I Got Culture
Date: Tue, Jan 6, 2009 Wine Tasting Wine Business
I count it as my first great discovery of 2009: "Culture".The first magazine devoted entirely to cheese. Well, maybe it's not the first ever, but it's the first I've ever seen. "Culture" is glossy, well designed, staffed with some great...
Manipulating Musical Minds
Date: Mon, Jan 5, 2009 Wine Tasting Wine Business
I learned something about subliminal manipulation of consumers recently while reading Parade Magazine. What I learned didn't surprise me. A study has show that if you play French music in a grocery store's wine department, folks buy more French wine....
Epicurus
Date: Wed, Dec 31, 2008 Wine Tasting Wine Business
As 2008 draws to a close, I've been thinking about what's happened to me over the past 12 months. In doing so, I can't seem to get my mind off of one of my favorite philosophers.Epicurus lived in Samos, in...
Unsurprisingly, Joe Has Something To Say
Date: Mon, Dec 29, 2008 Wine Tasting Wine Business
Famed wine importer Joe Dressner has brain cancer. That's not so much my worry as is the sorry condition the cancer will be in when Joe gets done reducing it to a pulp. Joe's not someone you screw with, particularly...
Collapsing Bubbles
Date: Sat, Dec 27, 2008 Wine Tasting Wine Business
Regarding the apparent problems the French Champagne houses are having this year, I feel like I've done my fair share. Though domestic sparkling wine producers will be happier with my efforts, I do currently have a decent number of recently...
Getting Manhattanized
Date: Fri, Dec 26, 2008 Wine Tasting Wine Business
Why do my thoughts turn to cocktails this time of year more than most? It doesn't matter. They do and that's that.Paul Clark, writing under the "PROOF" banner of the New York Times has an outstanding post about the revival...
Absinthe Any Tradition...
Date: Wed, Dec 24, 2008 Wine Tasting Wine Business
If the Holidays are nothing else, they are indulgent and reverential traditions wrapped around culture and imbued with great meaning for many.I happen to like traditions very much, whether ecclesiastical or cultural. I like how they mark and illuminate profound...
Interests and Action in the American Wine Industry
Date: Mon, Dec 22, 2008 Wine Tasting Wine Business
In the wake of watching the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association casually make use of their purchase of the Michigan legislature and their ownership of Nida Samona (is it legal to own another human being?), I began to ponder...
Interests and Action in the American Wine Industry
Date: Mon, Dec 22, 2008 Wine Tasting Wine Business
In the wake of watching the Michigan Beer and Wine Wholesalers Association casually make use of their purchase of the Michigan legislature and their ownership of Nida Samona (is it legal to own another human being?), I began to ponder...
Important New Wine Information Source...Read It!
Date: Wed, Dec 17, 2008 Wine Tasting Wine Business
A new voice has come to the world of on-line wine information/reporting and it's an important one. Actually, the voice is not new.Lew Perdue is among the most experienced reporters/publishers to work in the wine industry. Many of you who...
Nakedness & Wine
Date: Tue, Dec 16, 2008 Wine Tasting Wine Business
As some of you may be aware, I'm a big fan and big advocate of combining nakedness and wine. So, you can imagine how disappointed I was to ONLY LEARN TODAY about a videocast called "The Naked Wine Show."Produced out...
Predictions For Direct Shipping of Wine in 2009
Date: Tue, Dec 16, 2008 Wine Tasting Wine Business
I think the development of the direct shipping channel is still in its early stages. I think a great number of changes will come to this channel. Issues of access, technology, legality and logistics are still in flux. The profit...
Fermentation's Top Online Wine Influencers
Date: Mon, Dec 15, 2008 Wine Tasting Wine Business
What is "Influence" and what makes an individual "Influential". Let's not over think this. Isn't "Influence" the power to make other people act and think differently...or at least to act and think? And isn't one MORE influential if they can...
Prepare: It's About To Get Real Ugly Out There
Date: Fri, Dec 12, 2008 Wine Tasting Wine Business
It doesn't seem unlikely that the American economy will see another 1.5 million jobs lost between November and February.Ten percent unemployment by late 2009 isn't a fantasy.Credit is about as easy to come by as a California-made Albarino.I'm betting that...
