Time To Honor the Sponsors…the folk who honor FERMENTATION by their presence. INERTIA BEVERAGE GROUPThe pros when it comes to direct sales of wine, web management and all things wine and selling on-line. Their new blog, REthink Wine Blog, is ramped up and delivers daily insights on how to sell more wine on-line. K&L WINE MERCHANTSWine retailers extraordinaire. But they too maintain a blog (K&L Uncorked). Currently it’s all about Bordeaux with emphasis on the apparently great 2005 vintage. MAYO…
We are in for years of wine-shipping and wine sales related litigation. Years! Maryland wineries and wine distributors have apparently agreed on a compromise that will allow that state’s wineries to continue to sell direct to restaurants and retailers and bypassing wholesalers and distributors altogether. The compromise was necessary when the state’s comptroller ruled last June that allowing Maryland wineries to do this violated the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution because out of state wineries did not have the…
My weekly post at WellFed.net’s Wine Sediments Blog is up today. This week we delve into the issue of immigration, undocumented workers and the wine industry.
"Lodi was famous for wines," lamented John Beckman, a city councilman. "Suddenly we became famous for terrorists." It’s not hard to understand the frustration that Councilman Beckman feels. His little town out outskirts of the Bay Area is becoming more and more connected with terrorism as the trial of two Lodi men on terrorism charges has gained national attention. This is an interesting PR situation for Lodi wineries and wineries that put "Lodi" on their label to indicate this is…
The most prestigious awards in food & wine journalism are the James Beard Awards. While the amount of attention given to wine in these awards is scant, they do manage to recognize some of the most intriquing and inspired writing on the subject. The nominations for the 2006 James Beard Awards have been announced. It struck me while looking them over that 1) wine writing gets a bit of a short shrift in these awards 2) that Internet-based journalism is…
