Luxury Sports Car Bugatti Veyron

If you have money and opportunity, then certainly Bugatti Veyron is the car that will adorn your garage and show off your taste and class in style. Bugatti Veyron is the super car that comes with the fabulous price tag of $1,700,000, almost £810,000. Quite simply the super car Bugatti Veyron is the most expensive [...]

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/vagablond/ysSN/~3/9aFj7H3wsYs/

red wine wine shop wine glasses wine tasting white wine

Kendall-Jackson Humanizes Their Brand

It’s rare when network TV and wine come together but when it does I take a look. I’m not a regular viewer of Undercover Boss but might be after this episode at Kendall-Jackson Wine Estates. New President Rick Tigner works at the bottom of this organization and learns a lot. And he does the right [...]

Kendall-Jackson Humanizes Their Brand originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Winecast/~3/x4ruIoL8u44/

buy wine good wine wine warehouse wine company port wine

Trip Report: Interesting Times at Kosta Browne

The other day, I was listening to ESPN Radio's Colin Cowherd when he shared that he'd be doing a guest appearance on Mike & Mike with Mike Golic. I thought this was an interesting way of cross-pollinating audiences so it served as a reminder that I should be doing more guest blogging for other wine blogs.

As I got to thinking about a good venue for a post about a visit to Kosta Browne, David White's Terroirist was the first that came to mind. David has been doing a tremendous job since launching Terroirist a couple years ago and I've particularly enjoyed his winery trip reports.

Here's a snippet. Head on over to Terroirist to read the full article:

These are interesting times at Kosta Browne. In 2009, the winery was acquired by Vincraft for almost $40 million. In 2011, one of its wines was named Wine Spectator?s Wine of the Year. And in 2012, one of its winemakers left the firm. But through it all, Kosta Browne?s Pinot Noirs remain the standard for bold domestic Pinot Noir. Read more...


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/tmKucRZ3miw/trip-report-interesting-times-at-kosta.html

wine kits wedding wine wine price wine merchants sweet wines

Rue La La: $20 for $40 at Wine.com (ends this morning!)

UPDATE: This offer has expired.

Deal site Rue La La is running a $20 for $40 for Wine.com but you've got to act fast. The sale ends at 11:00 am EDT today (Sunday, May 13th 2012).

The usual restrictions apply to this offer - most meaningfully that the voucher can't be applied to the price of shipping.

If you're not yet a member of Rue La La sign up and get $10 off your first order, bringing the price down to $10:

http://ruelala.com/invite/winepress

Then head over to Wine.com to use your voucher. Check out the 2010 Belle Glos Meiomi Pinot Noir- always enjoyable and for my money the best $20 Pinot Noir on the market today.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there!


Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WellesleyWinePress/~3/_ZQzm-G-Nx8/rue-la-la-20-for-40-at-winecom-ends.html

pinot grigio chianti red chardonnay syrah

Field Notes from a Wine Life ? Media Edition

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

Rex Pickett

If you’re not reading Rex Pickett’s (author of Sideways and Vertical) blog, you are officially remiss.

Pickett is a gifted writer who cranks out perfectly incubated long-form posts with turns of phrase that are both wry and rich, offering insight into the machinations of publishing, film and stage that few culture vultures grasp.

Pickett recently wrote an extensive (3900 word) post on the reasons why a film sequel to Sideways (directed by Alexander Payne) would not be made from Vertical, Pickett’s book sequel.  In doing so, Pickett offered a discursive meditation on Payne’s artistic pathos and the factors that may be playing into Vertical’s stall on the way to celluloid.

image

Unfortunately, Pickett removed the post after re-publishing a second version that deleted much of the armchair psychologist rumination he originally channeled from Payne’s psyche.  An email inquiry to Pickett on why he removed the post (in either iteration) has gone unanswered.

If I were a muckraker, I would publish the post because Pickett’s deletion of the post from his site did not delete the post from RSS feed readers like Bloglines or Google Reader.  But, I’m not a muckraker…

Hopefully, Pickett will revisit the topic in a manner that is less confessional and more elucidation because it was worth the extended read time.  Until then you can read the other posts on his site and gain tremendous insight into the vicissitudes of the publishing process, what the afterglow is like after capturing the cultural zeitgeist and how he’s helping bring Sideways to the theatre with a stage version.

It’s definitely recommended reading.

A Discovery of Witches

While we’re on the topic of books and authors (and with Halloween around the corner), a reinforcing mention goes to Deb Harkness of Good Wine Under $20.  Earlier this year a little book she wrote called, “A Discovery of Witches” was published and immediately shot up the best sellers lists.  The movie rights were acquired this summer by Warner Bros, likely securing Harkness’ financial future in the process.

While I read fiction infrequently (the last fiction book being Vertical by Rex Pickett), those that I know who can tell the difference between kindling and a classic call A Discovery of Witches “mad genius.”
Any conversation about a wine blogger doing good should begin with Deb Harkness who is now dabbling in rarified air.  Pick up her book if you haven’t yet.

Bargain Wine Books

There’s little doubt, in the prolonged US economic malaise we’re experiencing, that “value wine” and “bargain wine” are hot topics.  Heck, an entire channel of business has been defined with “Flash” wine sale sites.  Given that, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that a couple of wine books would be published with this specific focus.

image

What is a surprise is that the books are authored by wine writers with real chops engaged in offering a deeper narrative than the slapdash compendiums of wine lists that has passed muster in years gone by.
Just in time for the holidays, Natalie MacLean has Unquenchable: A Tipsy Quest for the World’s Best Bargain Wines publishing on November 1st and George Taber, a wine writer on a tear with his fourth book in six years, has A Toast to Bargain Wines: How Innovators, Iconoclasts, and Winemaking Revolutionaries Are Changing the Way the World Drinks publishing on November 15th.

An Idea worth Duplicating?

Celebrity deaths come in threes and new wine ideas come in twos.

We’ve seen this duplicative market entry in recent years with winery reservation systems CellarPass and VinoVisit and now we’re seeing it with quasi-wine search engines.

WineMatch and VinoMatch are both in the early stages of launch purporting to help a consumer match their likes with wines they might enjoy.

Meh.  The problem with these sites isn’t that consumers don’t need help finding a wine they like, the problem is that most wine consumers don’t understand what kind of wine they like.  Yes, it’s the tannins that dry the back of the mouth and its residual sugar that makes that K-J so delectable…

By the time consumers figure out their likes and dislikes graduating beyond the “go-to,” they don’t care about having somebody help them “match” their wines to their tastes because they’re on their own adventure.

It’s just my opinion, but these sites face looooong odds of finding consumer success and short of the slick willy seduction that happens with some wineries who haven’t been bitten and as such aren’t twice shy, they won’t find *any* success.  But, I’ve been wrong before, at least once.

Pictures and Pithiness

While we’re on the topic of online wine services, I’m not sure whether I should be happy or aghast that I’ve been a habitué of the online wine scene for long enough to see a derivative – it’s like watching a remake of the movie Footloose when I was saw the original in the theatre.

There’s a new wine site called TasteJive that takes the concept of a wine blog called Chateau Petrogasm, popular in 2007 and 2008, to new heights.

image

Around the premise that a picture is worth a thousand words even if that picture has nothing to do with wine, they have created a site that provides nothing but visual metaphors with a 140 character description for finding wines you might like.

I loved the idea of Chateau Petrogasm, I like the idea of a perfectly crafted 140 character slug, but I’m very uncertain about the community aspect of TasteJive—the users who control the uploading of pictures and descriptions.

As noted mid-20th century photographer Diane Arbus said, “A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.”

Not exactly a recipe for success in bumping into a wine.

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

chianti red chardonnay syrah pinot noir

Quick Trips to the Napa Valley and Carneros Wine Country

Perhaps you are on a business trip in San Francisco or Oakland. Your schedule gives you an afternoon off and you want to visit the Napa Valley or Carneros wine country. You want something that will make your trip useful and memorable. We have a few quick wine country getaway suggestions that will do just that. Continue reading

Source: http://www.winecountrygetaways.com/napablog/quick-trips-to-the-napa-valley-and-carneros-wine-country/

good wines dessert wines vintage wine sparkling wines wine prices