Who Doesn’t love a good list? Who doesn’t love a good Pinot Noir? Who doesn’t love a great Pinot Noir Event? Here you’ll find all three: PINOT DAYS SAN FRANCISCO Saturday, June 16th 200 Pinot Producers Below is the killer…
Some truths are uncomfortable. The Experts Are the Best Sources of Wine Info and Recommendations The tendancy to disparage "wine experts" or "wine elite" grows as the role of social media and peer reviews grow. Yet the fact remains that…
I wonder if the percentage of couples where both people work in the same industry is higher in Napa Valley than in other part of the country. I wonder this because my Kathy and I are such a couple and…
Minors Don’t Buy Alcohol On-line. And yet, this fundamental fact has gone unnoticed in the wake of a recently released study that looks at minors access to alcohol conducted by Chapel Hill North Carolina and funded by the Robert Woods…
Barry Nolan over at Boston Magazine makes a point that flies in the face of what many politicians will tell us: "The business sector actually desires regulation and corruption." Interestingly, his primary evidence for this seemingly counter-intuitive conclusion is the…
The Wall Street Journal makes a good point. When buying wine online—Buyer Beware! Actually, the WSJ Digital Network made a number of good points in a video featuring Tom Geniesse, owner of New York City’s wine shop Bottle Rocket Wine…
"The advantages is to enjoy the drunk sensation with none of the harmful effects of alcohol on the body." This sounds a bit like a description of love. It’s not. It is a description of a new product called "Wahh"created…
Almost all of my wine tasting education has been practical. That is to say, what I know about evaluating wine and how I evaluate wine has resulted from tasting wine a lot. Beyond that, my inquiries into the practice of…
I am always excited when I see an article or blog post on-line that was written in response to something on this blog. At the very least it means someone is reading me. Even better, it could mean that what…
Over at The Eater, Talia Baiocchi is a bit offended, or at least disheartened, that America’s most powerful wine buyer doesn’t believe that wine is much more special than toilet paper or tin foil. Talia, a keen observer of the…
You could spend your entire trip to Napa Valley doing nothing but eating and drinking. It’s a good plan. The food is tasty here and the wine delicious and copious. And we make it easy for you to do nothing…
The wine industry is not overly prone to using gimmicks to sell stuff. Yet, it does conjure its share. The most infamous gimmick was the "critter wines", a trend in gimmickry that looks, thankfully, to be done with. Still, there…
I love the comments that folks share on this blog. But additionally, I get a good deal of blog-related email. Why some folks choose to send me questions and comments via email, rather than commenting and questioning right on the…
Yesterday, the Wine & Spirit Wholesalers of America (WSWA) explained that while they DID oppose it with millions of dollars and while they ARE financing a lawsuit to stop the law from taking effect, they are in fact NEUTRAL on…
Consider this scenario: 1. Wineries are required to sell their wines exclusively to wholesalers 2. Wholesalers are not required to distribute the wineries’ wines 3. Wholesalers won’t represent and distribute the wineries’ wines. We are talking here about Alabama. The…
Writer and author James Conaway helped me get my first job in the wine industry. It was his 1990 expose of the Napa wine industry, "Napa", that I wrote a review of and put in my portfolio to show potential…
Is the wine industry as open to women advancing up the ranks as it is to men? This was the question that eventually occurred to myself and my beautiful wife, Kathy, a bit over a week ago when I was…
I experienced "pot wine" some years ago and as Crane Carter, Napa’s pot evangelist tells the Daily Beast, it does produce "an interesting little buzz.” However, as trends go and as stories about trends go, the recent story about pot-laced…
It’s entirely absurd that I spent the past 8 months blissfully unaware of Chris Kassel’s blog, "Intoxicology Report". It is by far the best new wine blog I’ve come across in many, many months. Kassel is a long time wine…
I note with some interest that among the American alcohol wholesaling community there is a great deal of talk about the need to unite the the various sectors of the alcohol beverage industry to advance a common political agenda. There…
The Wine & Spirit Wholesalers of America, the national association representing American wine wholesalers, finished their annual convention in Las Vegas on Friday with their CEO Craig Wolf warning members that the challenge of "privatization" “is being used as a…
I like Deborah Harkness for a whole bunch of reasons. I first came across her when I discovered her wine blog, Good Wine Under $20. And I wasn’t the only one who discovered Deborah’s well written, witty, and well-focused wine…
"Pennsylvania residents could have a little more liquor freedom, but only if they prefer American wine over the French, German or Australian varieties….’The people of Pennsylvania are really getting less than what they should be getting,” Farnese said, adding that…
ALERT! Unless you have an unusually deep interest in the alcohol legal theory, the constitutional foundations of the Three-Tier System or wine politics, then you should probably maneuver away from this blog post. In my most recent post on Health…
For the past decade or more, Article 1, Section 8 of the United States Constitution, otherwise known a the "Commerce Clause" has been a key issue in the somewhat obscure realm of wine politics and law. It has been a…
MARKETING BOY #1: Dude, turn the fucking TV off, we have to get this new ad comped and up on Facebook. MARKETING BOY #2: I know, I know. Chill. (clicks remote)….Hey, pass me the bottle of Goose Juice. MARKETING BOY…
< Branford Marsalis, the great jazz saxophonist and member of the remarkable Marsalis jazz family, is coming to Napa Valley. He along with his longtime pianist partner Joey Calderazzo will play the intimate Napa Valley Opera House on March 29th….
Reports from Shanken Daily News (SDN) are that H.R. 1161, the Community Alcohol Regulatory Effectiveness Act, often referred to as "The CARE Act, is "off the table". SDN quotes Republic National Distributing President Tom Cole as saying, “The CARE Act…
At the risk of beating on a horse that is live and well, I’m compelled to remake a few points about the Natural Wine Movement that very much need to be driven home. The movement, which some will say does…
You just don’t see much of it any more. Drive up and down the roads of America’s wine regions and new vineyards are rarely being planted and trained in a head prunned or "Goblet" fashion. That wasn’t always the case….
