Archive for the ‘Public Relations & Wine’ Category

Feb 7, 2006

Communicating With The Converted

At Wark Communications we work primarily with smaller winery clients. Sometimes medium. Rarely large.  The smaller wineries don’t have huge budgets. They need to really target their communications efforts. They need to do more education efforts than branding work. And they need their communications tools to do double and triple duty. This is exactly the sort of thing that is happening with one client over at eGullet right now. Billed as the "Society for Culinary Arts & Letters, eGullet is…

Jan 3, 2006

Marketing Terroir

What is it that makes a wine that is a truer representation of the ground and climate in which its grapes were grown…a more desirable wine? This is the THEORY that animates those who believe "terroir-driven wines" are better wines…isn’t it? This is the question that struck me as I was re-reading an article by Tim Patterson from the November 2004 issue of Wines & Vines, a trade publication. The question is in fact philosophical. Nothing about a more "natural",…

Dec 14, 2005

Sonoma County Wines Gets a Face Lift

You wouldn’t think that the organization representing Sonoma County’s winemakers would need a face lift or a revamping. The vineyards, wines and wineries that live in this region are among the most famous in the world. Yet, that’s what’s happening. Formerly known as the Sonoma County Wineries Association, the promotional organization charged with raising the profile of the County’s wines is changing its name, updating the website, debuting a new logo and embarking on a promotional push. The organization will…

Dec 7, 2005

A Wine Story a PR Guy Can Sink His Teeth Into

It’s rare that I post about a client here at Fermentation. But I’m going to do it today to demonstrate a point about public relations in the wine industry: The authenticity and quality of a winery’s "story" determines the enjoyment of promoting them as well as the degree of ease in finding an audience for their wines. Wark Communications was recently engaged by Bucklin, a winery that happens to be located right here in Sonoma Valley.Consider their story: -The Bucklin…

Nov 29, 2005

Wine Absurdity of the Day: #1 and #2

I was on the phone earlier today with a wine writer. They needed a sample of a client’s wine for an article they were working on (I obliged, of course, understand the basic truth "if they can’t taste it, they can’t write about it). In the course of our discussion that ranged from Terroir to Writing, we found ourselves bumped up against two "absurdities" that exist in the wine world. The recognition of both these absurdities rendered us both speechless…