IT’S NOT A GOOD YEAR FOR C(K)LAY
By Alan Goldfarb
Jan. 17, 2024
The following has a lot of porosity (see amphorae below) but when I saw that a San Francisco Tunisian restaurant isn’t being allowed to serve food in its culturally appropriate vessels, I threw my pots. It almost made me throw up, too.
The reasons for my dyspepsia?
THE GREAT CALIFORNIA BAGEL MARKETING MACHER
Noah Alper: The Man Who’s Not-So-Great Unboiled Bagels Started Bagel Mania
BY ALAN GOLDFARB
Oct. 19, 2023
Note: This was written before the war between Israel and Hamas began – in a more “frivolous” moment. In thinking about whether or not I should publish this piece, I concluded that by explaining the context in which it was first written; and also to allow us all to have a few moments of lightness, I’ve concluded that I’d – and hopefully you -- prefer the following:
Noah Alper didn’t make good bagels. But man, that self-named “business mensch” was a helluva marketer. The “serial entrepreneur” (also by his own sobriquet) knew what he was doing when he started Noah’s Bagels in 1989 – thus opening California bagel culture. By doing so, he ruined real bagel ethos. But it was nearly a generation later when the Bay Area started to become really hip to bagels. It has resulted in Bagel Mania, and Bagel Wars and we’re all the better for it. Thanks to Noah.
WINE WRITER FREDRIC KOEPPEL GOING BIGGER
Heads to Substack
By Alan Goldfarb
Sept. 11, 2023
Let’s get the obvious out of the way: the question as to why Fredric Koeppel named his wine blog, starting in 2006, Bigger Than Your Head? If you’re someone who knows the origin of that sobriquet, you’re a big Kliban fan.
For it was a cartoon by the iconoclastic social critic, who gave the Memphis wine writer his purpose. As he tells it, Koeppel saw one of Kliban’s cartoons, which had a guy sitting at a restaurant. “The server comes with this huge pile of food. And the caption read: ‘Never eat anything bigger than your head.’ For some reason, that phrase resonated and it’s different enough that people notice it. And it doesn’t even have an illusion to wine.”
SEEKING HONESTY & INTEGRITY IN WINE WRITING
But Look Out for The Sportswriters
By ALAN GOLDFARB
August 28 2023
The headline, one you never see in wine publications or in general consumer publications which write about wine, was shocking in its intent. But I have to admit – I appreciated it because of its boldness.
James Harden's Wine is a Vintner’s Nightmare
The Beard’s cabernet was as much of a letdown as his playoff performances
I appreciate the boldness of if because the vast preponderance of wine writing – save from less than a handful of journalists who write about the subject with integrity, creativity, or original thought – is a wine marketer’s dream. Although I’m in the business of media relations marketing (PR), but as a longtime wine journalist myself, I very much appreciate and welcome critical thinking.
THE SCHMOOZER-In-CHIEF
Tim McDonald: PR Consultant to the Wine Stars
BY ALAN GOLDFARB
Aug. 22, 2023
Whenever I would snoop around a wine event in the Valley, looking for my next story, there would be Tim McDonald, schmoozing the writers, looking to ingratiate himself – and by extension – his clients. Mind you, this affable, good-looking guy with a tightly trimmed white beard and black-rimmed glasses, was not talkin’ up the scribes in any disingenuous way. Oh no. That’s not how this PR flack operates. He always chats to you like he knows you, likes you, and he means it.
But I often wonder, how he does it? How does he get invited to all these things when none of his clients are even pouring wine there on that day? Easy. Anybody affiliated with a winery in the Napa Valley knows Tim McDonald. He’s been around these parts. He’s been working in wine going on 44 years or two-thirds of his 68 years; and he’s been in media relations since 1994.