Feb 27, 2012
A bill under consideration in Utah would require that two of the five members of its Alcohol Beverage Control Commission must be "drinkers". This is pretty funny on its face as no other state in the Union would ever have need for such a law. However, if passed this law won't be the piece of Utah liquor legislation that makes me laugh the most. In Utah it is against the law to mix a drink in view of the patron…
Feb 22, 2012
A billboard for Wodka Vodka placed in the Bronx, New York has a headline that reads as follows: "Escort Quality, Hooker Pricing" Yes….Really. Oddly, as you can see on the web page of the NY Daily News, the marketers of the vodka somehow found the gumption to try to sell their vodka in this extremely repulsive way, but couldn't quite get themselves to go the whole way and put a picture of an "Escort" on the billboard. This kind of…
Feb 15, 2012
It's clearly an attack on faith and conscience!! It has come to my attention that as part of implementing the mandates of the new federal health care law, I am required to provide health insurance to Wark Communications employees that cover, among other things, treatment of alcohol abuse. And yet, my conscience tells me that alcohol consumption is a good thing. My personal faith informs me that the consumption of alcohol on a daily basis is commanded as a means…
Feb 3, 2012
Every now and again I like to take account of what wine books will be coming our way in the next few months. It's a way of glimpsing what I'll be thinking about in the near term where wine is concerned. Following are a selection of wine books scheduled to be released along with their publication date and the level of "anticipation" I have for their release. A Carafe of Red — By Gerald Asher (HIGHLY Anticipated)This will be the…
Jan 31, 2012
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 marketing practice. Minutia. For some reason, the past couple weeks I've been thinking about "Big Pictures" in the wine industry. Defining and determining what the Big Pictures are isn't as easy as one thinks. But no matter how you define…