Mark's Wine Blog

At Uncorked Ventures we’re happy to announce that we’ve partnered with both Alana’s Restaurant, the Redwood City location and our favorite South African wine importer Smith Wines to bring another wine tasting Meet Up to the Bay Area.

Wine Tasting Flyer copy [Converted]

Alana’s will be hosting our initial meeting on Thursday May 13th at 7pm.  The cost is $20 per person to attend, which will allow you to try some outstanding value wines from producers both near and far.

Hope to see some of you there!

Given my previous post about the attack on direct shipping of wine, I thought it would be nice to offer an alternative that respects not only individual right to choose, but state rights as well as the Constitution itself.  At Uncorked Ventures we realize that being overly political isn’t necessarily good for business, but please remember even as a licensed distributor, direct shipping with safety standards is good for the industry.

The model direct shipping bill is a joint project between wine related services such as Family Winemakers of California as well as the National Conference of State Legislatures.

dd new Section —– to the Alcohol Beverage Control Act as follows: Section —-

1. Notwithstanding any law, rule or regulation to the contrary, any person currently licensed in this or any other state as a wine producer, supplier, importer, wholesaler, distributor or retailer who obtains a Wine Direct Shipper License, as provided below, may ship up to twenty-four (24) 9-liter cases of wine annually directly to a resident of [State] who is at least 21 years of age for such resident’s personal use and not for resale.
2. Before sending any shipment to a resident of [State] the Wine Direct Shipper Licensee must first:
   (a) File an application with the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control (Department),
   (b) pay a $100.00 registration fee,
   (c) provide to the Department a true copy of its current alcoholic beverage license issued in this or any other state, and
   (d) obtain from the Department a Wine Direct Shipper License.
3. All Wine Direct Shipper Licensees shall:
   (a) Not ship more than twenty-four (24) 9-liter cases of wine annually to any person for his personal use and not for resale.
   (b) Not ship to any address in an area identified by the Department as a “dry” or local option area.
   (c) Ensure that all containers of wine shipped directly to a resident in this state are conspicuously labeled with the words “CONTAINS ALCOHOL: SIGNATURE OF PERSON AGE 21 OR OLDER REQUIRED FOR DELIVERY.”
   (d) If located outside of this state, report to the Department annually the total amount of wine shipped into the state the preceding calendar year.
   (e) If located outside of this state, annually pay to the [State Revenue Agency] all sales taxes and excise taxes due on sales to residents of [State] in the preceding calendar year, the amount of such taxes to be calculated as if the sale were in [State] at the location where delivery is made.
   (f) If located within this state, provide the [State Revenue Agency] any additional information deemed necessary beyond that already required for retail sales from the winery tasting room to ensure compliance with this section.
   (g) Permit the Department or the [State Revenue Agency] to perform an audit of the Wine Direct Shipper Licensees records upon request.
   (h) Be deemed to have consented to the jurisdiction of the Department or any other state agency and the [State] courts concerning enforcement of this section and any related laws, rules or regulations.
4. The Wine Direct Shipper Licensee may annually renew its license with the Department by paying a $50.00 renewal fee and providing the Department a true copy of its current alcoholic beverage license issued in this or any other state.
5. The Department and the [State Revenue Agency] may promulgate rules and regulations to effectuate the purposes of this law.
6. The Department may enforce the requirements of this section by administrative proceedings to suspend or revoke an Wine Direct Shipper License, and the Department may accept payment of an offer in compromise in lieu of suspension, such payments to be determined by rule promulgated by the Department.
7. Shipments of wine direct to consumers in [State] from persons who do not possess a current Wine Direct Shipper License from the Department are prohibited, Any person who knowingly makes, participates in, transports, imports or receives such a shipment is guilty of a misdemeanor punishable by [insert fine and/or jail]. Without limitation on any punishment or remedy, criminal or civil, any person who knowingly makes, participates in, transports, imports or receives such a shipment commits an unfair trade practice.

*Limits Freedom of Choice
*Kills small business
*Circumvents the Commerce Statute
*Will cause at least 100 wineries to close immediately and perhaps 1,000 within a year

Does this sound like the type of bill you want your local Congressman voting for?

In the past, I’ve featured a few of the best known wine blogs out there. Today, I thought I’d mention one that I don’t think earns the type of critical acclaim and accolades that it deserves although it is extremely well received within the wine community.

Benito’s Wine Reviews has been around since 2005 and does one of the best jobs on the web at combining reviews of wine with recipe’s as well as reviews of other adult beverages. I also appreciate that Benito is willing to taste wines which aren’t available at your local grocery store, he’s willing to push his palate and try wines from non traditional wine making regions. To me, that adds a level of interest to his blog.

If you have some free time and are looking for another great wine related, check it out!

Jon’s Article on Cork’d

What makes a millennial?

Saw an interesting article over at Cork’d which talks a bit about the impact that millennials are already having on the wine industry.  I think Jon, who I’ve gotten to know fairly well since starting to write for Cork’d myself, does a great job of explaining where millennials differ from some of our older counterparts.  Specifically wineries and wine clubs alike are going to need to focus more and more on sharing information because those of us 30 and under are accustomed to having information on our fingertips.  As an example:

How did you hear about the tragic earthquake in Haiti?  When did you see the first images of the aftermath?

For me, it occurred on Twitter and I’ve found that I get more and more local news through various Facebook feeds.

Aside from sharing information certain brands are going to find pretty quickly I think that millennials are more comfortable with international wines (like travel) then previous generations. For higher priced wineries that don’t offer anything under $50 a bottle, tread carefully. Once buying practices are established, they are incredibly difficult to break. That may mean that Italian, Chilean and Argentinean wines become more popular over time. It also makes me question if those wines which are typically bigger in style, might in fact tip the balance when it comes to the California versus France wine debate.

This Blog is Carbon Neutral

Many of my friends would tell you, that although I don’t necessarily show it outwardly on an everyday basis, I do believe strongly in environmental causes and like to what I can, when I can. I also believe strongly that companies and governments needs to give their citizens more choice when it comes to environmentally friendly alternative forms of transportation, packaging etc.

In that vein, I recently came across a company that helps ensure that your blog is carbon neutral. As it turns out there is a cost in terms of the number of visitors that visit this blog. That environmental cost is largely made up of the energy that it required to power the servers and other hosting mechanisms.

“My blog is carbon neutral” is an initiative, originally started in Germany by the “Make it green” programme, that has the goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. We plant a tree for your blog and thereby neutralise your blog’s carbon footprint for the next 50 years! Everyone can make a small contribution to the environment. Every tree counts!

One of the things that Matt and I talk about almost daily with Uncorked Ventures is that we never know exactly where the next big bit of business is going to come from. By now, we have a pretty good idea about how many new members of our wine clubs we can expect, but there are always other opportunities.

Sometimes those include the possibility of shipping some wine to Japan (if law permits) or even finding a case or two of rare Italian wine to ship to Oklahoma.

It’s these types of side projects that make not only our days more interesting, but allow us to continue learning more about wine and the entire industry as we become a larger part of it.

One of the challenges I’ve faced since starting Uncorked Ventures has been a combination with my relative inexperience with fine wines (when compared to others, including my business partner Matt) especially when combined with the fact that I live in San Diego where we don’t have many high quality wine stores.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t especially enjoy paying retail price for wine any more, but occasionally there are bottles which I’d like to try, either for personal enjoyment or for possible inclusion in our wine club, without creating the pressure and sense of urgency that often can accompany free samples. Simply put, sometimes it’s easier to pay for a single bottle of wine instead of having a winery or winemaker feeling slighted because you didn’t purchase a couple of cases after receiving a free sample.

In that vein, my wife and I started to try out a few well known wine stores here in San Diego starting last weekend with a trip to San Diego Wine Company, which is located on Miramar Road about equidistant between the 15 and 5 freeways.

I noticed immediately that they featured a nice selection of Napa/Sonoma wines, including offerings from Vineyard 29, Larkmeade and Audelssa which I’ve talked about at length in this space previously. Very impressed with both the selection as well as their pricing when it came to northern California wine.

As for the central coast wineries, I wasn’t nearly as impressed as they seemed to largely be missing the outstanding wines being produced in Paso Robles and Santa Barbara County, with one offering from Tablas Creek Vineyards, but nothing else of note.

I hope to come up with a scoring system in the coming days.

Until then, I hope your week has been as enjoyable as mine already has.

So I decided that it would be nice to get to know a few other bloggers and journalists within the wine industry, so I’m in the process of planning a meet up of wine journalists in Southern California, to be held somewhere in San Diego.

I’ve gotten a few good responses already both over the phone and via Twitter, so it should be a ton of fun.

Uncorked Ventures is going to provide a few wines to taste (one’s that you haven’t had before, even at Family Winemakers or AVA tasting events) as well as appetizers.

Are you interested in attending?

When I first started talking to Matt about starting Uncorked Ventures, I didn’t realize some of the natural enjoyable elements of the business. Aside from spending more time with family I didn’t realize that I’d enjoy the people so much. I know I’ve talked about that at length on this blog, but I was reminded last week that another enjoyable aspect of the business has been having the chance to share in other start up businesses.

One of those is Metro Citizen, which is an online magazine. Interestingly I was originally contacted by found Carolina Riviero through this blog and I am happy to be part of their editorial team. In that vein my first article has been published and I’m quite happy with the result. The online magazine is an interesting medium because it makes pictures more important then they are normally, which is quite different then what I do on a daily basis. Frankly speaking, I’m excited to see where this business venture is able to go in the future and how we can continue to support each other as both Uncorked Ventures and Metro Citizen grow.

Congrats on the 1st issue, I’m glad I was able to be a part of it.