‘THIS IS HOW A WINERY MEDIA RELATIONS CAMPAIGN IS SUPPOSED TO WORK’
BY ALAN GOLDFARB
July 28, 2025
This is how a media relations campaign is supposed to work*.
Case in Point -- What I confidently believed to be a salient pitch to a wine writer on behalf of one of my clients, went something like this: “Here's a guy I know that you'll get a kick out of. A lovely man, with a wonderful sense of humor, and a whole lot o' info about the wine industry. (Winemaker) has been in the trenches for a long while. Almost all his career has been spent making wine for those big corporate entities -- you know the ones. But now, in the twilight of his odyssey, he's gotten the chance to make quality wine for a small producer. Oh, and did I mention that he gives good quote?”
Less than an hour later, said wine scribe emailed back, “That sounds fun!”
It was on.
‘A WINEMAKER’S DREAM VINEYARD COMES TO FRUITION’
And for a Grizzled Journalist – A New Experience
BY ALAN GOLDFARB
July 10, 2025
My brown leather shoes were now a darker shade of brown, more resembling gingerbread with laces. They were totally covered with Goldridge sandy loam. I attempted to stamp the dust off them as I climbed back into the Jeep, but as I looked over to the driver – a winemaker-cum-vineyard lover – he had a grin, which fully bared his big teeth. He looked like that crazed Coney Island Steeplechase guy that I loved so much growing up four subway stops from Coney.
While I fretted because my costly urban shoes were likely ruined, the vineyard worshipping winemaker was euphoric. His two-decades long thirsting to see nubile vines finally being put into the ground, was happening before his eyes.
Mine too. As I approached the near naked expanse, which appeared to be on top of the world because of the 360-degree panorama of the browning California coastal range and the bay below, white grow tubes revealed themselves as though they were tombstones.
‘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.