Jan 29, 2007
So I’m sitting around a table listening to Will Bucklin, Jeff Gaffner, and Joel Peterson have a conversation. What do they all have in common? You’d be hard pressed to find three people who have a more hands-on and theoretical knowledge of Old Vine, Field Blend Zinfandels from Sonoma Valley. I was at the table just for the ride. There was a writer there too who was interviewing the three of them for a story. But you wouldn’t have known…
Jan 25, 2007
I’ve always wondered what kind of charity auction parents who live in corn or cotton or soy bean country have to raise money for their local schools. The dinner and charity auction is the preferred method of raising funds, particularly for private schools, but also for public schools more and more. In Wine Country we have a standard event: The Wine Dinner and Charity Auction. We parents pay $70 to $150 to go. We get a great meal, usually created…
Jan 22, 2007
I recall the day when I thanked God for the inherent prudishness of the Federal Government. It was that prudishness that delivered to me one of my favorite experiences as a wine publicist. Alas, it seems these days the Feds don’t have time to protect the sensibilities of wine drinkers from "offensive" images on wine labels. It must have been around 1991 when working at a PR agency, I was assigned to work on the Clos Pegase account. It was…
Jan 19, 2007
I’m sure every wine lover has been waiting, breath held deep, for the moment when the volatile issues of Gay Marriage and Alcohol would be linked. Well, wait no longer. In Georgia, where Governor Perdue was happy to abide by a referendum of the people on the issue of Gay Marriage (it was voted down), is a bit less inclined to follow the will of the people when it comes to Sunday Alcohol Sales: “When you ask people generally if…
Jan 19, 2007
Wine Business Monthly’s Cyril Penn reports in the San Francisco Chronicle that we are buying more expensive wines than in the past. For the record, in this calculation "expensive" equates to $15 and a above. Without seeming like a snob, which I realize is hard at times for me, that doesn’t strike me as "expensive". However, in the overall scheme of things (that "scheme" being what most people tend to spend on wine) $15 is "expensive". According to Cyril’s reading…