Archive for the ‘Wine Gossip’ Category
As quickly as it turned to a subscription model, Appellation America has pulled the plug on it’s operations. There are some significant lessons here. The publishers of this groundbreaking on-line wine site will be announcing this soon. Not more than a couple weeks into beginning to sell subscriptions to the on-line editorial and information website Appellation America, the owners decided to stop taking subscriptions, dismiss its impressive editorial staff, discontinue the publishing of any new content and let the site…
Today, in response to the perceived and real "Wine Blogger Bashing" that has been occurring occasionally here and there, someone will proclaim: "Prove Them Wrong With Every Post."This is sage advice and comes from someone who knows of what they speak. However, let me say to those bloggers who HAVE in the past suggested that the mainstream wine media is out of touch, or are the past, or are too threatened by bloggers and to the mainstream wine media folks…
You observe the world of luxury products long enough and you have the opportunity to come across any number of loutish, uncouth and generally obscene products that have no basis for their existence other than the reality that among the millions of people who have money to burn, you are bound to come across just enough who are so remarkable stupid and dispossessed of common sense that you can count on selling a few items meant just for them. Le…
Yesterday the wine industry woke up to the news that one of its key shipping/compliance/inventory management service firms, New Vine, went under. The disruptions this is causing among its many winery and retail clients, as well as consumers who receive shipments of wine via this operation, are significant. It appears that New Vine's demise was caused by the same thing that causes most other companies to shut down: Financial Crisis. Though I suspect the details of that financial crisis in…
I've got to believe that THIS is a step in the right direction and appropriate: A winery owning governor of California. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced his candidacy for California Governor the other day, putting him in a position, I believe, to be the first Winery-owning governor in California's history. Newsom is part owner of Napa Valley's Plumpjack Winery. He is also part owner of the recently opened Cade Winery on Napa Valley's Howell Mountain. It turns out that…
