• Marketing sustainable wine: It's difficult and can be a mistake, said a top Australian wine consultant. In fact, any wine company using sustainability as its key message is making a colossal blunder, Peter McAtamney said at a New Zealand wine industry conference. Wineries should focus on making the best wine possible, and use sustainability as a secondary selling point. McAtameny said there was no evidence that consumers will pay more for organic wine, like they do for potatoes or milk: "I feel so sorry when I see faces of organic producers at my workshops. It has been a battle. They believed there would be an automatic premium but it is not there."
• Slate fires wine columnist: Michael Steinberger, easily one of the best wine writers in the country, lost his job when the on-line magazine went through another round of layoffs last week. Steinberger seemed sanguine about the move, writing "Wine coverage was always a luxury at Slate, never a necessity, and with the weak economy and the ongoing financial difficulties at the Washington Post, Slate’s parent company, it seemed inevitable that the budget axe would swing again. This time, my column was among the casualties." The Wine Curmudgeon welcomes Steinberger to the ranks of the unaffiliated; he'll have lots of fun checking his Google AdSense balance to see if it has crossed the minimum payout threshold yet.
• More bad news for wine machines: Walmart has backed out of a deal to put 23 of Pennsylvania's infamous wine vending machines in its stores, citing mechanical concerns. It's the lastest setback for the machines, which haven't always worked properly and elicited guffaws from retailing and wine types. Gov. Tom Corbett, who wants to end state control over wine and liquor sales in Pennsylvania, said the machines are a prime example of why the business should be handed over to the private sector.
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