Sep 16, 2013
Last Thursday at the Women for Winesense annual “Women in Wine” event, three remarkable women came together on a panel to chat about their views of the wine industry, offer some personal observations and inspire the crowd of 100 or so people at Buena Vista Winery in Sonoma. I was honored to moderate the panel. Since that evening I’ve not been able to get one comment made by one panelist out of my head. Michaela Rodeno, owner of Villa Ragazzi…
Sep 4, 2013
This month I will embark on my 24th year working in the wine industry and I’ve begun to start to think, finally, about the industry from the top down. I was speaking with a friend about this perspective and they asked a pretty simple question: “What have been the major themes in the wine industry over the past two decades?” That it’s simple also makes it somewhat difficult to answer. But, by breaking down the industry into its constituent parts,…
Sep 3, 2013
“French wine snobs warn Apple not to release ‘Champagne” Colored iPhone” This is why people hate lawyers, isn’t it? Isn’t this why no matter how mean and offensive lawyer jokes can be, no one ever says, “hey, knock it off, lawyers are people too!” The Interprofessional Committee for Champagne Wine, whose charge is to protect the regional identity of the Champagne drink against unjustified usage of the term, believes it can tell the producers of a phone that they may…
Aug 30, 2013
Can a man do an equally good job of marketing wine to women as a woman could do? Is a woman better prepared to market to women wine buyers than men? Is there any reason to believe that women have better palates than men? Is there any advantage women have over men when it comes to making wine? These are just some of the questions I’m tempted to ask a panel of highly accomplished wine professionals at the upcoming Women…
Aug 5, 2013
Gallop reports that when asked if they prefer to drink beer, wine or spirits, Americans name beer and wine equally as often. This has been interpreted to mean that wine is now as popular as beer in America. But what’s really interesting about this new poll is that it demonstrates that the number of Americans that name wine as their favorite drink has stayed static for over a decade with little or no growth. Consider the following graph: Between 1992…