Wish I could've made it here in better health. Right now: sneezing, sniffling, reaching for more Kleenex (which we don't have, so I'm using a napkin from In-N-Out and hoping it won't rub my nose raw).
It's been a rough week. I got home from Vegas at roughly 2 a.m. Monday morning. Twelve hours later, I poured at the Rosé Avengers and Producers tasting in San Francisco. Then on Tuesday it was back to work at the winery in Napa. Then on Wednesday I drove down to Palo Alto for our Northern California sales blitz -- spent the day riding with our distributor rep and selling as much wine as I possibly could (end result: 18 cases, one new placement, 12-hour work day and lots of miles on my car).
We went to two Whole Foods stores that day. And at both stores, you know what was a hot item? Sparkling wine in a can. Yes, the buyers we saw told us these Sofia mini Blanc de Blancs are just flying off the shelves. The packaging is irresistable -- the teeny-tiny pink can, the little straw for your convenience, etc. Whole Foods can barely keep them in stock.
I completely see why. Small sells (case in point: our half-bottles of Cab always sell out mid-way through the year -- way before the 750s). In fact, Whit gave me one of these Sofia cans for my birthday recently. (As she handed it to me, she said: "It came in a four-pack, but I drank the other three. I hope you understand.") I drank it a few days later.
The verdict: The packaging is way cuter than the actual wine is. Little Sofia tastes like carbonated White Zinfandel. The can is a mere 187 ml, but I couldn't bring myself to finish the whole thing. I got about halfway through.
But hey, if the cute Sofia can gets more people interested in wine, then that's great. Maybe they can start with Sofia and then move to a more serious sparkling Rosé. And then maybe still white wine. And then maybe red. And then the rest of my week, which was spent trying to get attention for our wines -- sending out media shipments, working on this big release event we're having in June for the new vintage of our flagship Cab, making sure our winemaker did the radio interview he was scheduled to do -- will mean something.
I'm going to make myself another cup of green tea.
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