NEWSFETCH – September 9, 2011

TOP NEWS

• Rabobank’s “Douche-Bag Maneuver” In Olsen Chapter 11
• Sonoma Valley Portworks acquired
• Restaurant sales expectations plummet for August
• OpenTable Stock Drops After Google Acquires Zagat
• Yelp Fires Back: We Have More Reviews Than Zagat
• SymphonyIRI: Brand Loyalty Remains Strong Despite Economic Upheaval
• China becomes Australia’s third largest export market
• Napa River To Get Aggressive State Stream Diversion Enforcement
• Public comments sought on revised Russian River frost plan
• Once again, why Americans don’t drink more wine
• Leaded, Unleaded or Merlot? The Wine-Powered Vehicle Has Arrived
• Wine! Science! (and Climate Change)
• Washington state gears up for another liquor privatization initiative
• Romania seeks a drink of the U.S. wine market
• Israel’s wine enabler
• New textbook teaches English for the wine industry
• Is this vintner the world’s happiest man?
• Is Naked Wines a genuine innovation, or just another club?

PUBLIC COMPANIES & INVESTING

• Moody’s Upgrades Pernod Ricard To Baa3
• High spirits as Beam plans to go it solo in Fortune Brands’ split
• NZ: Indebted winery looks to capital

HARVEST 2011

• Vintage 2011 – Mendoza
• Wine Harvest: Year of the Eastern Floods
• Champagne copes with ‘difficult’ vintage
• Champagne holds breath after “earliest harvest”
• Mid-Columbia wine grape growers optimistic about harvest
• Northwest Winegrapes Late to Arrive

HEALTH

• New study on pregnancy and ‘safe’ drinking
• A Drink A Day Keeps Aging At Bay? New Study Says ‘Yes’
• Grape seed shows small effect on blood pressure

MEDIA MATTERS

• A trophy winner from China? Really?
• Pay To Play: New Wave Wine Writing?
• Daniel Rogov posts own obituary on web, then dies

MATTERS OF TASTE

• Your palate versus the machine
• Sweet wine is not just for dessert anymore
• On ‘authentic’ wine

AROUND THE UNITED STATES

• GA: Winery enters into distribution deal, hosts annual grape stomp
• NY: 2 new wineries to expand Erie region’s offerings
• WA: Booze initiative raking in the ad dough once again

EUROPE

• Changing European Drinking Habits Force Alcohol Producers to Diversify
• Very successful first half for French wine exports
• Montalcino throws out Rosso changes
• Quinta Nova, The Heroic Viticulture Of The Douro

THE UK

• Petrol costs cause for rural pub closures

CANADA

• Rethinking the hybrid grape

DOWN UNDER

• OZ: High price to pay as Coles, Woolies wage war with discounts
• OZ: Shake-up continues at Wine Australia

SOUTH AFRICA

• Wines of South Africa appoints Annette Badenhorst USA Manager
  

NOT JUST FOR THE TRADE

• Dan Berger: How to buy closeouts
• How long can a box of wine last once opened?

FAIL!

• VintageView(R) Experiences Extensive Growth with New Clients, Staff, Increased …

• Tiare Technology Launches Wireless WineList™ System at Award-Winning Centro …

The headlines, above, are all the words that show in search engine listings. The “…” indicates that the full headline was too long and thus, was truncated.

And who the hell is  is VintageView or Tiare Technology and why should a reader care?

Oh, and ditch the “R” … and the “TM” and the rest of the legal BS … they may matter to someone at your company, but they’re just a pain the Gluteus Maximus because editors either need to strip them out before printing … or decide the release isn’t important enough to do that and simply forget about it. Which is what I would have done had these not been such a good examples of what not to do in a news release.