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Wine Marketing

A collection of 175 posts

Why I am feeling optimistic about 2009

I just got back from the national sales meetings of Vineyard Brands (which represents our wines nationally) in Birmingham, Alabama. I present to the sales team each January, and these meetings give me a chance to get the pulse of the national wholesale wine market as well as catch up

Facebook, social networking for wineries and a new use for a winery blog

About three months ago, I created a Facebook page for Tablas Creek. For those of you who are not familiar with Facebook, it's a site where people can interact with their friends by sharing updates and photos, posting thoughts and links, and generally keeping a loose eye on

Thoughts on our Annual Futures Tasting and En Primeur Offering

Each December, we offer our VINsider Wine Club members the chance to taste the upcoming release of our two top red wines, before bottling, and reserve these wines at a futures-only 30% discount off of expected release price. We began this program back in 2003 (offering futures on the 2002s

Appellations of Origin

A few days ago, I was in our tasting room when I was struck by the reproduction of a 1935 public notice to the proprietors of Châteauneuf-du-Pape displayed on the wall. It occurred to me that this affiche I’d been looking at for ten years had an important story

United States wine consumption and production changes (and what they mean for California wineries)

You probably have heard that wine consumption in the United States is rising, and poised to pass France and Italy over the next few years. What you may not have realized is how much more growth potential we have, and how positive this trend is for the prospects of California

A Symposium on Roussanne (AKA three days spent with an infuriating, unpredictable, enticing, lovely grape)

Don't be fooled by this Roussanne cluster's innocuous appearance. It's a relentlessly challenging grape. Last month we hosted a producers-only symposium on Roussanne. Roussanne has tremendous potential, and at its best makes wines with richness, striking minerality, ageability, and balance. Robert Parker has called

A winery blog? Who needs it?

As the Tablas Creek blog has gotten more established, I've started to receive questions from other wineries about how to get started. I have written posts on Learning How to Blog and on the (somewhat related) Usability Lessons for Winery Web Sites. Still, reading a surprisingly pessimistic assessment

An Independence Day look at progress in direct shipping since Granholm v Heald

On the day that Granholm v. Heald was announced in 2005, there were impromptu celebrations around the country, stories in the national media about how the Supreme Court had sided with wine lovers and struck down restrictions on interstate wine shipment, and general euphoria among small and medium-sized wineries who

A Library Wine Club?

For years, we've been struggling with how and whether to create a second wine club. Right now, we're one-size-fits-all. Each member of our VINsider Wine Club receives the same selection of wines in each shipment. We have at times toyed with the idea of creating certain

An update on corks, screwcaps and consumer preferences

In the late-March post Consumers choose... cork? I reported on the the results of the first six weeks since we'd offered on our online order form the option of choosing between cork-finished and screwcap-finished versions of our 2005 Cotes de Tablas. I was surprised that of the first