The ghost of a restaurant past still hovers over Pizzavino 707.  Though reincarnation came quickly — less than a year after West County Grill shuttered in the location– the open-air kitchen built as a theater for celeb chef Jonathan Waxman and his team of white-coated commis still echoes with their presence. Nearly a third of the circular kitchen sits idle, with oddly configured prep tables and vast open spaces behind the kitchen bar.

Focus has shifted instead to a single wood-fired pizza oven that once seemed an afterthought. Now it’s the glowing heart of a humbled operation where a skeleton crew of three pull crusts, recite orders and feed the oven as quickly as orders come in.

“Two olives. Two Sebastopols. Mushroom. Fire two chickens. Make that three,” goes the rat-a-tat dialogue that’s always been the best part of sitting at the open-kitchen bar — a front row seat to your own dinner.

Continue reading “Pizzavino 707 opens”

Hardy Wallace, a man who once climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in a bumblebee suit, has been named the winner of Murphy Goode Winery’s “Lifestyle Correspondent.”  

The much-publicized gig begins in early August, when Wallace will move into his rent free-Healdsburg accomodations and get down to business. His task? Spending the next six months finding new ways to reach younger wine drinkers — most notably via social media like Twitter, blogs, video and “Tweet Ups” where online chatters meet in real life. Wallace will be paid $10,000 per month for the six month experiment.

The author of dirtysouthwine.com, a popular wine blog, hails from Atlanta, Georgia and was considered a front-runner from early in the competition. He received an endorsement from local wine consultancy, VinTank, who have pledged $100,000 in social media consulting services to the winner.

The Twittersphere immediately lit up in the minutes following the announcement, with congratulations pouring in from friends, locals and even fellow competitors for the job. Which isn’t especially surprising — wineries throughout the region are poised to snap up the losers in their own bids for social media stardom. Recently St. Supery winery announced that a former Goode competitor, Rick Bakas, would be their new Director of Social Media.

Wallace, in an interview last Sunday, said that he’s well aware of the hurdles before him, noting that even within Jackson Family wine group (of which Murphy Goode is a part) there are some that still aren’t convinced of social media’s potential.  It’s a concern echoed throughout the industry.

But Hardy, who recently lost his full-time job in Atlanta, says he’s more than up for the challenge. He’ll start things off by attending this week’s Wine Blogger’s Conference in Sonoma and Napa.

In a competition with more twists and turns than a midnight ride over the Oakville grade, the final ten candidates for Murphy Goode Winery’s coveted “Lifestyle Correspondent” gig are pulling out all the stops during an intense three-day race to the finish line in Healdsburg. And boy are their fingers tired.

In a swirl of iPhones, video and digital cameras, laptop computers, Tweets and harried blogs, each of the remaining hopefuls are trying to prove their mettle in the brave new world of social networking. The idea is that by using the native medium of the 35-and-under set — meaning blogs, Facebook pages, Tweets and other digital calling cards — new wine drinkers will flock to Wine Country. The winner will receive a $10,000 per month salary for six months in addition to housing and intensive on-the-job wine training.

Each of the ten have their own strategy to prove to winery reps that they’ll be the one to get folks talking and drinking.  The big question yet to be answered: Will anyone listen? And if they do, will it translate into actual sales?
Continue reading “A Goode Day: Will social networking save the wine biz?”