The Cupcake Skinny

Will the confectionary craze last?

If there’s anyone more excited than a kid in a candy shop, it’s a middle-aged woman in a cupcake shop. The national cupcake craze also has hit all regions and demographics, according to those in the bakery industry.

Mar 1, 2011 Linda DuBois

Girl Crush

Female winemakers gain market share

When Gay Callan left her Bay Area sales job to grow grapes in the Sierra foothills in the early 1980s, people told her that she — a city slicker and a woman to boot — was crazy.

Mar 1, 2011 Christine Calvin
Segiun Moreau Napa Cooperage

Aging Gracefully

An oak by any other name is not just another barrell

Just as winemakers won’t put just any old juice in a barrel, they won’t use any old barrel either. For one wine, it’s French oak. For another, American. For yet another, Hungarian. In some cases the wine goes into a steel tank and never touches oak of any kind.

Aug 31, 2010 Robert Celaschi

Working Lunch with Christopher Artinian

It was the end of 2008 when the economic dominoes began to fall: Lehman Brothers was upside-down, housing crashed, the stock market swooned, banks faltered and the domestic car industry all but went belly up. It wasn’t the best of times to be a high-end American steakhouse.

Jun 30, 2010 Douglas Curley
The Firehouse Restaurant sommelier Paul Marsh and wine buyer Richard Macias agree - high alcohol or not, drink what you like

Big Red

Industry experts weigh in on high-alcohol vino

Bold wines are big sellers these days, and to meet consumer demand, winemakers across California are pushing their wines to the max by replacing white varietal vineyards with reds and allowing fruit to stay on the vine a little longer.

Jun 30, 2010 Christine Calvin
Mas Cocina Mexicana in Roseville.

Good Eats

Restaurants get creative to pad the bottom line

Mikuni Japanese Restaurant and Sushi Bar felt the recession in April 2008 when catering sales began to slide. When the financial pinch hit the chain’s eight restaurants in the second and third quarters of 2009, its management team refocused marketing efforts.

May 31, 2010 Joanna Corman
James Herwatt, CEO of Cork Supply USA, which typically sips about 15 million corks a month

Chain Reaction

Auxillary industries weather the wine storm

Northern California manufacturers and distributors of everything from barrels to bottles to pesticides for the region’s wine industry are using the same juxtaposition to sum up the wine market: “up and down.”

Dec 1, 2009 Christine Calvin