Archive for the ‘Culture and Wine’ Category

Aug 1, 2019

The #SocialJustice Movement Will Come For Wine — How Will You React?

It’s hard to miss the fact that American culture and society is in the midst of significant conversation. Labels for that conversation go by a variety of names: #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, #SocialJustice, #WhitePrivilege, #gender, #CulturalAppropriation, #IdentityPolitics, #Etc, #Etc, #Etc. With the assumption America will survive these tumultuous times, we can be fairly sure that what is happening in the culture today will in the future be described as having been the prevailing zeitgeist of the times. Examining this zeitgeist from the…

May 19, 2019

Our Sex, Our Wine, Our Dress, Our Time

There’s a lot to talk about when it comes to the issue of women in the wine industry. The Batonage Forum was formed specifically for that purpose. As it is described, the Batonage Forum strives “to educate wine professionals as well as wine industry supporters on the unique challenges and opportunities that women in the field…have faced both historically and present-day. We simultaneously seek to propose pragmatic solutions for charting a positive, inclusive course forward.” It appears by all accounts…

May 13, 2019

Where’s Francis Ford Coppola When You Need Him?

I sat down in front of my big screen TV a couple mornings ago around 5:00am to watch “Wine Country”, the new Tina Fey, Amy Poehler, Maya Rudolph movie set in, yes, Wine Country. Having lived in that country for the past 30 years, I had an interest. When the carafe of coffee was empty and the film ended I couldn’t stop thinking, “I wonder what a film about ‘Wine Country’ would be like?” Granted, agriculture hans’t exactly been a…

Apr 22, 2019

What Does the Wine Industry Have to Learn from the Cannabis Industry?

Over at Greenstate.com writer Chris Macias, who has a good deal of experience writing about wine, provides the cannabis industry readers seven important lessons they can learn from the California wine industry. And all of them are true: -Put on your suit and tie and start lobbying-Establish education and service certifications-Watch out for the snob factor-Bring customers into the tasting room and tell your story-Are you a boutique? Take advantage of your niche -Establish and promote appellations-Learn to break bread…

Apr 15, 2019

Study Has Nothing to Offer Winery Hospitality—So, Keep Smiling

Maybe wineries ought to encourage their tasting room hospitality workers to tell customers exactly what they think of them (and not smile so much). According to a report on a study published in the Journal of Occupational Health Psychology researchers found: “a link between those who regularly faked or amplified positive emotions, like smiling, or suppressed negative emotions — resisting the urge to roll one’s eyes, for example — and heavier drinking after work. Alicia Grandey, professor of psychology at…