Mill Valley, CA – Timely Tips for Wineries Wanting National Recognition

Winiarksi, McIver & Portet Just Keep on Keepin’ On

By Alan Goldfarb

May 17, 2022

Old vintners might fade away but for a troika of wine icons who are now in the background but still very much with us, they’ll never be forgotten. Certainly not by yours truly.

I was absolutely surprised and gratified when Warren Winiarksi, Bill McIver, and Bernard Portet reached out to me recently after the announcement of this website was launched.

Warren, the ever erudite, gracious, and brilliant mind behind Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars called to congratulate me for my All Winery Media Solutions public relations business.

Women in Wine Deserve (nay) Command Your Support – Now!

By Alan Goldfarb

May 5, 2022

Some might consider this a stretch; and might say, what does this have to do with wine and/or media relations? It well might be a stretch and it only has to do with wine and PR, tangentially. But I’ve got to say something. I and hopefully you, will also say something. We’ve got to support women. Otherwise, who the hell else is going to do that, in this climate except, of course, women themselves.

In this context, I support Katie Kelly Bell, Forbes; Virginie Boone, Wine Enthusiast; Lisa Denning, Grape Collective; Jess Lander, San Francisco Chronicle; Elin McCoy, Bloomberg; Esther Mobley, San Francisco Chronicle; Deborah Parker Wong, SOMM Journal; Sasha Paulsen, Napa Register. As well as Sara Schneider, Robb Report; Lettie Teague, Wall Street Journal; Lisa Adams Walter, Wine Women Radio; Kim Westerman, Forbes; MaryAnn Worobiec, Wine Spectator; and Jessica Yadegaran, Bay Area News Group.

In the Annals of Winery PR-ing or How I Got a Client’s Story Told

April 28, 2022

Pass.

It’s another type of expletive of a four-letter word with at least four different meanings. But we publicist-types know it as the meaning we dread the most; as in: “No thank you, we pass” or worse yet in our collective worst nightmarish imaginations: Take that pitch and get that stuff out of here. We’re not interested. We don’t want anything to do with it. And/or: Did you really think we’d bite on that boring, uninteresting story?

Our job as PR flacks is chiefly about sending pitches on behalf of our clients, to media members. The point is to attract attention to that pitch. So that said media person sees the benefit to their readers, listeners, or audience, enough so to cajole them to write a story, taste the clients’ wines, or agree to an interview with the client on a podcast or radio show. Getting a media “hit” ain’t easy. If it were, you wouldn’t need me or my colleagues, who toil every day to come up with a pitch that won’t strike out, but to spin a story that’ll be hit out of the park.