San Francisco Prep High School churns out Winery Owners and Winemakers

St. Ignatius High School has produced a very impressive list of alums working in the world of wine. The Alumni Department at S.I. forwarded me this list of graduates affiliated with wineries in the Napa Valley, Sonoma and beyond. Continue reading

The post San Francisco Prep High School churns out Winery Owners and Winemakers appeared first on Napa Valley Wine Blog.

Source: http://www.winecountrygetaways.com/napablog/san-francisco-prep-high-school-churns-out-winery-owners-and-winemakers/

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$25 for $50 at Lot18

LivingSocial is offering a $50 voucher for $25 for wine flash deal site Lot 18
If you're new to Lot18 get $10 off your purchase through this link

Looking for a way to spend your voucher? They're offering a trio of gorgeous Cigliuti Barbaresco right now (producer of the WWP wine of the year 2010!) - and they can ship to Massachusetts.

Looking for more wine deals? I'll be tweeting Black Friday wine deals this weekend: @RobertDwyer

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NRA wine, Rudy trial, orange crush ? sipped & spit

SPIT: The NRA has a wine club?! Ack. I’m sure all the wines will be high caliber… SPIT: Rudy Kurniawan‘s attempt to have the DOJ’s evidence against his alleged wine counterfeiting was disallowed by the judge. Now the defendant must prepare to stand trial or change his not guilty plea. SPIT: Orange wines, the skin-fermented [...]

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Wine In The ?Shark Tank?

Reality TV is all the rage these days but I rarely watch this genre outside of a few cooking competition shows like Top Chef or Masterchef. But I have been hooked this year by ABC’s ‘Shark Tank’. The show’s premise is simple; entrepreneurs pitch their products to a panel of well known investors (‘sharks’) such [...]

Wine In The ‘Shark Tank’ originally appeared on Winecast. Licensed under Creative Commons.

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Pacific Rim: Five Rieslings and a Chenin Blanc

Pacific Rim Winery, located in West Richland, Washington, is almost exclusively a Riesling producer. The first Pacific Rim Riesling was produced in 1992 as a brand within Bonny Doon Vineyard in Santa Cruz, California, and used grapes from California, Washington, and Germany. In 2007, Randall Grahm decided to downsize Bonny Doon and spun off Pacific [...]

Pacific Rim: Five Rieslings and a Chenin Blanc was originally posted on Wine Peeps. Wine Peeps - Your link to great QPR wines from Washington State and beyond.

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Massachusetts Lawmakers Comment on Wine Shipping Laws

This post is sponsored by Metro West Wines, serving Wellesley and Weston, MA delivering wine to your doorstop in under an hour.

As we learned earlier this year another Massachusetts legislative session has come and gone without enacting legislation that would enable the direct shipment of wine from out of state wineries to Massachusetts residents. 

It's a shame since (1) the state continues to be non-compliant with a 2010 federal court ruling and (2) the state is leaving significant revenue on the table by barring shipments.

The two bills failing to make it out of committee for a vote are HB 1029 and HB 1882.

An interesting piece by Colleen Quinn of the State House News Service sheds some rare and precious light on the issues holding up passing of direct shipment bills.

Representative Speliotis comments:

Rep. Theodore Speliotis (D-Danvers), who chairs the Consumer Protection Committee that gave the wine buying bill an unfavorable rating this week, said Thursday that while he favors removing the buying restriction, the state needs to find a way to protect local sellers
?The biggest fear is package stores will go by the wayside like hardware stores,? Speliotis said. ?The object is to try to allow new technology into an old profession without costing Massachusetts jobs. 
Speliotis said he hopes the wine industry and the local package store owners will reach a consensus on a bill. They frequently discuss the issue to come up with a solution, he said.

This commentary is interesting to me because in my view the central issue in this battle has always been out of state entities (wineries and to a lesser extent out of state retailers) against Massachusetts distributors. But here the issue is painted as out of state wineries and in state retailers.

Next time you're in a wine store ask the owner whether they're concerned about the direct shipment of wine. The ones I've asked couldn't care less. The primary concerns I've heard from in-state retailers are laws which prohibit them from shipping out of state, high markups from Massachusetts wholesalers relative to other states, and wine being sold at an increasing number of nearby grocery stores.

Further, the commentary is eerily similar to the protectionist stance that got the state into trouble in the first place by limiting shipments to small out of state wineries. The reason Massachusetts should allow wine shipments is simple: Because a federal court said they need to. It shouldn't be a negotiation that involves the concerns of in state retailers.

Here's commentary from Frank Anzalotti who collectively represents the package stores in the state:

Frank Anzalotti, executive director of the Massachusetts Package Store Association, said that if online purchasing is allowed, they want local brick and mortar stores to be able to sell online too. Otherwise, he said, they would be at a disadvantage. 
?We are not, in general, in favor of online purchasing,? Azalotti said. ?The obvious reasons are we want a reliable responsible party doing a face-to-face transaction to make sure it is legal.? 
This is another strange misdirection. Massachusetts retailers are split on whether they want to sell online. Many old guard package stores don't want things to change, while other retailers are already selling online - albeit limited to shipping only to Massachusetts addresses.

I agree that Massachusetts retailers absolutely need to be able to ship out of state in conjunction with allowing out of state wineries to be able to ship to Massachusetts. But at the same time out of state retailers should also be able to ship to Massachusetts - a provision that's never been any bill proposed to date.

Finally, check out this quote from House Minority Leader Bradley Jones - who's on our side as wine enthusiasts since he's the one who sponsored the bill:

Jones said only a handful of residents have contacted him upset they cannot buy wine out of state. But he added, ?There are court cases that say we should change this.?
Our call to action is pretty clear: We need to write our representatives.
Don't know who your representative is? A list can be found here.

An authentic, personally written email with your address goes a long way towards getting the message to our legislators that this nonsense has gone on for long enough. Let's Free the Grapes!

Related Reading:

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Robert Mondavi 2012 Blessing of the Grapes

The introductions were made by Margrit Mondavi, a gracious lady, so caring and gregarious. Winemaker Genevieve Janssens spoke about the outlook for this year's harvest. After two previous difficult harvests, she is thankful that 2012 promises to be an outstanding vintage. Continue reading

The post Robert Mondavi 2012 Blessing of the Grapes appeared first on Napa Valley Wine Blog.

Source: http://www.winecountrygetaways.com/napablog/robert-mondavi-2012-blessing-of-the-grapes/

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