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Category Archives: Reviews

Après nous, le Déluge

By Daedalus Howell | February 2nd, 2009
Madame de Pompadour wasn’t talking about ZAP, the annual (and infamous) Zinfandel Advocate and Producers festival, when she said “Après nous, le Déluge,” but no other citation summons the decadence and existential ache that defines the experience. Though de Pompadour was making a splash with the crimson humor, I cannot help transubstantiating wine and blood, [...]
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GunBun 2.0

By Daedalus Howell | January 9th, 2009
Gundlach Bundschu winery president Jeff Bundschu’s blog “Blogshu.com,” isn’t the only indication of a “GunBun 2.0” consciousness arising at the family-owned winery. On the site, Bundschu refers to himself as a “6th generation vintner looking for something to prove.” With an astute blend of vision, talent and technology, Bundschu has at least proven that GunBun, [...]
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Sparkling Darlings for the New Year

By Daedalus Howell | December 31st, 2008
The marketing mavens behind Certs breath mints once ran a campaign predicated on the product’s peculiar tendency to spark in the dark, when bit with a modicum of force. The spots successfully knitted one’s fresh breath and dimming the lights with the promise of sexual congress (like most advertising). They also provided a perfect visual [...]
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Sebastiani Deep Throat Says Winery Sold

By Daedalus Howell | December 20th, 2008
As a tribute to W. Mark Felt. Sr., the Watergate informant otherwise known as Deep Throat who died yesterday in Sonoma County, this journalist would like to introduce Big Gulp, his very own informant, who leaked that Los Olivos-based Foley Wine Group, has purchased Sonoma’s Sebastiani Vineyards and Winery. The property was originally planted by Franciscan [...]
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Brand Slam

By Daedalus Howell | December 12th, 2008
If you pop a cork of bubbly in the Champagne region, of France, it’s champagne. Do the same anywhere else and it’s “sparkling wine.” Why? Because the French are vigilant about the brand identity of one of their most popular exports. And yes, a region can be a brand. So can people. Like Oprah. If [...]
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Menage a Trois at Whole Foods

By Daedalus Howell | December 7th, 2008
A few years ago, Brand Autopsy’s John Moore blogged The Ten Winning Ways of Whole Foods Market in the competitive grocery market, um, market. Point No. 4 was dubbed “Food as Theater,” in which Moore observed, “…WFM celebrates food like it is a theatrical production.” This simile is especially evident in the wine aisle here [...]
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Breakfast Cuvee

By Daedalus Howell | December 4th, 2008
Add this to your sport-drinking itinerary – wine-tasting in the morning, with olive oil and cabernet fudge. Yeah, I wasn’t convinced either, until Flash Lely pulled his vintage Mustang into my driveway and the rumbling V8 roused me from dreams of sleeping in. It was 10:15 a.m., Tuesday, and we were on deadline. Coates PR had [...]
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Presidential Pairings: Obama is Pinot, McCain is Merlot

By Daedalus Howell | November 1st, 2008
“Sommelier to the Stars” Christopher Sawyer has made a successful sideline pairing wine with – not cheese – but film (as seen on MSN, NBC, ABC and CNN and in USA Today, Redbook, Maxim, National Geographic Traveler and – breath – Esquire). Some might dismiss this skill as merely a parlor trick, and in part [...]
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Plug-n-Play Dessert Wine

By Daedalus Howell | October 30th, 2008
Apparently, if it’s not from Portugal, it’s not port – it’s dessert wine. This is a new mutation of the name game the Champagne region of France plays with “sparkling wine” made anywhere but there, or Kobe beef, versus “Kobe-style,” when outside of Japan. The fine minds at Peltier Station Winery, however have found a [...]
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Gary Vaynerchuk: Wine’s Brand Man

By Daedalus Howell | October 26th, 2008
Despite the media credentials I was granted, I somehow I managed to miss the Wine Bloggers Conference 08, hosted this October in Sonoma County’s Santa Rosa, California. No worries, the conference’s main attraction was video wine blogger and marketing guru Gary Vaynerchuk of WineLibraryTV.com with whom I recently had a chat for FineLife Sonoma Magazine. Vaynerchuk [...]
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