learn about the health and beauty benefits of this island fruit.

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Wine in Britain: Scots drink red, Cornish drink white

A love of good wine may be universal, but it would appear different parts of Britain have dramatically different tastes when it comes to choosing their favourite bottle.

By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Editor
Published: 7:00AM BST 13 Sep 2010

Comment

Malbec and other high-alcohol reds sell particularly well in Scotland, the sales figures from Morrisons suggest Photo: PEARTREE

A study of the tens of thousands of bottles that Morrisons supermarkets sells every day has revealed that Britain's taste for wine has as many regional differences as their accents.

While the bestselling wines in Scotland are heavy reds such as Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chateauneuf du Pape, its stores in the South West sell more Pinot Grigio, a light Italian white, than anything else.

Londoners and those in the South East favour slightly lighter reds, including Merlot and the Pinot Noir grape used in red Burgundies. Up in the North West, the distinctive white grape Chardonnay – used in everything from unsubtle new world wines to elegant white Burgundies – along with Malbec are the best selling varieties.

Allan Cheesman, a wine consultant who used to head up Sainsbury's wine department, said: "There always used to be huge differences in the stores. Scotland like high alcohol drinks, along with Ireland and the Scandinavian countries. They also have a sweeter tooth. There used to be this very strong, sweet sherry called Walnut Brown, which would fly off the shelves in Scotland but sit gathering dust in the south.

"I've always thought it was to do with the weather. It's cold and dark up there for much of the year, so you need a strong red to keep you going."

Cabernet Sauvignon, especially from the new world, can sometimes have as much as 16 per cent alcohol in them.

Pinot Grigio, a grape which tends to make an acidic white wine, rarely contains more than 12.5 per cent alcohol.

Its success in the south west is also weather-related, experts believe, with much of the region's wine sold in the summer months to holidaymakers looking for a lighter style.

While the regional varieties continue to tax supermarket buyers who supply wine for national chains, Mr Cheesman pointed out a revolution had occurred since the early 1980s.

"Back then, we used to say you could draw a line from the Wash down to the River Axe and no wine would ever be sold north of that. At least now different parts of the country are enjoying a wide range of different wines."

By Harry Wallop, Consumer Affairs Editor

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Vietnam still searching for Miss Earth 2010 contestant

VietNamNet Bridge – Though Miss Earth 2010 will be held in Vietnam for the first time this November, Vietnam has not yet selected its representative.

Top five of Miss Vietnam World 2010 pageant.

The organizing board of Miss Earth 2010 announced events and activities of Miss Earth in Vietnam at a press conference in HCM City on August 25. At the meeting, the local media paid special attention to the host country’s contestant. The organizing board said that the Vietnamese contestant will be selected from the top 15 beauties of Miss Vietnam World 2010 pageant.

“We are considering choosing a deserving representative for Miss Earth pageant. She may be Miss Vietnam World 2010, the first or second runner-up or one in the top 15 of this contest. She must be beautiful, talented, has good knowledge of environment and has a passion for environmental activities,” said organizer Nguyen Cong Khe.

Miss Earth 2010 will take place in one month, with activities covering HCM City, Phan Thiet, Hoi An and Nha Trang. Contestants from 90 countries will be in HCM City as of November 4. They will attend a press conference in the city and some environmental activities, compete in the Miss Party and Gala Dinner.

They will move to Phan Thiet to join environmental activities and a festival to advertise Vietnam’s sports from November 15-17. In Hoi An, they will compete in Miss Ao Dai, attend the Earth Hour and the Lantern Festival, to call for fuel saving and natural resource protection.

Contestants will go to Nha Trang to prepare for the finale night and will meet with residents to talk about environmental protection and join various environmental activities.

Miss Earth 2010 pageant will celebrate its 10^th anniversary in Vietnam. Vietnam will host several Miss Earth pageants over the next ten years. It is sponsored by the Philippines’ Carousel Productions group, which is closely connected with raising people’s awareness of environmental protection.

PV

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Are large Vietnamese beer imports abnormal?

VietNamNet Bridge – Brewery products from Belgium, Germany, the US, Mexico, and theNetherlands have been flowing to Vietnam. The Ministry of Industry and Trade (MOIT) has allowed Vietnam Brewery Company to import a large volume of Heineken products.  According to customs agents, foreign products are flowing to Vietnam because of the sharp decrease in the luxury tax.

 VietNamNet Bridge – Viet Nam’s beer market would continue to be one of Southeast Asia’s largest and fastest growing, according to global market research firm Euromonitor International.

Euromonitor International sees continued expansion of the market, at around 5.6 per cent growth over the next few years, slightly behind Laos and Cambodia.

Viet Nam’s integration into the World Trade Organisation opened up more opportunities for investment and imports from foreign companies, particularly with the Government’s commitment to slash tax on imported beer, said Spiros Malandrakis, an analyst with Euromonitor International.

The country’s total beer sales experienced an significant increase of 56 per cent last year, topping 1.6 billion litres, the second fastest growth rate in the region after Cambodia.

Some foreign beer brands like Budweiser, Sapporo, San Miguel and Fosters have also entered the local market.

Last week, the Viet Nam Breweries Company opened a factory with the capacity to produce 50,000 bottles of La Rue beer per hour near the central city of Da Nang.

The company is a joint venture, newly-established between Asia Pacific Breweries (APB) from Singapore and Viet Nam’s Sai Gon Trading Group (SATRA).

As one of the first beer producers in Viet Nam after the country opened its doors to outside enterprise 20 years ago, APB plans to invest US$100 million in Viet Nam’s beer industry over the next 18 months.

Japan’s Sapporo also plans to link up with Tobacco Viet Nam to produce beer from 2012. The company said it would be the first Japanese brewery to build a production and marketing base in the promising Vietnamese market which has been growing at an annual rate of more than 10 per cent.

The US’s Crown Holdings Inc has already announced that it would invest another $25 million in its production facility in Tam Phuoc Industrial Zone in the southern province of Dong Nai. It bought the production line last June from Malaysia’s Interfood Shareholding Co.

Crown Asia Pacific Holdings Ltd’s chairman Josef Salaerts said the line, with a capacity of 600 million 330ml cans annually, could begin operations in the fourth quarter of this year, and its capacity would grow to 1.2 billion cans in a years time.

A report by British Business Monitor International Ltd predicted that earnings in Viet Nam’s alcoholic beverage industry were increasing 16 per cent annually.

Beer, which accounts for 97.9 per cent of total alcohol beverage consumption, was expected to see a growth in consumption averaging over 50 per cent per year through to 2013.

Beer market to increase by 15% this year

14:29' 13/01/2010 (GMT+7)

VietNamNet Bridge – Domestic beer producers will chum out roughly 2.7 billion litres of the drink this year to meet the rising demands of local consumers, according to an estimate by the Sai Gon Alcohol, Beer and Beverage Corporation (Sabeco). Sabeco, which currently accounts for roughly 35 per cent of domestic market share, also anticipated that the consumption of beer in the domestic market would have a growth rate of roughly 15 per cent in 2010 and in the next few years. However, it also warned that the next three years would be hard for domestic beer producers as special consumption tax on beers, excluding draught beer, would reduce from 75 per cent to 45 per cent. The tax on draught beer, meanwhile, would increase to 45 per cent from the current 40 per cent. "This will be a chance for high-quality beer products churned out by foreign beer producers to enlarge their market share," Sabeco said. Currently, local beer producers mainly concentrate on the draught beer market. Viet Nam has a lot of potential for beer producers as consumption in the country currently averages out at 14 litres per capita a year, much lower than around 40 litres in Indonesia and 160 litres in Germany, experts have said. According to Japan's Sapporo beer producer, Viet Nam is Asia's third-largest beer market after China and Japan in a fast-growing market. The domestic beer market has an annual growth rate of between 9 per cent and 11 per cent and is witnessing strong competition among many well-known brands, including Sai Gon, Ha Noi, Tiger and Heineken. Viet Nam has more than 300 beer and alcohol production facilities, with key producers including Sabeco and Viet Nam Brewery Limited Co. Sabeco alone this year has targeted to produce 1 billion litres of beer, compared with last year's 907 million litres of which 900,000 litres will be for export. Some foreign beer brands like Budweiser, Kronenbourg, SABMiller and Bitburger have also entered the local market. VietNamNet/Viet Nam News

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News

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As the World Drinks: AB InBev's Carlos Brito

Almost two years ago global brewing powerhouse InBev bought U.S.-based Anheuser-Busch for a staggering $52 billion, creating AB InBev, which now controls about a quarter of the world's beer market.

Carlos Brito, the company's CEO tells Big Think that “One of the beauties of this merger was to really enable Budweiser to become our global flagship brand.” Brito has been at the helm of AB InBev since 2005 (then simply InBev), and has seen the company through a series of mergers and acquisitions.  

AB InBev is a global company, in ever sense of the term.  The purchase of Budweiser brought an iconic national brand under the management of a company anchored abroad in Leuven, Belgium, and in San Paulo, Brazil.  AB InBev commands nearly a quarter of the market share and ownership of hundreds of beer brands. It produces upwards of 400 million hectoliters per year. Yet with all this global growth has come the concern about retaining national identity of the brands.  Is Budweiser still an American beer? Is Stella Artois still Belgian?

Brito answered this concern, as well as the issue of maintaining a brand’s national identity as it’s brought brought abroad.

Speaking about Budweiser’s global growth, Brito says, “Look at what Budweiser represents today in China. It’s by far the number one premium beer in China. You look at what it represents now in the U.K. more and more; what it represents in Canada, the number one brand; what it represents in the U.S.”  He adds that the brand recently has been brought to Russia, and plans are forming to bring it to Brazil.

“We’re going to take Budweiser to where it belongs, which is a global stage,” he says.

AB InBev has a portfolio over 200 brands, ranging from “local jewels” limited to one region or country to global brands, such as Budweiser, Stella Artois, and Beck’s, Brito says. 

Speaking with Big Think ahead of a company-wide day to promote responsible drinking, Brito spoke about why a company built on beer sales, and one that has had flagging sales in some sectors, would advocate less consumption.

“Excess consumption and consumers and volumes that come from consumers using our products in the wrong way is not what we need for our business,” he says. “We don’t need that kind of volume, that kind of consumer, to have a great business.”

by Big Think Editors 

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A thousand year of hairstyles

Hair design contest launched to celebrate Hanoi’s great anniversary

,

VietNamNet Bridge - A hair design contest entitled “A thousand year of hairstyles” featuring Hanoi’s hairstyles for the last 1000 years, has been launched in Hanoi. 

The contest will give people a chance to have a clear view of the changes Vietnamese hairstyles have gone through during various historical periods in Hanoi.

The competition is for Vietnamese hair designers at home and abroad between 18 and 40 years of age.

The contest is divided into two categories including “Past” featuring different ways the hair was worn up, and “Present,” focusing on modern hairstyles.

Contestants must send photos of their designs and video clips, showing the process by which hairstyles are created, to the Tra Giang International Company, 55 De Quai Street, Tay Ho District, Hanoi, before August 10. Photos and video clips will be posted on website http://tgishow.net.

Miss Vietnam Mai Phuong Thuy in the ao dai and the hairstyle of Hanoian girls in the past.

Ten contestants will be selected for the final night on August 27 in Hanoi, which will be broadcast live on VTC1 channel.

The organizing board will present one first prize worth $4000, two second prizes worth 10 million dong each, two third prizes worth 5 million dong each and five consolation prizes worth 2 million dong each.

The competition is co-organised by Tra Giang International Company, the Embassy of Italy in Hanoi, Selective Professional hair care products and Chihtsai Hair Care.

PV

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From Spain, Big Reds That Are Well Balanced

RIBERA DEL DUERO is a paradoxical region, ancient yet thoroughly modern. Its wines embrace the mainstream characteristics that seem so popular around the world. They are plush, opulent, flamboyantly fruity and powerfully oaky. Yet while some unavoidably stray into the homogenized international style, the best remain identifiably Spanish.

What makes Ribera del Duero so unusual? Throughout European wine regions over the last 50 years the essential story has been how traditional wisdom and methods, honed over generations of careful observation, have come to terms with modern technology and globalization.

This conflict, felt in Old World vineyards and cellars, resonates with consumers around the world. Efforts to appeal to perceptions of global tastes have produced rivers of standard-issue wines, as bland as computer-generated car names. At the same time, a rising appreciation and understanding of fine wine around the world has meant unprecedented access to a wide diversity of wonderfully distinctive wines, some from appellations virtually unknown until a few years ago.

Gaze at Bordeaux and Burgundy, Barolo and Sicily, Rioja and the Rhone, even at Napa Valley, and you can find innumerable examples of this conflict playing out. And yet, if you look at Ribera del Duero, in the geographical heart of Spain, you see a place seemingly set aside from this central clash of cultures.

This paradox may seem peculiar against the backdrop of other Old World countries. But then again Spain has always stood apart from European winemaking powers like France and Italy. Because of regional tastes, politics and civil war, the Spanish wine industry got a far later start on modernization than its neighbors. Despite having grown grapes and made wine for centuries, the wines of Ribera del Duero never achieved high status.

The region had one significant exception. Vega Sicilia was established in 1864, and it rightfully came to be recognized as one of the world’s great wines. Beyond Vega Sicilia, it wasn’t until the 1980s that the region came to be seen as a source for fine red wines. By that time the Franco era had ended, Spain had joined the European Community, and modernization was well under way.

Unlike Rioja, where many producers had already been established by the early 20th century, Ribera del Duero, on a harsh, high plain southwest of Rioja, was dominated by cooperatives up until the 1980s. After pioneering efforts of a few producers like Alejandro Fernández in the 1970s, new wineries began to pop up. Without longstanding traditions of excellence to clash with new and fashionable ideas, modernity was largely unchallenged.

Success and acclaim came swiftly to Ribera del Duero in the 1990s, and it was hard not to make comparisons to Rioja. Both make red wines largely from the same grape, called tempranillo in Rioja and tinto fino in Ribera del Duero. The wine critic Stephen Tanzer once said Rioja is Bordeaux to Ribera del Duero’s Napa cabernet, and I think the analogy remains apt.

To check in on the current state of Ribera del Duero, the wine panel recently tasted 20 bottles in vintages ranging from 2003 to 2008. We capped our spending at $60 a bottle, which eliminated celebrated labels like Vega Sicilia and Pingus, which sell for hundreds of dollars each.

For the tasting Florence Fabricant and I were joined by Ashley Santoro, the wine director at Casa Mono, a Spanish restaurant near Gramercy Park, and Sean Josephs, the owner of Char No. 4, a Southern restaurant in Brooklyn, who comes by his knowledge of Spanish wines both as a former sommelier and as the husband of Mani Dawes, an owner of Tía Pol, a tapas bar in Chelsea, and Tinto Fino, a Spanish wine shop in the East Village.

Let’s stipulate that almost all the wines we tasted were very well made. How you feel about them will depend largely on your stylistic preferences.

“I’m torn between the fact that there’s a lot of quality, but not finding wines that excite me personally,” Sean said. He added that when he worked at a steakhouse, he sold a lot of Ribera del Duero as an alternative to California cabernet.

I can see that. More than California, I thought of these big, modern wines as the malbecs of Spain, well tuned to a popular pitch.

“People are comfortable with them, and they’re easy to sell,” Ashley said. Still, she suggested that what is exported from Ribera del Duero doesn’t entirely reflect the range of styles available there.

Even if these wines are not particularly to my taste, what I looked for was balance, which characterized our top wines. The 2005 Montecastro, our No. 1 bottle, was dense and juicy, but rather than an overwhelming mouthful of sweet fruit, the plummy, berry flavors were tempered by a spiciness that added nuance, as well as vivacious acidity.

By contrast our No. 2 wine, the 2004 Tinto Figuero Reserva from García Figuero, which is aged in barrels for 15 months, was big, powerful and ultradark. It didn’t have the complexity of the Montecastro yet it, too, was well balanced. Tannins gave the wine shape and structure, and an earthiness blended well with the dense fruit flavors.

Our No. 5 wine, the 2006 Tinto Pesquera from Alejandro Fernández, who played a crucial role in the rise of Ribera del Duero, typified the well-balanced blend of fruit and oak flavors we found in so many of these wines. The 2006 Condado de Haza, which is also owned by Mr. Fernández, offered a fresher, less oaky approach, without the density that seemed to prevail.

Next to the other bottles, the 2008 Sastre Tinto stood out for its directness, simplicity and refreshing lack of polish. At $22, it was also our best value.

In the end, it pretty much comes down to taste. If you enjoy modern California cabernets, Argentine malbecs and new wave Riojas, these wines should be just right for you. If you prefer old-school Riojas, classic Rhones and wines that show an herbal touch now and then, these may not be for you. Better to wait and to hope for a benefactor to pour you a glass of Vega Sicilia someday.

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