The word “brand” is notoriously difficult to define in marketing. If we were talking about a ranch brand—the kind seared onto livestock to signify ownership—that’s easy to understand. But in marketing, a brand is not a physical thing. It’s a symbolic construct. It’s not the label on the bottle or the winery’s logo or even the product itself. Rather, it’s the entire perception a consumer holds in their mind about your company, your wine, your people, and everything you collectively represent. A brand is a conceptual identity that differentiates you from your competitors. It can be shaped by your name, your origin story, the design of your label, the personalities involved in your winery, your tasting room experience, your packaging, your email tone, your partnerships, or even how you respond to a customer complaint. All these elements come together to form the intangible yet powerful idea of your brand. It is, quite literally, eve

Domaine Della 2023 Soberanes Vineyard Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir Takes Top Prize  November 18, 2025 — Winners have been announced in the 2025 Harvest Challenge Wine Competition. After two spirited days of judging, Domaine Della 2023 Soberanes Vineyard Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir took the top prize. It was also awarded Best of Show Red Wine and Best of Monterey County AVA. Coming in at 98 points, judges praised the wine as “warm and spicy” with “fig and nutmeg.” Other descriptors included “meaty,” “prosciutto,” and “dried rose petal.”  With entries from across the globe, the Harvest Challenge bases judging on a group of vineyards (or even vines) from the same region, belonging to a specific appellation and sharing the same type of soil, weather conditions and grapes that combine to give personality to the wine.  In other competitions, this terroir is ignored. At the Harvest Challen

Afternoon Brief: California Grapegrowers Race to Beat the Heat

Trucks full of wine grapes clogged roads all over northern California wine country this week as wineries raced to get their precious cargo into tanks before a brutal heatwave shriveled them to raisins...

Afternoon Brief: Court OKs $140 Million in Vintage Wine Estates Assets Sales

Nearly two dozen wineries, brands and other assets of the defunct Santa Rosa-anchored Vintage Wine Estates portfolio got the green light to change hands in a Delaware bankruptcy court Tuesday...

Afternoon Brief, September 29th

Ohio Launches Appeal Over Wine Shipping: The state of Ohio has requested the Supreme Court to take on another wine shipping case....

Afternoon Brief, February 14th

Beckstoffer Vineyards Sues Last Bottle for Trademark Infringement: The Complaint, filed on February 11, 2023, alleges that Blicker Pierce Wagner Wine Merchants, LLC and its affiliated companies, Sleeper Cellars and Last Bottle, willfully committed trademark infringement by placing the Beckstoffer trademark on the front label of a wine without authorization...

Afternoon Brief, July 30th

California Wine Country Rebuilds as Threats Persist: The drought in Northern California is severe, and the risk of fires remains high. But winemakers are trying to adapt to climate change...

Afternoon Brief, July 28th

Is Wine Losing Its Hold on Younger Adults?: The boost for wine seen across a number of key wine markets in 2020 has masked a much more profound demographic trend amongst wine drinkers...