NEWSFETCH – October 31, 2011

TOP NEWS

• Lender puts Knight’s Valley Bellisimo Vineyard into receivership
• Sneaky Congressional Moves on farm bill scheme drawing more scrutiny
• Congress Contemplates Quick and Dirty Farm Bill
• Consumers Scared to Death But Still Spend
• Central Coast: Review set for Larner winery plan
• Another Temecula winery changes hands
• Google (Finally) Becomes a Deals Aggregator
• Total Wine & More Expands With New Sacramento Location
• “The market for carbon neutral wines is still small”
• Global Consumer Confidence: Economy Returns as Top Concern – Nielsen
• Organic Wine – do consumers really care?
• After Crushpad, SF sprouts new crop of urban wineries
• Working Around 6 Current Issues in the Wine Industry
• Escondido striving to become wine production hub

PUBLIC COMPANIES & INVESTING

• Chinese government approves wine investment fund
• Treasury puts Premium on Wine Brands
• Diageo Reveals India Market Ambitions
• Lafite 1986 Fetches $21,300 at Sotheby’s U.K. Sale as Bordeaux Prices Cool
• Fortune Brands Announces Results and Proration of Tender Offers
• So Why Are You Really Selling Those Wines?
• FEMSA:  Double-Digit Revenue in 3Q11

DIRECT SHIPPING & PRIVATIZATION

• PA: Arguments continue for privatization
• WA: Liquor privatization fight features big spending, much debate
• WA State Voters To Decide If Teens Should Die From Alcohol
• WA: Liquor Store Employees Protest I-1183

HARVEST 2011

• Oregon’s ‘miracle harvest’
• Sonoma County harvest winds down
• Amador County Harvest Report from Vino Noceto
• Napa harvest notes
• Livermore Harvest Weather Proves Tricky, But Not Without Treats

IMMIGRATION

• We need a commonsense guest worker program
• Obama’s Illegal-immigrant Crackdown: Implications for Hispanics

HEALTH

• Alcohol linked to better survival after heart attack
• Heavy drinking tied to higher stomach cancer risk

MEDIA MATTERS

• Decanter magazine and Jia Bei Lan 2009: Was it really Chinese wine?
• Copyright infringement still ticks me off
• Introducing the wine jobs board at Dr. Vino
• Field Notes from a Wine Life – Media Edition
• Done and Overdone: Wine and Halloween

MATTERS OF TASTE

• Wine tastes like the music you’re listening to
• Wine Pairings Have Jumped the Shark
• Is sparkling wine getting sweeter?
• Nouveau Sheep: The “wine must be low-alcohol” crowd
• When critics disagree, again
• Wine Adviser Matching wine to food? Forgetaboutit!
• Gus and wine: nobody’s perfect

WATER

• Landmark California water deal on the rocks
• Five Representatives question short comment period for Delta water plan
• Water authority touts pipeline while foes pursue desalination plant
• Water suppliers’ delta accord under scrutiny

U.S. REGIONAL WINE NEWS

• MA: Storms, apples and wine
• ME: Wine Expo begins today
• NC: Biltmore Wines Promotes Jerry Douglas to President
• NY: Clarifies Legality of Groupon-Type Sites’ Alcohol Activities
• OH: Winery to Open in Historic Downtown Powell
• PA:Antler Ridge Winery experiments with satellite shop far, far from home
• VA: A fight over a winery crushes a family and divides a neighborhood
• VA: State’s newest grape-grower: Gov. McDonnell
• WI: Wineries could expand sales under new proposal
  

ACADEMIA

• UC Davis’ New Wine Chair Gets Busy

EUROPE

• St Emilion debts force landmark sale
• Russian Wine Producers To Stop Using the Term ‘Champagne’
• Kosovo’s wines flowing again
• Notes On The Wine Culture Of Turkey

THE UK

• Champagne costs slashed as supermarkets wage alcohol price war
• Sogrape acquires Stevens Garnier
• “Wine snob” ghost haunts pub

CANADA

• Wine Law Reform – Everywhere But BC?
• Canadian wineries team up to form joint venture
• Gretzky winery closing, brand moving to Peller Estates

DOWN UNDER

• NZ: Party over as wine profits plummet
• OZ: Genetic Modification a no go zone for wine
• OZ: New book details wine region’s diversity

ASIA & PACIFIC RIM

• Happy and Prosperous Diwali !
• Luxe Corp introduces 4 New French Wine Brands in India

SOUTH AFRICA

• Woolworths supporting biodiversity in wine
• SA Wine bureaucracy in “a serious predicament”

ONLINE, TECH & SOCIAL MEDIA

• Groupon targets affluent diners
• Meet the Restaurant Social Media Index
• Restaurant Social Media Index: Looking for the ROI

NOT JUST FOR THE TRADE

• A Valpolicella Legend: An Interview with Romano dal Forno

APPOINTMENTS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

• International Wine Label Design Comp Winners
• Labeltronix Earns Kudos for Flexo Label Printing

BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING! BORING!

• Spooktacular Wine For Halloween
• Happy Hallo-Wine!

This is trite, over-used, unimaginative  – the semantic version of a zombie in a cheap suit. And this goes for all the wineries and everybody else who have used these and similar clichés.