‘THE DAY I WENT DOWN INTO A NUCLEAR MISSILE SILO AT WHITMAN AIR FORCE BASE’
Was the Day I Went from Being a Naïve Journalist to a Mature Man
BY ALAN GOLDFARB
June 27, 2025
This is a story about my journey navigating through a decades-long journalism career. And subsequent path from naivete to finally emerging as a mature writer and by extension, as an appropriately developed man.
It has nothing to do with wine, but a lot to do with the profession of journalism, which is an integral part of how I regard my work for All Media Winery Solutions.
The process of getting from there to here began on a hot day in Missouri in the summer of 1964. It was the summer of I Want to Hold Your Hand, which I eschewed for its poppiness. Only three years later, Sgt. Pepper hipped me to The Beatles. A first indication of maturity – both for me and The Beatles -- in-spite of and perhaps because of, weed.
‘DON’T THROW BOTTLES AT THE PLAYERS’
The New Lightweight Ones, Especially Paper, Might be OK (kidding)
BY ALAN GOLDFARB
May 27, 2025
“No True Lover of Base Ball (sic) will Risk Any Injury To The Players or Interfere
With The Game by Throwing Bottles Into The Field”
From The Gentleman’s Game, 1907
I’m rocking to-and-fro at my desk on a swell 65-degree Spring morning, as random thoughts of wine shuffle through my brain as though there’s a Rolodex in there. With fingers intertwined, I glance up to see, in a small-framed poster on the wall, the somewhat obtuse message (which I must have looked at a thousand times), and which to my mind, must have been wheatpasted all over the nation’s ballparks in 1907. The sign is titled “The Gentleman’s Game, 1907”.
‘WE BELIEVE WE HAVE NOT HIT ROCK BOTTOM’
Wineries are Choosing to Forge Ahead and Not Caving
BY ALAN GOLDFARB
May 7, 2025
“We believe that we have not hit bottom”. The italics are mine but the sentiment is from one of my winery clients addressing the perceived crisis (itals mine, again) that seems to have atrophied the wine industry. The client has taken steps to try and overcome this gnawing anxiety and I think that notion has created a culture that has put a stranglehold on the wine business; and which has enabled the perception to become the reality.
IN THE PR GAME, THE WINERY HAS TO HAVE SKIN IN THE GAME, TOO
BY ALAN GOLDFARB
April 22, 2025
The best and most interesting winery client I’ve represented as a media relations consultant was the one who told me, “I’ve loved working with you. You got me so much press attention. But I didn’t sell a lot of wine.” He was interesting because he was very smart and, as we say in the business, he gave good quote. He was attentive in that he responded extremely quickly to any queries I or a media member may have had of him. And he did so in a circumspect way, which was intriguing, genuine, and informative; and not a cliché. In other words: a journalist and by extension, a wine flack’s dream; which is why he was the best. Oh, and did I mention, he had a unique style in the vineyard and in the cellar; and his wines were really good? Subsequently, I got him a lot of ink.
CHARLES PHAN SOLIDIFIED THE ASIAN CUISINE & WINE PARADIGM
He Elevated the Genre from Under a Xenophobic Trope
BY ALAN GOLDFARB
Feb. 3, 2025
Much has been written about the death of restaurateur/chef Charles Phan. Deservedly so. He is the one responsible for elevating Asian cooking in the Bay Area and by extension, putting a dent into the racist notion that Vietnamese, Chinese, Burmese, Thai and Korean restaurant food should be inexpensive. Phan, with his Slanted Door put that shibboleth to the middle of mind because his food and service were without doubt, worthy of world-class status. Furthermore, and more germane to the readers of these pages, he showed that Asian food and wine should have affinity just as tea, sake, baijiu and soju have been for millennia.