Monday, March 30, 2009

THE WCM&P "HIRE A DD" PROGRAM

Wine Country Marketing and Promotions (WCM&P) offers its existing clients our innovativeHire-A-DD” Program whereby we provide a Designated Driver (DD) to escort our clients and their quests, or their merchandise and documents, to and/or from their intended destination(s) in their selected vehicle whether owned, leased, or rented by them.

For airport trips we return the clients’ vehicle to its origin and secure the vehicle accordingly. For the return trip of our clients, our DD’s then return to the clients’ home and/or work location and proceed to the airport to pick-up the client in its vehicle. The client’s vehicles always remain in the most secure of environments.

In our “Hire-A-DD” Program the client bares all the expenses of vehicle insurance, bridge tolls, gas, etc., during the timeframe our DD’s are contracted to provide driving services.

We refer to our existing clients as “The Wine Country Club Founders.” They receive our service which include, but is not limited to, the following:

* Portal-to-portal service at any hour requested

* Unlimited advance time for booking dates

* Airport runs to/from work and/or home

* Pick-up and/or delivery of merchandise/documents

* Medical and business appointments

* Social events whether day or evening

* Wine Country/San Francisco Tours for the guests of our clients



We accept new clients based on the referral of the existing TWCC Founders.

Our rates are very reasonable and competitive.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

Cabo and our Associate, Brian, "The Cabo Guy"

THIS SITE ENTRY UNDER CONSTRUCTION
March 21, 2009

Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Background & Experience - John M. Olney

Founder & Chairman, Wine Country Marketing & Promotions

Tourism, Customer Services, Marketing & Promotions

Moving to Napa, Calif. in 1985, Mr. Olney pursued employment in the golf, wine and food industries including two golf courses, three winery tasting rooms (Silverado Vineyards, Mumm and Andretti Winery) and one restaurant.

He produced two wine label poster-maps on Napa Valley winegrowers under his own company.

He then began writing both fiction and non-fiction articles and books. He published numerous stories and opinions about Napa wineries and related laws. The list of publications that have presented his work include Suite 101 on the Internet, Napa Valley Register, St. Helena Star newspapers and he is a regular writer for the Napa Elks Lodge News letter and our own Wine Country Marketing & Promotions (WCM&P) blog web site.

In late 2006, he commenced his first fiction book on the California wine industry titled “Entwined Vines.”

As an acknowledged historian on the history of wine in America, in 2007, he began the draft of his first non-fiction wine book tentatively titled “Wine U.S.A. - A Modern Historical Perspective” with the draft of the chapter tiled, “The Gentlemen Winegrowers of San Francisco: The men who really established Napa Valley.”

In 2006, he was selected as one of the top wine writers in America by the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) and participated in the selection of the inaugural members of the California Vintners Hall of Fame (HOF), located at the CIA Greystone complex in St. Helena, CA. In October 2007, he was added to the Nomination Committee for the 2nd Annual CIA HOF Induction selections. He continued to serve on this very important California Vintner recognition organization ever since and in 2009, the body became the Vintners Hall of Fame Electoral College as was pared to about 45 voting members.

Alternative Energy and Conservation, and

Public Awareness Programs

In 1975, Mr. Olney and partners drafted the federal grant applications for Energy Conservation, Alternative Resources and Public Awareness for the State of Hawaii and the U.S. Territory of American Samoa. His company was subsequently contracted to manage the grants and train local governmental workers to assume management of the grants on a continuing bases.

He was the invited speaker at the South Pacific Forum in 1978 where he traveled to Western Samoa and spoke to the kings, prime ministers and presidents of the Forum member countries. His topic was “Alternative Energy Resources and Energy Conservation for Developing Island Countries of the Pacific.”

His company also implemented the first rideshare program among all the Pacific Islands on Oahu, Hawaii in 1973.

The company also designed and conducted the 1st Energy Fair in the South Pacific in 1975 in the Eastern District of the Territory of American Samoa.


Military Duty and Sciences

He served in the U.S. Navy during the 1965-70 timeframe while stationed in Alaska, California and Hawaii where he conducted detection and tracking of Soviet submarines transiting the Pacific. For the next five years and as a civilian he continued analysis of Soviet submarine operating parameters while employed by Arthur D. Little, Litton, and Pacific Analysis Corp. He then left the industrial-military industry to start his own company.

In 1996 he began writing his first draft of an unpublished novel (14 chapters, 347 pages titled “The SOSUS Man, “on his Navy experiences detecting and tracking Soviet submarine operations in the Pacific Sound Surveillance System (SOSUS). He is currently revising and editing the draft in anticipation of self publishing the novel in the summer of 2009.


The Early Years
Mr. Olney was raised in San Leandro, Ca. where he earned High School All-American honors in the 400 yard freestyle swimming event and was a four time letterman.

He graduated from the College of the Pacific, a cluster school of the University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA in 1964 where he majored in Speech, minor in Drama. He was co-star in the play “The Beautiful People, “written by William Saroyan conducted in theater-in-the-round and for his senior studies he produced and directed “Waiting for Godot” written by Samuel Beckett.

He was an eight time letterman (four each in swimming and water polo) and member of the Letterman’s Society (President his senior year).

He was a member of the social fraternity “Delta Upsilon” and was selected as the “Man of the Year” in 1963 by the social sorority “Gamma Phi Beta” in 1963.

In 1964, he was selected to “Who’s Who among American Universities and Colleges.”

Friday, March 13, 2009

KULETO WINERY GROUNDS

PHOTO JOURNAL UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Photo's and text by John M. Olney
march 15, 2009
Copyright all rights reserved, Wine Country Marketing and Promotions,
1325 Imola West, #409, Napa, CA Phone: 707-299-9548Web site: http://www.twccwcmp.blogspot.com/ E-mail:
winecountrypromo@aol.com
If you haven’t heard of Pat Kuleto before, by the time you are done enjoying this photographic journal of one of the most recent building designs of his genius, you’ll want to examine all his master pieces which I have listed below for your ease to locate.

But before going on about the estate design, and layout, I need to mention that the Foley Family Wines (FFW), headed by William "Bill" Foley, purchased a controlling interest in Kuleto Estate (www.kuletoestate.com/ ), owned by restaurateur Pat Kuleto, and his cadre of investors, in mid March of this year. FFW posses a 70 percent interest in the operations and owns an undisclosed number of acres in vineyard land. The Estate includes approximately 75o total acres of land with about 150 planted to vineyard. The winery currently produces about 3,500 cases per year and plans show growth to about 14,000 cases.

William Foley is Chairman of the Florida-based Fidelity National Financial Inc.(www.fnf.com/ ) and Fidelity National Information services (www.fidelityinfoservices.com/ ). He began his operating interest in the wine industry in 1996 with the purchase of Lincourt Vineyards (www.lincourtwines.com/ ) in Santa Barbara County when he formed FFW. Next he purchased J. Carey winery and vineyards in Sta. Rita Hills and renamed it, Foley Winery (www.foleywines.com/) He went on to purchase two more California wine businesses - Firestone Winery (www.firestonewine.com/ ) in Santa Barbara County and Merus Winery in the Napa Valley (www.meruswines.com/ ) - before moving up to Washington to purchase the Three Rivers Winery in Walla Walla (www.threeriverswinery.com/ ).

Just before the end of 2008, in December, Foley purchased the old and well established Sebastiani winery of Sonoma, CA (www.sebastiani.com/ )

With the acquisition of Kuleto, FFW owns seven winery operations on more than 1,000 acres between the states of California and Washington.

Now let me get back to Pat Kuleto and his accomplishments which include the following designs:

Restaurants

Located in San Francisco
www.boulevardrestaurant.com/
www.farallonrestaurant.com/
www.jardiniere.com/
www.waterbarsf.com/
http://www.epicroasthousesf.com/

Located in Napa Valley (St. Helena)
www.martinihouse.com/

Restaurant & Lodging located along the shores of Tomales Bay, Sonoma County
www.nickscove.com/

Winery Estate located high in the hills east of Napa Valley's town of Rutherford.
www.kuletoestate.com/

I hope to tour the inside of the winery very soon and present it as part 2 of this photo journal.

YOU CAN CLICK ON ANY OF THE PICTURES TO VIEW AN ENLARGEMENT



Located on the northern hillside of Highway 128 - also known as Sage Canyon - Kuleto Estate winery & vineyards is at the end of about a 2.5 mile winding and narrow side road climbing the hill where once you reach the top you will experience fantastic views in all directions from roughly the town of Yountville to the south to Mt. St. Helena raising to the north of the town of Calistoga.





About half up I found this resting place which truly captured my attention with this beautiful spreading old Oak tree. I was fascinated by this very interesting branch growing into and out of an old wine barrel.


Found this work shack just after making the first sharp turn



Vineyards were planted in all directions as I wound up the road towards the winery

Probably the most striking element of Kuleto’s ground landscaping designs is the extensive use of separated rest area’s varying in size capacity from table settings for two to seating capacity for fairly large groups. He also uses a substantial amount of ponds, water falls and fountains throughout the property. At the base of the hill where he built the winery and a home Kuleto has sculpted a fabulous little lake complete with dock and wharf. As one rises from the pond he has created waterfalls and additional ponds that provide the viewer with the feeling that he/she must have arrived in the Shangri la of wine country Napa.


Pictured here is the driveway which circles around the winery located un the upper level in the right hand margin

From the parking lot you cross by these oven entry way to the winery and tasting room.







As it approaches night time the lights start going on and the facilities takes on a different look.





As you drive up to the winery building, Kuleto has established a collection of old farming equipment and this wonderful old Sage Canyon fire engine.

I started walking towards the other side of the winery and up the small hill towardsrds Kuleto’s residence. I first came upon this fountain . I found it fascinating. I stopped to walk around it looking for some sort of deep meaning but I just couldn’t come with anything at the time.






I’m still fascinated with this presentation and my current thought is that it’s some sort of presentation related to wine vases and vessels. I’m going be looking forward to actually meeting this man and hearing his explanation of the essence behind this fountain and pond.


Then I started walking the hill when I suddenly got a whiff of that familiar smell of animal droppings. As I turned around the island in the road, I saw what was causing the unpleasant odor. Pat Kuleto is a gentleman farmer!






How about these Turkeys?



The next stop was to see the view from the grounds surrounding Kuleto’s residence.

YOU CANNOT PROCEED TO THIS AREA WITHOUT SPECIAL PERMISSION FROM PAT KULETO OR THE SENIOR MANAGEMENT STAFF AT THE WINERY. THIS IS A PRIVATE RESIDENCY AND YOU NEED TO RESPECT THAT PRIVACY.

To the right is the private driveway leading up to his house from the Eastern side of his home and connecting to boathouse down below the winery as shown earlier.









These stairs lead to the home from the eastern side. I did not go up to house; rather I slithered around the southern side to see the view from the grounds.






























Here is the staircase leading to the home from the western side of the site.



Around the southern side of the home, I found spectacular views of Lake Hennessey.
This one was snapped as the sun was starting to set for the day.


The view west from the pool and pool house deck as the sun begins to set. The bridge crossing over the water near the closest point of the Lake is right at the split of Hwy 128 to go to Pope Valley to the left (north) and to head up to Lake Berryessa to the right (east).


The sky was constantly changing as the sun was setting.


I then went around to the northern side of the home. There were not as many trees blocking out the sun so it appears like more light exists than when I was on the south side of the home. This shot was taken directly behind the winery complex.















I turned around and took a couple of pictures to give you a feel for the size of this winery.



Now I’m back looking at the sunset but on the northern side of the complex.




But before closing this photo journal out I thought a few photo’s of other interesting points around the compound might be fun for you to browse. This little guy (left picture) is way up on the southern side roof of the winery building.


Then there are the doors and windows that caught my eye.






Presented below is a slideshow providing glimpses of the property as taken with my digital camera as well as 35mm camera.



Hoped you enjoyed this photo journal of a truley magnificient working estate.