Archive for the ‘Wine Business’ Category

Feb 8, 2010

Gewurztraminer and Discomforting Sounds

Sometime in the 1970s, people changed from ordering "white wine" to ordering "Chardonnay. Between 1990 and 2007, shipments of California Chardonnay rose from 9 million to 50 million cases. Today, Chardonnay production and consumption is far and away greater than the total production of all other white wine in California. So, what I'm wondering is this: What would have happened between the 1970s and today if Gewurztraminer was instead named "Gerdonnay" (pronounced with a soft "G"—it sounds nicer) If this…

Feb 1, 2010

The Influence of Wine Blogs

"You are an important 'Influencer' in the wine industry". This was part of a message sent to me in an email late last week. Whether they were trying to butter me up or not isn't that important. But it's interesting that they wrote this because of late I've been thinking a lot about the idea of "influencers" and where blogs fit into any calculation of influencers inside the wine industry. I've thought about this idea for two decades actually. As…

Jan 21, 2010

Forcing the Issue on Wine Labels

The Label! It is the primary and most important marketing tool any and every winery uses to market its wines. The label tells prospective purchasers the wineries name, the kind of wine that is in the bottle, where the grapes were grown that went into the production of the wine the prospective purchaser is considering, the year during which those grapes were grown, and it can convey by its design numerous other messages about the character, desires, intent, philosophy and…

Jan 15, 2010

A Happy Cautionary Tale

It seems absolutely clear that Naomi Brilliant is happier now that her wine brand, Roshambo, is dead. It seems too that Naomi's time confronting the wine business left her bitter. At least that's what I get from reading the Santa Rosa Press Democrat Article, "Roshambo Founder Shifts From Wine to Farming". The most fun, I mean real fun, I had working with a winery PR client was when I did a bit of work for Naomi Brilliant at Roshambo. I…

Jan 15, 2010

Wine, Dope, CNBC, Critics and My 30 Seconds of Fame

This was lots of fun. It’s always nice to obtain your 30 seconds of fame. However, the discussion of the similarities between wine and marijuana discussed in this CNBC segment to which I was asked to contribute (see 40 seconds in..) raises a lot of questions. The most interesting issue raised is that of “Dope Critics”. Were it legal to buy and sell Marijuana in California, would a crop of “marijuana critics” rise up and flood us with their opinions?…