Los Angeles Digital PR Agency Launches Online Travel Videos

McCue Marketing Communications, the LA-based agency specializing in digital public relations and marketing strategies, launches Web video series for Orange County, California’s coastal marketing alliance

Twitter NewsBite: @OCeanfrontCA launches OCeanfront TV http://bit.ly/6UqwAK; hosts Zetta & Rachel share hot local deals & explore OC dining, arts and resorts

Summary: The OCeanfront (Orange County’s coastal marketing alliance) launches OCeanfront TV, a Web-only video series spotlighting Orange County’s coastal resorts, spas, restaurants and shopping, hosted by local personalities, Zetta Grich and Rachel Everett.

Orange County, Calif. (January 27, 2010)—In response to travelers’ increasing interest in online videos showcasing the destination, the Orange County coastal marketing alliance known as The OCeanfront has launched a Web-only series of short, fun videos distributed through the organization’s website and YouTube Channel. The series, called OCeanfront TV, is hosted by Orange County locals Zetta Grich and Rachel Everett, and offers a sneak peak at some of coastal Orange County’s best dining and happy hours, spa experiences, outdoor adventures and other activities.

OCeanfront TV gives viewers a close up, insider’s perspective on what to see and where to go along the 42 miles of Orange County coastline spanning Dana Point to Huntington Beach. Among the experiences highlighted are:

• A boat tour of the bay and impressive residences abutting Balboa Bay Club and Resort
• Cooking lessons with Montage Laguna Beach chef, Brian Black
• Pet-friendly travel information at The Hilton Waterfront Beach Resort
• A look at Surf and Sand Resort’s exquisite Aquaterra Spa and “couple’s retreat” spa experience
• Surfing lessons with a Billabong instructor at Salt Creek Beach near The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel

OCeanfront Chairman Blaise Bartell explains the goals of OCeanfront TV:

“The OCeanfront’s number one goal is to give visitors the tools to create the best possible experience along the Orange County coast. We believe a video series like OCeanfront TV lets people really get a feel for the destination—the sights, sounds, people and places that make coastal Orange County such a special place.”

Grich and Everett have gained local fame through their modeling and acting work; in addition, the two are married to local sports celebrities, baseball star Bob Grich (Anaheim Angels) and football star Jim Everett (San Diego Chargers/Los Angeles Rams). See them experience Laguna Beach’s Surf and Sand Resort in Episode Two of OCeanfront TV:

OCeanfront TV, Episode 2: Laguna Beach’s Surf & Sand Resort

Travelers and writers who wish to stay abreast of the latest news, tips and deals from The OCeanfront can subscribe to our blog’s RSS feed and receive updates via email or blog readers such as Google, AOL and others.

For more information, email michelle@mccuecommunications.com or call (213) 985-1011. Additional quotes and interview access to The OCeanfront’s members and chairperson can be arranged; images and video clips are also available by request or on Flickr.

About The OCeanfront

The OCeanfront is a destination alliance comprising Orange County, California’s four magnificent coastal communities: Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Laguna Beach and Dana Point. This stretch of Southern California coastline is home to some of the world’s most breathtaking beaches, award-winning resorts and spas, superior restaurants, championship golf, distinguished cultural events and venues, abundant outdoor activities, world-class shopping and much more. The OCeanfront alliance consists of six hotels and resorts – The Balboa Bay Club & Resort; The Hilton Waterfront Beach Resort; Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach Resort & Spa; Montage Laguna Beach; The Ritz-Carlton, Laguna Niguel; and Surf & Sand Resort. Other members of The OCeanfront include South Coast Plaza urban shopping retreat, Anaheim/OC Visitors and Convention Bureau, Dana Point Visitors Bureau, Huntington Beach Marketing & Visitors Bureau, Laguna Beach Visitors & Conference Bureau, and Newport Beach Conference & Visitors Bureau. For more information, call (213) 985-1011 or visit TheOCeanfrontCA.com

Keywords/Suggested Tags:

Travel video, orange county coast, beach travel, luxury resorts, orange county beaches, The OCeanfront, Huntington Beach, Newport Beach, Dana Point, Laguna Beach, Orange County California, Montage Laguna Beach, Hyatt Huntington, Hilton Huntington, Surf and Sand Resort, Ritz Carlton Laguna Niguel, Balboa Bay Club, South Coast Plaza

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My Daily Find covers Cooper Reading Challenge…

Reading Challenge nets books for 152 children in the West Valley

BY MY DAILY FIND STAFF

Valley business leaders participating in the Third Annual Cooper Reading Challenge, which benefits the Boys & Girls Club of the West Valley, underwrote the cost of books for 152 children from seven Club sites, making it the most successful Reading Challenge to date. The event designed to encourage the love of reading in children.

Community members: Sepand Samzadeh; Pamela Campeau; Joe Steinberg; Brad Rosenheim; Adrienne Kentor; Marty Cooper; Mark Kroeker; Kevin Tamaki.

The Cooper Reading Challenge, which started three years ago in celebration of Cooper Communications’ 25th anniversary, raised $25 for each of 25 youngsters at the Boys & Girls Club of the West Valley to buy one or more books for themselves or a family member. Since then, the Reading Challenge has grown exponentially to achieve this year’s underwriting of 152 children.

To qualify, each of the children was required to read an age-appropriate book and write a review, which was reviewed and evaluated by Boys & Girls Club professional staff members. One hundred percent of the $3,800 in business leader donations went directly toward books for the children.

“This program isn’t about fundraising, it’s about teaching children to love and value books and reading,” said Martin Cooper, President of Cooper Communications, Inc. “In order to make it a meaningful experience for both the children and the sponsors,I ask that the sponsors attend at least one book-shopping excursion to help the children select their books.”

To make the excursion even more memorable, Borders Books gave the children a 20 percent discount and treated them to snacks and other goodies while they shopped.

Borders Books is located at 6510 Canoga Ave., Canoga Park, 91303. Phone: (818) 887-1999.

The Boys & Girls Club of the West Valley was founded in 1995 to meet the local need for safe, healthy, productive activities for youths during non-school hours. There are more than 2,500 members of the Club, and approximately 150 youngsters visit the main facility each day, in addition to approximately 550 children provided after-school activities at the six off-site schools: Blythe, Reseda, Enadia Way, and Topeka Drive Elementary Schools; Canoga Park High School; and the affordable housing community of Tierra del Sol. The Club is located at 7245 Remmet Ave., Canoga Park, CA, 91303. Telephone: (818) 610-1054. Website: www.wvbgc.org.

Gourmet goes away

Gourmet magazine has folded. Foodies, let’s all release a collective howl of mourning. Conde Nast’s flagship culinary publication will cease publication after 70-odd years and nearly 1000 issues.

In a year that has seen the demise of dozens of high-profile publication, Conde Nast’s latest announcement (which, in addition to Gourmet includes the closure of Cookie, Modern Bride and Elegant Bride) is just one more wake up call for the lifestyle and leisure industry. The investment in media relations (where ROI was always iffy, at best) is daily becoming more difficult to justify. Will the marketing teams at hotels, DMAs and other travel properties continue to pour big $$$ into securing visibility in an ever-diminishing pool of print pubs? Or will they see the golden opportunity at hand to bypass the old third-party system and begin creating their own custom content that engages, entertains and informs?

Media relations is no longer a stand-alone practice. I know that’s going to be bad news for a number of practitioners and agencies that have built businesses on the basis of their “relationships with key A-list media.” But the fact is, there is no A-list media anymore. The A-listers are now bloggers and freelancers. And their former glossy homes are at the bottom of recycling bins. News outlets are still an important piece of a marketing strategy. But media coverage should be a travel brand’s introduction to audiences, the spark that ignites a campaign aimed at starting conversations, building b2c relationships, and acquiring “fans” or brand evangelists–not an ongoing strategy for attracting eyeballs and making sales.

To learn more about the creating custom content that increases visibility and sales conversions, call 213-985-1011 or email info@mccuecommunications.com.

The recession has changed the landscape for travel marketers, possibly forever. Once upon a time, our jobs consisted of brainstorming creative, luxurious getaways and opportunities that would entice travelers to visit… or at least remember our brands. Now, exotic packages and promises of “rejuvenation” are no longer enough to persuade consumers to swipe the plastic. Travelers–even those whose pocket-books haven’t been hit hard by the recession–are looking for more value.

Value. Ugh. That’s a word we all hate, because it implies the dreaded “discounting” scenario that undermines even the best brands. But “value” does not always equal “cheap.” Sustainability and frugality are the new buzz-words, according to a recent post by Travelmole. This means marketers must work harder than ever to ensure our programs genuinely add to the experience for the consumer. Targeting meeting planners? Forget “dinnerware monogrammed with your company logo.” How about a program that gives back to the corporations choice of charity? Targeting families? Instead of sending the kids off to “hotel camp” and Mommy off to the spa, how about programs that focus on the whole family’s wellness, like a healthy cooking class for kids and parents?

Lastly, the tools we use to reach this new consumer must be in keeping with the changes in the media and economic landscape. People are making a greater effort to recycle and cut back on waste. So stop sending those glossy catalogs twice a month! Or at least give the traveler a clear and easy way to opt-out of the print version and receive your e-newsletter instead. Hey, it saves and tree–and it saves you money.

When I introduce clients or prospects to Twitter, I usually get one of two responses: A blank stare, followed by a statement to the effect of, “I just don’t get all that chirping, twitting, whatever you call it” or a joke about how they’re not interested in updates about people’s breakfast selections or bathroom tendencies.

Twitter has now helpfully put out Twitter 101 for Business, which makes my job a heck of a lot easier. Here’s a look at the first page of the guide, which in total spans just a few pages and breaks down major topics into brief, easily-digestible sections. Download the complete Twitter 101 guide here.

When people working in the Empire State Building twittered that they were craving ice cream delivery, New York local chain Tasti D Lite was there to listen and meet their need. When electronics buyers look for good deals, the Dell Outlet Twitter account helps them save money with exclusive coupons. When Houston’s coffee drinkers decide where to get their daily dose, many choose Coffee Groundz, which lets them order via Twitter. Read on to learn what Twitter is and to get detailed examples of how companies are using it. On these pages, we’ll also reveal how Twitter can help your business right now.

So what does Twitter do for businesses?

Twitter is a communications platform that helps businesses and their customers do a number of useful things. As a business, you can use it to quickly share information with people interested in your company, gather real-time market intelligence and feedback, and build relationships with customers, partners and other people who care about your company. As an individual user, you can use Twitter to tell a company (or anyone else) that you’ve had a great–or disappointing–experience with their business, offer product ideas, and learn about great offers.

So how does it work?

A brief history of Twitter

Initially inspired by the concept of an ‘away-message’ merged with the freedom and mobility of SMS, Twitter began as an experiment in 2006. When value as an instant communication network during shared events like earthquakes, conferences, and festivals emerged, Twitter began to grow—Twitter, Inc. was founded in 2007. Today, Twitter is a privately funded company based in San Francisco, CA.

Twitter lets you write and read messages of up to 140 characters, or the very length of this sentence, including all punctuation and spaces. The messages are public and you decide what sort of messages you want to receive – Twitter being a recipient driven information network. In addition, you can send and receive Twitter messages, or tweets, equally well from your desktop or your mobile phone.

When you combine messages that are quick to write, easy to read, public, controlled by the recipient and exchangeable anywhere, you’ve got a powerful, real-time communications medium. And that medium is turning out to be ground-breaking for users and businesses alike.

Tip: To listen in on the conversations happening right now, search Twitter for the name of your company, product or brand. If you have a Twitter account already, your home page has a handy search box on the right side. If you don’t yet have an account, try typing in the box below or go to search.twitter.com.

e.g: Starbucks

So how do businesses use Twitter?

What’s up with the name?

Twittering is the sound birds make when they communicate with each other—an apt description of the conversations here. As it turns out, because Twitter provides people with real-time public information, it also helps groups of people mimic the effortless way a flock of birds move in unison. On these pages, we’ll show you a few examples of that powerful Twitter characteristic.

Twitter connects you to your customers right now, in a way that was never before possible. For example, let’s say you work for a custom bike company. If you run a search for your brand, you may find people posting messages about how happy they are that your bike lets them ride in the French Alps—giving you a chance to share tips about cyclist-friendly cafes along their route.

Others may post minor equipment complaints or desired features that they would never bother to contact you about—providing you with invaluable customer feedback that you can respond to right away or use for future planning. Still others may twitter about serious problems with your bikes—letting you offer customer service that can turn around a bad situation.

You don’t have to run a bike shop or a relatively small company to get good stuff out of Twitter. Businesses of all kinds, including major brands, increasingly find that listening and engaging on the service lead to happier customers, passionate advocates, key product improvements and, in many cases, more sales.

A key benefit

One of Twitter’s key benefits is that it gives you the chance to communicate casually with customers on their terms, creating friendly relationships along the way—tough for corporations to do in most other mediums.

But Twitter isn’t just about useful immediacy. The conversational nature of the medium lets you build relationships with customers, partners and other people important to your business. Beyond transactions, Twitter gives your constituents direct access to employees and a way to contribute to your company; as marketers say, it shrinks the emotional distance between your company and your customers. Plus, the platform lends itself to integration with your existing communication channels and strategies. In combination, those factors can make Twitter a critical piece of your company’s bigger digital footprint.

For instance, let’s say you run a big retail website. In addition to learning more about what your customers want, you can provide exclusive Twitter coupon codes, link to key posts on your blog, share tips for shopping online, and announce specials at store locations. And you can take things a step further by occasionally posting messages about fun, quirky events at your HQ, giving others a small but valuable connection with the people in your company.

Why 140 characters?

SMS (i.e., texting on your phone) limits each message to 160 characters. Twitter takes that limit and reserves 20 characters for your username, leaving you 140 characters to play with. That’s how it started and we’ve stuck with it!

Tip: Twitter can be “ground-breaking” for businesses—a big claim. We truly believe it because we’ve seen lots of examples, many of which we share here. But if you’re new to Twitter and still wondering what all the fuss is about, hang around the site (or a good third-party client) for a week or two and give it a few minutes a day. Twitter almost always delivers “Aha!” moments for people, but it can take some getting used to before you have your moment of enlightenment.

Go deeper

These are just a few of the ways Twitter is helping businesses serve customers; you’ll discover more. If you’re new to Twitter, head over to Getting started for tips on twittering successfully. If you’re already on board, check out Best Practices and Case studies for ideas to get the most out of Twitter.

Beautiful photography, enticing and descriptive language, artistic page transitions… Hotel and destination websites are great at conveying the “look and feel” of a brand through design. Which is why so many of them FAIL the digital marketing test.

Gorgeous design is essential, don’t get me wrong. A great hotel or resort website should absolutely give the user a sense of what it’s like to step into the lobby–the stunning visuals, the energy of the place, the atmospheric elements that distinguish it from competitors. But focusing primarily on design and branding, rather than how the website figures into a holistic digital marketing effort, is equivalent to pouring buckets of money into designing the staff restroom. Your paying audience will never see it.

I can’t tell you how often I visit the websites of upscale resorts, destination marketing associations, hotels, chambers of commerce and other travel and tourism industry folks to find a lovely website with very little usable (much less marketable!) information. The key to successful online marketing for hospitality and travel brands is CONTENT.

Fact:

• 95% of destination travelers use the Internet at some point to research travel
• 72% are using Search Engines to conduct online research
• 61% of active travelers say the use the Internet exclusively for travel research
• The average online consumer visits 15 sites 30 days before booking

By now, all travel marketing professionals should have a basic understanding of SEO, the process by which websites are made more visible to search engines in order to appear in relevant search results. Many brands have likely engaged an SEO professional at some point to clean up  HTML coding, optimize page copy and meta data (title tags, page description and keywords), and submit the site to search engine directories. But then the website is considered “finished” and no one touches it until the next redesign.

Just as bed linens wear out and the walls have to be constantly touched up, a hotel website needs constant maintenance to stay relevant. One irony that drives me nuts: Hotel companies will spend tens of thousands on “public relations” campaigns that are aimed almost entirely at securing media coverage, but then neglect to make the fabulous stories, promotions and newsy items concocted for the press easily visible on their own website!

The explosion of social media has upped the ante for travel marketers once again. Not only must a hotel website be dutifully updated on a weekly (if not daily) basis, it must also contain content valuable and relevant enough to compete with other online information sources. Review sites and social networks tell your potential guests what to expect, without the fluff and hyperbole we marketers like to use as window dressing. So, how can hotel websites compete?

• Drop the “corporate lingo” and be genuine–which doesn’t mean using slang or poor grammar. Just use straightforward, honest language to convey news, ideas and special offers
• Give guests a voice. Create a blog or forum where guests and staff can interact before, during and after a visit. Not only does user-generated content add credibility and transparency to your website, it also keeps your content fresh and relevant (remember SEO?)
• Market your content! Now you’ve got a great site with fresh content, a distinct voice and a geniune personality. Expect website traffic to come flooding in? Not so fast. Look at the big picture of the Internet and find ways to bring your content to your audiences.

More on the third point in future posts, but here is one tool travel brands can utilize to extend the reach of content and keep website visitors coming back.

OK, we are all guilty of it. Hyperbole. Puffery. Exaggeration. Public relations is full of it–in more ways than one. In our defense, public relations and marketing professionals are often pressured to make the next newsy bit of information about our company or our clients sound like the most exciting thing ever. But we are really doing ourselves–and our clients–a disservice by employing overused terms like “unique” “best” “luxurious” “special” and other similar adjectives on such a regular basis instead of putting more thought and creativity into how we convey our messages.

A) Those words don’t really mean anything; they are so ubiquitous people have learned to ignore them.

B) When something really IS unique, special or ultra-luxurious, it ends up sounding like hyperbole anyway!

Solution? Public relations practitioners–whether engaging in social media, online marketing or just good ole fashioned media relations–have to focus on conveying an experience rather than promoting a product through lazy adjectives. Traditional press releases are just no good at conveying experience–unless we begin to think about them in a more interactive, experiential way.

I am far from the first person in the online public relations world to tout the idea of a “social media press release”; the form and concept has been around a couple of years and has even inspired a (now defunct) social media press release blog. So why is it that so few of us are using the social media press release? A couple of thoughts:

A) We’re confused about how to distribute them

B) Clients are uncomfortable with approving them, because they don’t fit the traditional press release format

C) They are more time consuming!

At McCue Marketing Communications, we tackle social media press releases by distributing through both online wire services and email. Check out these free press release distribution services if you just want to generate inbound links to your website and increase online visibility. To actually reach the media, you will have to upgrade to a paid service like PR Newswire and send email. Emails should also incorporate social media components, like small images embedded with links to video or audio clips that you’ve uploaded to YouTube or MyPodCast. If you can, use an email client that allows you to distribute both html and text emails, so your release won’t be rejected or garbled when someone reads it on Blackberry.

Some of our travel and wine industry clients have recently been asking for a basic “social media 101″ primer to help them understand how social media marketing integrates with overall communications strategy. While social media use is growing and will not diminish anytime soon, it is important to remember that tactics like Facebook and Twitter should be integrated into a comprehensive communications plan. With that caveat in mind, here is a rundown of some basic social media tools and the ways they can be used to increase brand visibility and communications effectiveness:

1. Public Facing Blogs: Blogs can extend the conversation beyond the press release, becoming a resource for media and consumers alike to find news that is targeted and relevant to their specific needs. Blogs should pull traffic to the core website (not a separate URL) and be designed to promote conversions, i.e. sales, bookings, downloads of information or whatever objectives you’ve set forth in your communications plan. Must be updated regularly to be relevant and support Search Engine Optimization, which depends largely on fresh, relevant, keyword-rich content.
2. Facebook: Currently the hottest social networking forum, Facebook has more than 200 million users, making it highly relevant to marketers. Businesses should create a Facebook Page rather than a Profile, which are intended for individual use. Pages allow for greater control over page content and have no limit on the number of “fans” permitted; Profile “friends” are capped at 5000. Utilize free applications to feed your company Blog, Twitter feed (see #3), Flickr images (see #4) and YouTube videos (see #5) to your Page. These tools will help keep your Page content fresh, extend the reach of other PR efforts, and provide additional inbound links to your website.
3. Twitter: Designed to communicate short messages instantly to a network of “followers,” Twitter updates—called “Tweets”—are searchable, trackable, and appear in some Google search results. Create a Twitter Account with a name and profile containing key words that will help interested parties find you. Update regularly with helpful tips, promotions and calls-to-action—including links to landing pages on your website, which you shrink and track using a tool such as Tiny URL. And don’t forget:  Twitter is a fantastic tool for brand monitoring! Conduct a Twitter search for your brand (and your competitors!) and add the RSS feed to your Google Reader to keep track of what people are saying, engage your audiences, and respond (carefully) to negative brand mentions.
4. Flickr: This image sharing program allow for ‘tagging’ photos with searchable keywords that help increase brand visibility online. Images can be easily uploaded and embedded in blog posts, Facebook Pages or other online content using automatically generated embed code or widely available free applications that stream your photos to these outlets as soon as they are uploaded.
5. YouTube: The best-known and most-trafficked video sharing application on the web, YouTube can be utilized to create a brand channel where short (2-5 minute) videos can be uploaded and distributed to company websites, Facebook, blogs and other outlets easily and without requiring multiple uploads. In addition, since all videos are hosted on YouTube, large videos can be uploaded and streamed to platforms that don’t support big files. Viewership of online video has increased 2000% in five years, with video content widely reported as some of the most-viewed content on news and company websites alike. Brands would be wise to embrace the power of video to convey a genuine (read: non-commercial) experience of a product or place.
6. Measurement: Free tools such as Google Analytics reveal website traffic patterns and behavior and can be paired with Facebook Page Insights, Twitter-compatible programs such as Hootsuit, and dozens of other widely available tools to track the effectiveness of social media tactics in achieving objectives. The key here is not ROI, but ROO—Return On Objective.

The Internet: Voice of the people? Or new channel for same old publishing power plays?

Two conflicting perspectives crossed my desk this morning regarding the impact the Internet has had on publishing models. Newsweek’s Daniel Lyons reports that “what’s happening is that tech companies keep herding consumers into digital corrals, then anointing themselves gatekeepers. Not surprisingly, the techies scoop up most of the spoils.” Conversely, Barry Diller states in a paidcontent.org discussion about the old media conglomerates that “the internet busted that all apart and dispersed that power everywhere.”

So, which is it? Is the Internet the voice of the people, or a frontierland for new-style media barons?

Scan Lyon’s piece in Newsweek and it’s impossible to deny that big, tech-savvy companies like Amazon and Apple have gotten hold of the keys to the city. But we’re still better off than we were–especially us folks in the public relations business. Unfortunately, (well, actually it’s pretty fortunate for my business!) most public relations agencies are still struggling to make the old model work and lamenting the fact that all their old media contacts are no longer on staff–or that old go-to publication itself went out of business.

Wake up, PR pros! Getting your messages out efficiently and effectively is now easier than ever! But it’s not enough to wine and dine journalists and forward news clips to your clients. We now have to be writers, publishers and designers in our own right. And we have to demonstrate that all of these words and pretty pictures actually help our clients achieve their objectives in concrete, measurable ways.

• No more complaining that the journalist missed your message. Now you write it–and make sure you’re getting it right.
• No more worrying that your client will get cut from the piece. You find creative and meaningful ways to make your client’s messages newsworthy.
• No more wondering if anyone actually read the article. Measure traffic. Track comments. Follow the links. Push it to your audiences through social media.

Human nature being what it is, I’m sure the big guys will keep finding ways to get bigger and the little guys will have to keep finding ways to make their voices heard. But while we still have the freedom, we in the business of professional communications should stop lamenting and complaining and embrace this opportunity to become the masters of our own content–never forgetting that we now have the responsiblity to keep it fresh, interesting and relevant to the people we expect to read it.

News Release:

Los Angeles’s biggest wine festival brings together 100+ wineries, craft beers, and artisan spirits for a two-day extravaganza supporting local charities

Los Angeles, CA — For the fourth year running, LA WineFest returns to Hollywood’s Raleigh Studios June 6 and 7 from 2:00-6:00PM for a wine-focused weekend supporting Children’s Tumor Foundation, Hollywood YMCA, and the Wildwoods Foundation with a series of educational seminars, great food, and plenty of wine tasting.

With more than 500 wines available to taste, LA WineFest 2009 will also feature an outstanding selection of artisanal spirits and thirst-quenching craft beers. A highlight of this year’s festival is the return of Georg Riedel, owner and founder of Riedel Crystal, who will conduct a special wine-tasting seminar on Saturday, June 6 at 5:15PM. Priced at $125 per person, the seminar includes a gift set of Riedel wine stems for participants to use during the tasting and take home.

Festival guests can also sign up for two special programs, priced at $30 each: bourbon tasting with Bernie Lubbers of Knob Creek, and a sake review with Ichiro Saito of Hakutsuri Sake. A variety of free educational wine seminars will also be offered, hosted by wine experts Jim Fioleck of the Santa Barbara Vintners Association, Master of Wine Patrick Farrell, and Ken Volk of Kenneth Volk Cellars, among others.

LA WineFest 2009 honors Reed Foster, a veteran California winemaker and co-founder of Ravenswood Winery. Officially retired from Ravenswood in 2005, he has since served as the President of the California Cabernet Society, having previously co-founded the famous Vintners Club in San Francisco in 1973.

Festival passes can be purchased online at www.lawinefest.com/tickets or at local retailers such as Hows Grocery, Venice Beach Wines, and Lou on Vine (see www.lawinefest.com for complete list of participating retailers). Prices are as follows: $55 Day Pass, $100 Couples Pass, or $100 Individual Weekend Pass.

LA WineFest 2009 is sponsored by Smart Water, CRN Talk Radio, Vin Village, San Tashi, and Wine X, Singular City, and Patterson’s The Tasting Panel magazines. LA WineFest was founded in 2005 by renowned wine educator, columnist and Sommelier for the Escoffier Association of Southern California, Dr. Joel M. Fisher.

For further information, please visit www.lawinefest.com or contact Director of Marketing, Michelle McCue at michelle@mccuecommunications.com or (213) 985-1011.