WHY NEWSPAPER FOLK MAKE THE BEST FLACKS
Take It From the Deans of Winery PR
By Alan Goldfarb
April 19, 2022
We were sitting on deck chairs, next to the pool in the backyard of Harvey Posert’s house, if I recollect, on Zinfandel Lane in St. Helena. This I believe was in 2009 when I began a slow transition from wine journalist to winery PR flack*. Harvey was explaining – and revealing to me what I took as sacred PR inside baseball secrets – which wine writer was on the “take” (meaning they accept freely, wine, dinners, lodging, etc.) and which media types never take anything; but I’d better watch out, because she’s as an old-school newspaperwoman as there is; and she writes what she believes to be the truth about your wine.