Sep 18, 2012
Nobody like me is fooling anyone, least of which the folks I’m told by the more cynical among us that I’m trying fool: The media. I know and the media knows that when I, as a wine publicist, reach out to wine writers, I am working on behalf of a paying client to convince the writer that this paying client is worth writing about. Sometimes they agree. Sometimes they don’t. I like to think that clients pay Wark Communications the…
Aug 22, 2012
“Would you buy a product that has not worked? Would you import a wine that has a fault? Would you adopt a strategy that had lead to defeat? This is exactly what is starting to happen with most of the marketing efforts and the approach to promoting wine in countries such as China, Hong Kong, Brazil, Russia and even in the United States.” Thus begins a rather intriguing and thought provoking broadside by marketer Pancho Campo. Best known recently as…
Aug 8, 2012
I am absolutely compelled to report on a newly released wine that, as far as I can tell, is among the finest Napa Valley wines. This 2009 Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa Valley can be described as boasting black jammy fruits, cassis, freshly plowed earth and dark chocolate. I can also report the opulence and massive texture is undeniable while the glycerol-like body and silky tannins elegantly glide through an expansive, palatable finish. The wine is unquestionably reflective of a winemaking…
Jul 24, 2012
We enlightened souls here in California often like to mock and disparage other states for their strange, weird, anti-consumer and downright dumb alcohol-related laws. We here in CA seem to believe that our relatively liberal and rational alcohol laws are set apart upon a higher plane than those in more back-assed states. I've been quite the mocker myself. Yet, California appears set to pass a law that defines silliness. California Assembly Bill 2184, sponsored by Assembly-person Isadore Hall, lays down…
Jul 18, 2012
The finalists in 9 categories of the 2012 Wine Blog Awards were announced today. If you examine them all, it's hard to not to be impressed with the quality. And it's hard not conclude that the blog publishing platform has delivered to the wine category a collection of voices that likely would have been silent and unknown just 10 years ago. I've been helping the organizers of the Awards this year with a bit of marketing, PR and such. And…