What do you call a prostitute working in Washington, DC? . . . A Lobbyist. What happens when a lobbyist and a congressperson have sex? . . . The taxpayers get screwed. Lobbyists are viewed very similarly to lawyers. Everyone hates them, jokes about them and condemns them just up until the moment they need one. Well, if you are in the wine business (or the alcohol business for that matter) then today you ought to set aside your disdain…

No one knows the future, so it’s impossible to say what will result as a consequence of 2020. However, we can look back. In doing so, it’s neither historically reckless nor an improbable conceit to suggest that 2020 is the most consequential year of the past 10 decades. How, I wonder, will the wine industry be remembered when the incalculable chronicles and novels and histories of this moment are composed? Consider first the milieu. The greatest pandemic to hit America’s…

BY JULIE ANN KODMUR, Wine Publicist TAINT TALK: YES! As Nike’s swoosh would say, “just do it!” Yes, I’m talking about whether you or your winemaker or your viticulturist should talk to the media about how you’re handling smoke taint. People have talked to the San Francisco Chronicle, to Wine-Searcher, to the Napa Valley Register. Traditional PR counsel would say not to. Why would you risk being associated with something so negative? “People will associate that yucky ashtray-taste with our…

Why do so many Michigan wine lovers choose to buy wine from out-of-state retailers rather than buy their wine from Michigan’s own retailers? This really should be the question that emerges from the hyperbolic, breathless headline issued by the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association noting that “More than 480,000 Bottles of Wine Shipped Illegally into Michigan During Second, Third Quarters of 2019”. The Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association have been issuing these sorts of press releases for a…

Wine writers of all sorts really ought to focus more on the business of wine, as W. Blake Gray, Felicity Carter, Elin McCoy and Cyril Penn are all about to explain at an upcoming virtual event of significance. As Alder Yarrow reminds, the Wine Media Conference is nearly upon us. The Wine Media Conference is the new name for the Wine Bloggers Conference, which began its run in 2008, making this years virtual version the 13th deep dive into wine…