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Wine Marketing

A collection of 173 posts

An evening fit for a prince (or a Hearst)

I get to pour wine at lots of dinners, and even more tastings. Doing so is a key piece of how we have chosen to market ourselves: not just waiting for people to come and discover us, but going out to where they are and introducing ourselves. It's

Reflecting on a decade of Esprit de Beaucastel

This week we're bottling the 2010 Esprit de Beaucastel. About 2000 cases are going into national distribution. Another 1000 will go out to our wine club. 1500 will be allocated to our tasting room. 500 will go into our long-term library for later release. Some of the cases,

The power of print

Last weekend I noticed a small flurry of online wine club signups, as well as a surge in online orders. We hadn't sent out a recent email (we do that at the very end of the month). We hadn't gotten any particularly noteworthy press. It wasn&

In defense of expensive rosé

A few years ago, I was out to dinner at Villa Creek with friends. Dining at Villa Creek is always a treat because not only is the food terrific, but owner Cris Cherry and GM Erick Cadena always put together a great and reasonably priced wine list that showcases not

Nine lessons the Kimpton Hotel Group offers wineries

Last week, Meghan and I escaped for a night down to Santa Barbara to see David Sedaris perform. We stayed downtown at the Canary Hotel, a few blocks away from the Arlington Theater where he would be performing. When we checked in, it was during the evening wine hour that

Has TripAdvisor overtaken Yelp for winery visitors?

I keep a regular eye on Tablas Creek's reviews on TripAdvisor and on Yelp. Reading these reviews helps me keep an eye out for potential problems, and also gives me a good overall sense of what people are thinking about the experience they have when they visit Tablas

The power grab behind New York's proposed "at rest" legislation

Editor's Note 2/4/2014: This post was originally written in March of 2012 and in part thanks to the outcry of wine lovers everywhere the 2012 legislative session expired without enacting the proposed legislation. It was reintroduced in 2013, but wasn't enacted. Like a zombie,

Mapping out the future of Tablas Creek

It's been a busy couple of years for us. We built an expansion to our winery that increased our square footage by 70%. We launched two new wines (the Patelin de Tablas and Patelin de Tablas Blanc) that have been a success both here at the winery and

A Tale of Two Grenaches

About a week ago, I got back from our annual pilgrimage to the Yosemite Vintners' Holidays event held at the beautiful Ahwahnee Hotel each fall. At this event – which I wrote about a few years ago and which I highly recommend – each winery is expected to present a seminar

Tablas Creek 101: Why (and How) We Use So Many Grapes

By Robert Haas Last night a long-time friend and wine lover asked why we planted and utilized so many different varieties of Rhône grapes in our Tablas Creek wines and what their individual contributions are to our six different blends, or assemblages as they are known in France. Well, there