Oct 25, 2007
We send out press releases at Wark Communications. Of late, many of them and for various clients. I don’t like press releases very much mainly because they are 1) impersonal and 2) even when the list of those folks you are sending them too is well vetted and well developed over time, it still feels like using a shotgun to blast a whole in the door when a simple knock will do. But to this feeling I have to add…
Aug 27, 2007
So it was French and Italian researchers who have assembled the first complete genome of the grapevine. That seems apropos to me. It also seems to me that this kind of research will eventually lead to a variety of things. Not least among them is that in time grapes will be grown in more places than they are now as varieties are created to produce usable wine grapes. That means more books being published. More seminars on wine regions. More…
Aug 1, 2007
Today, on the front page of the SF Chronicle, above the fold, was a huge story about the sale of venerable Stag’s Leap Winery for $185 Million. This story, along with the news that William Hill and Canyon Road went to a consortium of St. Michelle and Antinori and Duckhorn sold most of it’s value to an equity firm, led to the state of Napa Valley being a BIG concern not just in the media but in the industry. I…
Jul 26, 2007
Wine & Spirits Magazine announced that with its Fall 2007 edition arriving on newsstands at the end of this month it will celebrate 25 years of publishing. Of all the consumer wine magazines out there, Wine & Spirits is the least flashy. However, it’s also among the best. Next to most of the other tabloid sized wine magazines, W&S with its regular size almost looks outclassed next to its competitors. Yet, what you’ve always gotten with W&S is great editorial!…
Jul 5, 2007
The venerable wine industry trade publication Wines & Vines has announced its redesign of its website. And they did very nice job. For quite some time the W&V website was a bit chaotic. And that’s too bad because the publication does a great job of producing useful, insightful articles on everything wine. The new site features sections containing headlines, news briefs, columns, features and a calendar. Most of the information is generated by staff, rather than taken off the newswires…