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MICHELLE LOCKE The Shape of Wine Sales to Come Imagine you're walking down the street when "ping!" your smartphone reminds you to buy a bottle of wine for that dinner with friends on your calendar. Now imagine that it lists nearby wine shops and suggests looking for the variety your hosts raved about on TripAdvisor after their recent wine trip. The future of marketing is closer than you may think, or as digital media expert Jeff Matisoff put it at the 2013 Direct-to-Consumer Wine story worth telling, listening to and retweeting. Of course, even the best 21stcentury campaigns for online wine sales can get bogged down if shipping laws are still firmly stuck in the 20th century. The Wine Institute's Steve Gross started his annual legislative update with a milestone announceChandler Named WineAmerica Executive Director ment and a warning. In Washington, D.C.-based WineAmerica, the national 2012, direct shipments NEWS FLASH association of American wineries, named Mark Chandler its executive director. Chandler's experience includes a 20-year post as executive director of the Lodi-Woodbridge Winegrape Commission. He is also a former president of the Society of Wine Educators. Antonio Galloni Leaves Wine Advocate Antonio Galloni, formerly the reviewer of wines from California and other wine regions for Robert M. Parker Jr.'s The Wine Advocate, has left the publication to start his own wine website, antoniogalloni.com. The site is aimed at younger wine consumers and will utilize new technologies and media formats. New Certification at Sonoma State Jeff Matisoff of the PHD agency addresses the crowd at the Direct-toConsumer Wine Symposium. Symposium, held in South San Francisco on Jan. 24: Change over the next five years will be like the change of the last 20 years. By 2016, even sooner than his five-year projection, it will be common for consumers to have smart devices that they will treat like personal assistants, according to Matisoff, senior vice president of the PHD agency in San Francisco. Among other things: Expect to see people carrying phones at eye level, instead of to their ears, the better to see mapping and other layers of available information about their surroundings. The down side: Competition for consumer attention will become even more frenzied. The upside: Success depends on standing out, which means you should have a w w w. v w m media.com totaled $1.35 billion, an impressive figure that amounted to 8.6% of total U.S. off-premise sales. The increased volume means direct shipments are coming under ever-closer scrutiny, Gross said. Following all the rules has never been more important, for wineries shipping directly and for those working with third-party sites. Get caught in an underage delivery sting and "It's your license that is in jeopardy," Gross pointed out. Wholesalers appear to have accepted win- The Wine Business Institute of Sonoma State University in Rohnert Park, Calif., is offering a new Wine Industry Finance and Accounting Certificate. The program provides an overview of finance and accounting concepts taught by wine industry professionals in the finance and accounting fields. Laird Family Acquires Silverado Hill Laird Family Estate has acquired Silverado Hill Winery in Napa Valley. The acquisition adds a third facility to the Laird custom-crush operation, previously comprised of Laird Family Estate and Andretti Winery. The three Napa facilities will bring the winery's crush capacity to more than 6,000 tons. Cornell Chooses Variety Names After a naming challenge drew more than 1,000 suggestions, New York's Cornell University revealed the names of two new wine grapes: Arandell and Aromella. Arandell – a mash-up of "arandano," the Spanish word for blueberry, and the "ell" from Cornell – is a red variety with resistance to downy and powdery mildews. Aromella, an aromatic muscat white, ranks high for winter hardiness and productivity. For more industry news briefs, visit the News Flash page on V&WM's website: http://www.vwmmedia. com/magazine/web-exclusive1.asp. M a y - J u n e 2 0 13 | V I N E YA R D & W I N E RY M A N A G E M E N T 13