Find The Best Wine With Oink

At today’s Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, Digg founder and serial entrepreneur Kevin Rose announced a new iPhone app called Oink that looks like a mash-up of Foursquare and Digg. The premise is simple; check in things you like and then the community on Oink will vote your item up or down. All of [...]

Find The Best Wine With Oink originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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Shania Twain Shanna Moakler Shannon Elizabeth Shannyn Sossamon

Wine Word of the Week: Palate

This week?s Wine Word of the Week is palate. Official definition from Jancis Robinson?s The Oxford Companion to Wine: Palate is a term used when describing tasting as a process and an ability. It is generally used to describe the combined human tasting faculties in the mouth and, sometimes, nose. The impact of a wine [...]

Wine Word of the Week: Palate was originally posted on Wine Peeps. Wine Peeps - Your link to great QPR wines from Washington State and beyond.

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Leslie Bega Leslie Bibb Lil Kim Lily Allen

Massachusetts Governor Supports Direct Wine Shipments

Deval PatrickDan from Franklin gave Massachusetts wine enthusiasts a nice little Christmas gift by giving Governor Deval Patrick an opportunity to publicly proclaim his support for direct wine shipments on a radio call-in show Thursday.

During an interview on 96.9 Boston Talks, Patrick said "I would sign that bill if it came" in response to a question about why direct wine shipments haven't become a reality even after appeals were exhausted in early 2010.

The bill he was referring to is House Bill 1029 which was introduced in 2011 but never made it out of committee. The state legislature operates on a 2-year session however so perhaps this publicity is just the nudge needed to force some action on this important-but-non-urgent issue.

At around 35:00 minutes remaining in the audio archive (it's pretty entertaining - I'd recommend giving it a listen when you have a chance) Patrick said "Dan, you're killing me here" when asked why shipments still couldn't happen - as if to say he too has been annoyed that he couldn't ship home wine when visiting California and New York.

Patrick then went on to describe his familiarity with the issue saying he understands the concerns of state retailers and wholesalers as well as concerns about underage access. For Patrick to sign the bill, it needs to be voted out of the Committee on Consumer Protection and Professional License, and passed by the legislature - which will hopefully happen in 2012.

There's an excellent text summary of the situation by Kyle Cheney of the State House News Service posted on The Boston Herald's website. Thanks to Gary Curtis (@wineblogman on Twitter) for the heads up.

And thanks to Dan from Franklin for raising the awareness of this issue in such an effective way.

If you haven't already, now would be a good time to ping your state representative asking them where they stand on this issue and encourage them to support the bill. Don't know who your legislators are? Use this website to find out.

Want to keep up to date on progress in Massachusetts wine shipping laws?  I'd love it if you subscribed to The Wellesley Wine Press.

Hope you all have a safe, healthy, and very happy holiday season!


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Sophia Bush Stacy Keibler Summer Altice Summer Glau

Do you speak my language?

I noticed a really interesting new tool on Facebook today, and I’m not often impressed by Facebook at the moment. It appears that when a Page (not a User Profile) posts an update to their wall, readers will see an option appearing below offering a translation. [I'm not entirely sure how it decides this, but [...]

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Missy Peregrym Molly Sims Monet Mazur Monica Bellucci

Field Notes from a Wine Life ? Power Structure Edition

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

Naked Wine and Occupy Wall Street

It’s not hard to notice the parallels between the natural wine movement and Occupy Wall Street - both are valid causes sorely lacking coherence and a rallying point that would move them from fringe head-scratcher to mainstream momentum.

  Natural wine is about purity of wine expression—shepherding grapes grown without chemicals to the bottle with as little human manipulation as possible, representing the place where they came from in the process.


  Occupy Wall Street is about re-calibrating the world’s best economic system – capitalism—to preserve the middle-class, the labor force that has allowed the U.S. to create the most productive economy in the world.

Neither movement represents fringe radicalism as some would have you believe.  I look at both as being valid inflection points and, at their core, about keeping a balance between big and small, allowing every man and woman an equal opportunity at pursuing success around their particular truth.

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What reasonable person would deny the validity of either if not clouded by confusion?

One idea well-conceived and well-communicated can change the world, but, unfortunately, both the natural wine movement and Occupy Wall Street are prevaricating from their essential truth, rendering them both toothless and feckless.

No need to crib from Che Guevara, but appealing to base logic and the common denominator would do both movements some good.

Just one man’s opinion…

On the Aussies, Redux

A few weeks back, I noted how the Australian wine industry was poised for a rebound in public perception due in part to two things happening in concert – public backlash to Yellow Tail wine, what I call the, “Derision Decision,” and an unspoken coalition of influencers recognizing Australia’s artisanal wine production – the antithesis of Yellow Tail.  I cited recent sympathetic mentions from Jay McInerney in the Wall Street Journal and Dan Berger, wine writing’s current patriarch, as proof points.

You can add to the list of sympathetic mentions about artisanal Australia with recent mentions from Jancis Robinson and James Suckling.

Don’t sleep on Australia.  It’s making a comeback slowly, but surely in public perception.

Tim Mondavi and Wine Spectator

Thomas Matthews, the Executive Editor for Wine Spectator magazine (WS), has commented on my site a few times.  Each of these instances has been to protect or project Wine Spectator around its editorial goals.

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Good on Thomas for not being afraid to get in the ring.  Certainly, WS takes its fair share of shots from the wine chatterati, mostly with grace and aplomb.

Lest I cast myself as anything but objective, I should note that James Laube’s article on Tim Mondavi and Continuum in the current issue of WS (November 15th issue) is everything right about what mainstream wine media can offer wine consumers that online wine writing (mostly) doesn’t –long-form, depth, first-person access and an effort that takes weeks and not hours.

Laube’s piece is excellent - well-written and balanced; acknowledgement thereof is in order.

Besides the Wine

Jordan winery has two wines – a Cabernet and Chardonnay, but they really have a triumvirate in terms of things to buy.  Jordan focuses on food and wine as being partners at the table and, to that end, any purchase from Jordan should also include their olive oil.  Wow!

The Jordan olive oil makes Trader Joe’s EVOO seem like Two Buck Chuck, comparatively speaking.  A little whole wheat Barilla pasta, some homemade pesto using the Jordan olive oil and some artisan bread in five minutes a day and you’re assuredly living the good life.  The rub is I wouldn’t pour the round Jordan Chard with the pesto, probably a Sauvignon Blanc, but don’t let that dissuade you from picking up their olive oil – it’s good stuff.

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

Rebecca Romijn Reese Witherspoon Rhona Mitra Rihanna

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.

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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/

Kim Smith Kim Yoon jin Kirsten Dunst Krista Allen

Napa Cellars: Good Value Reds from Napa Valley

Founded by Rich Frank and Koerner Rombauer in 1996, Napa Cellars was acquired by Trinchero Family Estates ten years later. Trinchero Family Estates have been producing wines for over 60 years. Through the years, the Trinchero family and the company have expanded. Today, Trinchero represents over 27 brands in the United States and Australia. Winemaker [...]

Napa Cellars: Good Value Reds from Napa Valley was originally posted on Wine Peeps. Wine Peeps - Your link to great QPR wines from Washington State and beyond.

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Leelee Sobieski Leighton Meester Leila Arcieri Lena Headey