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How I discovered my passion for Wine Everyone who has worked in wine has been asked the same question at one point in time: What was your ah-ha bottle? Some industry professionals have a great story about a bottle that strikes like lightning. I do not. Not that I haven’t had spectacular wines that linger in my memory. There was a glass of Madeira from 1880 served at the end of a beautiful Michelin-Starred meal at Meadowood. A bottle of Pomerol from 1986 that finally made the

And the data behind it A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about what the wine industry gets wrong about hospitality, and one of the things I mentioned was the gap between marketing and hospitality. Commerce 7 (a leading wine industry software provider) recently released a report analyzing their direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales data. And that report backs up everything I said. Fifty-five percent of DTC transactions occur at the point-of-sale, AKA the tasting room. These transactions

What NOT to do with email I’ve worked in email for most of my professional career — in fact, I’ve twice run email programs for daily offer businesses. And I find the puzzle that is a successful email program fascinating. Who should get it, when do they want it, what message, where does it fit in the broader outreach picture… I recently attended a wine auction, and I’ve started receiving follow-up emails from some of the participating wineries. There were a couple of glaring i

Napa built its reputation not only on fine wine but on hospitality, and wine regions around the world have followed in its footsteps. Without a strong historical wine culture in the United States, the fledgling wine industry needed a way to get in front of consumers and educate them. So wineries opened their cellar doors and started popping corks to share the sensibility of good food and good wine, and encourage people to bring the magic home. Over time, those wine regions be

It’s been a while since I’ve done this: sat down to write about a wine experience. When I lived in Bordeaux, I wrote a wine blog, Cuvee Appeal , one that got a lot of attention and one that I was really proud of. But 10 years ago this month, I moved to Napa. I got a job, a fancy one. But one that also came with conditions, and I was encouraged to focus my writing elsewhere. And despite job changes and other roles, I’ve found it awkward to pick up my pen again. The digital lan