Healthcare, The Supreme Court and Wine
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...
The Current State of Alcohol Marketing: Case #43
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...
Bringing Focus and Attention to Jazz and Wine
< 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....
Is The Deadly Wine Bill HR 1161 Dead?
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...
If It’s Not Natural Wine, It’s Fake Wine
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...
The Goblet Project: A Program of Wine History
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....
Wine Blogs, Dirty Pictures and Growing Your Anatomy
I was going through my blog stats today, looking at various measurements of visitors. One measurement is a keyword analysis. What you see here is a list of the 25 most common search terms for the past 1000 visitors to...
Money, Power and Wine—A Tale of $4.9 Million
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...
Calculating Social Media ROI for Wine
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...
Politics, Wine and the Prison of the Tiers
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...
Trends in the Wine Industry: A Tale of Two Types
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...
Wine PR and the Media in the Age of Twitter
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...
