Tomorrow is the day many of us who champion the cause of small, quality-minded winemakers have been waiting nearly a decade for: The Supreme Court of the United States will weigh in on the issue of direct shipping. My reading of the issues at hand convinces me that those state statutes under consideration that allow in-state wineries to ship direct but prohibit out of state wineries to do so will be struck down as unconstitutional. However, this ruling will not…

Due to working with a number of different wineries over the past year that have their vineyards in lesser known areas, I’ve had the chance to think about California’s system of identifying viticultural regions or, as they are formally known, American Viticultural Areas. This work has led me to ask some questions. What the hell does the “Sonoma Coast” American Viticultural Area mean?I think it pretty much has the same meaning as “Russian River Valley”, “Carneros”, “North Coast” and “Napa…

With the money I’ve spent on clipping services over the years trying to track where our clients’ names show up in print I could have bought a small home. Yes, that home would be located in a small Mississippi backwater and need some fixing up. Nonetheless…. These days a huge percentage of the wine writing that originally appears in print will show up on the Internet somewhere. And today we have a vast amount of influential wine writing that only…

In the very end, public relations professionals tell stories. That’s what we do. On the pages of a press release, inside brochures, while giving speeches, when on the phone with journalists…it’s all about telling the client’s story. Of course, the best and most important method of imparting the client’s story is when you sit them down, face to face, with a journalist. I facilitate such meetings alot. There are times when these meetings don’t go well. The client and journalist…

For many years now popular culture has been a driving force behind the emergence of marketing and consumer trends. Whether its clothing worn by pop stars, areas of the country that seem hip because the stars have moved there, or creation of hot autos due to their appearance in a hit movie, products and trends can take on new life if pop culture just embraces them. Wine, however, has been bypassed in pop culture’s trendsetting potentialities. Will the movie “Sideways”…