mhicken July 31st, 2009
In a move of breathtaking hostility towards both the BC wine industry and Alberta wine consumers, the Alberta liquor board has recently threatened BC wineries with “criminal enforcement” action if they ship wine from BC into Alberta. The legal justification for this? An 80 year old prohibition era law which on its face prohibits all movement of liquor across provincial borders (even, for example, the act of carrying a single bottle of wine across the border with you for personal consumption). Many lawyers think the law is unconstitutional but it’s still on the books. Message to all federal and provincial politicians … help! Canadian wine consumers need to be rescued from our provincial liquor boards. Theoretically, we, as taxpayers, own the liquor boards. You would think that there might be more accountability in terms of consumer needs … unfortunately, revenue is pretty much the sole consideration.
More information from the wineries perspective is on this site:
http://johnschreiner.blogspot.com/
More information from a legal perspective is here:
http://www.winelaw.ca/cms/
Tags: aglc, bc, laws, liquor boards, shipping, wine, wineries
mhicken December 10th, 2008
Two, maybe three, books for the winemaker/wine lover on your list:
The Billionaire’s Vinegar - Fascinating story of wine fraud (?) mostly focused on a bottle of Chateau Lafite purported to belong to Thomas Jefferson which commanded the highest ever auction price for a single bottle at Christie’s in London. The plot is a true wine-lover’s mystery and a real page-turner at that. The villain? A German wine collector whose amazing luck in discovering centuries old bottles in perfect condition seems to have no bounds.
Wine Politics - Excellent book discussing how politics affects the quality, cost and availability of wine. Although the book barely mentions Canada, the issues and topics are nowhere more relevant and applicable than here in Canada, and particularly in BC and Ontario.
Les Gouttes de Dieu - The “drops of God” - French translation of the hit Japanese comic that has caused a dramatic upsurge in the sales of any wines lucky enough to be mentioned in it. Unavailable in English yet. The French version is also “backwards” in that it is laid out as a Japanese book would be … you read from right to left and start at the “back” of the book. Despite these obstacles, it’s an intriguing book if you can read French … and a lesson in marketing for a new generation.
Tags: dieu, drops of god, fraud, gouttes, government, laws, politics, regulation, wine, wineries
mhicken August 25th, 2008
I have just posted a paper that I wrote on Search Engines for Wineries on my companion site for my consulting business, Must Wine Marketing Group. This paper is a PDF document which explains the basics of search engines, search engine optimization and search engine marketing specifically for wineries.
If you have ever been curious about search engine advertising or internet marketing in general, please give it a read. And, of course, feel free to contact me if you have any questions at all.
Tags: Internet Marketing, search engine optimization, search engines, sem, seo, wineries, winery
