Category Archives: Healdsburg

Russian River Valley – Grape to Glass Weekend Aug 14-16

Want a good excuse to head up to Northern California?  Here is the perfect reason.  It’s summer, the area is beautiful, there are more wineries than you know what to do with and the Russian River Valley Winegrowers Association is holding their annual Grape to Glass fun-filled weekend.  The festivities start Friday August 14 and go through Sunday the 16th.  This is not like your normal festival.  There are activities that you sign up for in advance and participate in.  Here is a sampling of things to do:

• Get your boots dirty and your wine knowledge refreshed while taking part in our Behind the Wines grower and vintner presentations.
• Taste your way to a winning hand at the Winery Poker Run.
• Take in Sip ‘N’ Cinema – Where Hollywood meets Wine Country at MacMurray Ranch – A Sensory Experience.
• Experience the Russian River Valley Lifestyle by land, water and air – on bikes, kayaks and in hot air balloons.
• Enjoy wine country at its best at the Hog in the Fog Winegrower BBQ, Tasting Fest & Auction showcasing samplings of more than 50 of our wineries.
    

                      Grape to Glass                                                                              Hog in the Fog

• Wings, Wine and Wind-down is where you can relax, watch the“Wings Over Wine Country” Air Show, experiment with salts and wind-down from your Russian River Valley weekend.

There are so many things to see and do while in the area from Santa Rosa to Healdsburg!  If you need any help in planning it out for you go to ViciVino.com, their Education Wine Tours will guide you if you want to stay overnight or make a vacation out of it.


Go to the Grape to Glass website and order your tickets today.  You can order the tickets for individual events or as a whole package (this saves you $$$).  Bring some friends and take a day or the whole weekend.  You will be glad that you did!

You’ve Heard Of Murphy Goode Winery? Did You Hear That Hardy Wallace Got “A Really Goode Job”


I’m sure most of you have heard the term “social media”.  More and more industries are hiring a staff person to strictly be their social media person.  This means that this person will handle the media outreach for the company such as on Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, Linkedin, Plaxo and YouTube accounts, for example.

The wine industry has started to realize that the time is now to hire a social media person.  This could be the golden opportunity that won’t cost them a lot of money and will ideally increase their wine sales.  A winery that has been around for over 20 years named Murphy Goode in Healdsburg, Sonoma County put out a contest so they could hire this perfect social media person for their winery. 


         Murphy Goode Tasting Room

Murphy Goode wanted to hire a lifestyle correspondent who will take care of all their social media outreach needs.  This person had to send in a video of why they are this perfect person for Murphy Goode to hire, and why he/she would do “A Really Goode Job”.  The contest lasted about 3 months and each contestant had to submit their 2 minute video and get their readers, friends and Murphy Goode to vote for them.  After over 1,000 applicants submitted their video Murphy Goode narrowed it down to 10 finalists.   Hardy Wallace from Atlanta Georgia who has a wine blog called Dirty South Wine, won the contest for the six month stint!

Larry had met Hardy last year at the Wine Bloggers Conference and actually voted for Hardy’s video to win.  We saw Hardy once again at this year’s Wine Bloggers Conference which was a week after his winning announcement. 


                         Hardy Wallace

As you can imagine with all the publicity, press and piers, Hardy was flying higher than the highest kite you’ve ever seen.  

Larry and I met up with Hardy while we were in the Russian River region last weekend and interviewed him after his first full day on the job.  He is so nice, dang cute and extremely lovable.   After watching the videos below you will see why Hardy won, and why he will do such a Murphy Goode job!  Good luck Hardy!

Hardy’s winning video

Murphy Goode announces Hardy as the winner

Hardy is VERY happy!

Fox News interviews Hardy Wallace and Dave Ready Jr. the Murphy Goode winemaker

ViciVino.com interviews Hardy after his first day on the job at Murphy Goode Pt. 1 & Pt. 2


 Larry, Lori and Hardy at Murphy Goode Tasting Room