Coming Up: Patz & Hall Wine Dinner at Legal Harborside


On Thursday, February 2nd Legal Seafoods is offering a 4-course wine dinner with Patz & Hall Winery owner Donald Patz. If you haven't been yet, this is an opportunity to visit their flagship Legal Harborside location which includes 3 levels of dining in an ambitious harborside dining mecca in Boston's Seaport District.

We visited Legal Harborside this past summer and were impressed. The first floor dining room offers casual dining similar to most Legal Seafoods and opens up nicely to the water in warmer months. The second floor offers a more refined dining experience and is where this wine dinner is going to be held. The third floor is a ritzy club scene that wouldn't be out of place in Vegas.

The location also includes a marketplace on the first floor as well as some unique features. Like Catch and Release trout fishing right in the restaurant.

Here I am with my 4 year old enjoying the program. I'm the guy on the left keeping my distance - you didn't think I'd touch the slimy fish did you?
I had a bottle of 2009 Patz & Hall Pinot Noir recently that really blew me away. 93 points for me - here are my notes:

Medium-full bodied magenta. Aromatically beautiful with rich strawberry, red raspberry, and fresh clean earth which translates brilliantly to the palate. Silky texture balanced nearly perfectly with acidity and just a touch of tannic grip.

A benchmark California Pinot Noir from and iconic pruducer. Highly recommended.

Here's the menu for the wine dinner:

Hors d? Oeuvres

Tuna Tartare with Yuzu Aioli on Rice Crisp
King Crab Skewers with Wasabi Mayo
Patz & Hall ?Dutton Ranch? Chardonnay, Russian River Valley, 2010

First Course

Bacon-Wrapped Scallop
parsnip purée, smoked maple vinaigrette
Patz & Hall ?Zio Tony Ranch? Chardonnay, Russian River Valley, 2009

Second Course

Grilled Loch Duart Salmon
black beluga lentils, braised artichoke, smoked tomato
Patz & Hall Pinot Noir, Sonoma Coast, 2010

Third Course

Braised Beef Shortribs
Creamed Cavolo Nero
Patz & Hall ?Pisoni Vineyard? Pinot Noir, Santa Lucia Highlands, 2008

Cheese Course

Comté Gruyère
spiced nuts
Patz & Hall ?Pisoni Vineyard? Pinot Noir, Santa Lucia Highlands, 2000

$135 Per Person
(excluding tax and gratuity)

For more information or to make a reservation:
http://www.legalseafoods.com/index.cfm/page/Patz-and-Hall-Wine-Dinner/cdid/45005/pid/43564


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/X07b9h-Xmd8/coming-up-patz-hall-wine-dinner-at.html

Melissa Howard Melissa Joan Hart Melissa Rycroft Melissa Sagemiller

Field Notes from a Wine Life ? Cover Story Edition

Odds and ends from a life lived through the prism of the wine glass…

The Wine Spectator Affect

When I received my November 15th issue of Wine Spectator on October 11th, featuring a cover shot of Tim Mondavi and an feature article on him and his estate winery Continuum, I captured some online research reference points so I could have a baseline to measure the effect that a flattering Wine Spectator cover story might have on a winery in the digital age.

Using Wine-Searcher, CellarTracker and Google Keywords search data to track various data points, the results, while not directly linked to conclusions, do indicate a small bump in interest as a result of the cover piece.

For example, Wine-Searcher data indicates that the average bottle price, an indicator of supply and demand, rose $2 month over month, from $149 a bottle to $151 a bottle.

image

In addition, the Wine-Searcher search rank (always a month behind) indicates that Continuum was the 1360th most popular search in September.  By Friday, November 11th the Continuum search rank had increased to 471st for the month of October. (See the top 100 searches for October here).

Likewise, interest at CellarTracker increased, as well.  The number of bottles in inventory from October 11th to November 11th increased by 177 bottles, likely no small coincidence.

Finally, Google searches increased fivefold from an average of 210 monthly searches to approximately 1000 monthly searches.

What does this all mean?  Good question.  The truth is, a Wine Spectator cover appears to have moved the needle a bit, and while the easy route is to take a righteous Eeyore approach to mainstream media and its blunted impact in the Aughts, as contrasted to what a Spectator cover feature or glowing words from Parker meant just a decade ago, I believe a more tangible takeaway is to realize that these sorts of cover stories don’t happen in a vacuum and that Wine Spectator cover and feature was likely a result of weeks, months or even years’ worth of effort from a PR professional.

In an attention-deficit, social media-impacted, offline/online hybrid world of information consumption with mobile and tablets proliferating, in order to break through to (and ultimately assist) the consumer, the value of the PR professional, an oft neglected part of the marketing hierarchy, in reaching out and facilitating the telling of a winery’s story seems to be more important than ever.

It’s not about press releases, it’s about people supporting and telling the winery story, repeatedly, as a professional function – that leads to media notice, and that leads to 14 cases of wine being sold and inventoried at CellarTracker in a 30-day period of time.  It’s perhaps obvious, but not adhered to.

Wine Labels

To me, a wine bottle is a blank canvas that can either inspire in its creativity or repel in its insipidness.  While I have a reasonably conservative approach to the kinds of wine I want to drink relative to technological intervention, I am unabashedly progressive when it comes to the kind of wine labels that appeal to me.  In support of my interest with wine packaging, I keep an eye on The Dieline wine blog to see what’s happening in wine label design (another example from The Coolist here) and I also pay attention to the burgeoning field of wine label design contests. 

What say you about progressive labels?  Like ‘em?  Loathe them?  I placed a poll to the right.

Below is a slide show of winners from the recent International Wine Label Design competition.

Reconciling the Contradiction

I will lobby the nominating committee of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences on behalf of anybody who can help me understand how it is that in the span of a week I can see multiple research reports (here and here) on a revived sense of fiscal austerity by consumers yet other reports (here and here) indicate that wine above $20 is the fastest growing segment this year.

These two clearly don’t jive with each other, yet I’m witless to understand why wine is “trading up.”  Help! 

 

Source: http://goodgrape.com/index.php/site/field_notes_from_a_wine_life_cover_story_edition/

Michelle Branch Michelle Malkin Michelle Obama Michelle Rodriguez

Ten refreshing wines for after a ride ? Bicycling.com

I love cycling. I live in the rolling country of Westchester County, NY and one of the perks of the freelance life is having the flexibility to rack up the miles on two wheels. I also love a good craft beer. As do the editors of Bicycling magazine who write often about many delicious brews [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/GuSC/~3/xFeumZ5L4Aw/

Lorri Bagley Lucy Liu Luján Fernández Magdalena Wróbel

The Lifestyle of An A-List Wine Critic

A-List wine critics are the celebrities of the wine geek but we don’t get a chance to learn much about them. Just Google for interviews of Robert Parker or James Laube and you will see very little outside of promotional stuff. But Antonio Galloni of The Wine Advocate seems to be more open and has [...]

The Lifestyle of An A-List Wine Critic originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Winecast/~3/r0JKYBK5oFQ/

Shakara Ledard Shakira Shana Hiatt Shania Twain

iTunes Now Includes All Podcast Episodes

This podcast predates iTunes so when it started only a portion of my shows appeared on the feed. After I posted my latest podcast I decided it made sense to consolidate all the shows into the iTunes feed with all future podcasts published in mp3 format. Down the feed to Winecast 33 are enhanced AAC [...]

iTunes Now Includes All Podcast Episodes originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Winecast/~3/aa6lH_SXTNY/

Melissa Sagemiller Mena Suvari Mia Kirshner Mía Maestro

Trends in the Wine Industry: A Tale of Two Types

It's reported in today's New York Times that marketing behemoth Omnicon is involved in starting a new agency aimed at spotting "emerging trends in popular culture and take advantage of them by creating and distributing content sponsored by brands and...

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/FermentationTheDailyWineBlog/~3/hmtHcw44xYs/trends-iln-the-wine-industry.html

Reese Witherspoon Rhona Mitra Rihanna Robin Tunney