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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
"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…
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…
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…
Worrying that money might control politics is akin to being concerned that Burgundy is overpriced. That horse has left the barn. But what’s true and what matters where money and politics is concerned is that money buys access to the…
Wineries are more and more considering the extent to which they ought to really embrace "Social Media" and incorporate its use into their daily sales and marketing. I know this because no week goes by without running into a question…
The recent wine scandal in New York, where giant wholesalers are attempting to make life difficult for small wholesalers with the passage of an "At Rest" law, is an object lesson in how the industry has politically balkanized itself in…
It’s reported in today’s New York Times that marketing behemoth Omnicon is involved in starting a new agency aimed at spotting "emerging trends in popular culture and take advantage of them by creating and distributing content sponsored by brands and…
Sometimes, when you open old boxes, you find something pretty remarkable. I had the chance to pull some old boxes that held materials from my first years and days in the wine PR business. One of things I found was…
For those of you who appreciate the more arcane in the wine blogging world, for lawyers who like wine, for wine industry compliance professionals, for those inclined toward the politics of wine, and for those that just like to dive…
The craft of wine industry public relations doesn’t strike me as being altogether different than real estate, publishing, high tech, or any other industry PR effort. There is a different body of information that a Wine PR pro must master…
What is the meaning of the "Natural Wine" movement? Why is here with us and why now? How has it slipped up? What kind of opposition does it face? How much support does it have? These are the questions I’ve…
First…All wine bloggers are wine writers, but not all wine writers are wine bloggers. That said… Wine blogging isn’t dying. But it is tired. Enthusiasm for the platform and for the practice is on the wane. The same can be…
One of the defining aspects of on-line wine content today is that it has become increasingly difficult to track what is available on the Internet, whether you are a consumer or a member of the trade. This is as much…
I like Justice. Real justice, the kind that provides an appropriate response to a dastardly act, feels good. And it makes you believe that civilization is a good thing, despite its occasional tendencies to roll off the rail. Today, it…
As a wine publicist, I almost always am dealing in minutia, not Big Picture thinking. It’s the nature of the job. What’s the best way to deliver this message? How to define this niche? What’s the import of this particular…
Among the things I do every morning after the coffee is brewed is sit down and look through the various emails I receive the deliver aggregated wine news. Today, I opened the Wine Business Monthly Daily News Links email and…
Today in the New York Times, Thomas Friedman writes about the era of "average" being over: "Being average just won’t earn you what it used to. It can’t when so many more employers have so much more access to so…
If I’m not mistaken, we are seeing the development of a strong cultural aversion to the now notorious "1 Percent". Put another way, there appears to me to be a strong and still developing cultural and political zeitgeist that includes…
