After an 11-year career in radio broadcasting, involving PR and photographing rock and rollers, I moved to California (1992). Rather than continuing in radio, I segued into the wine industry.
I now have 16 years invested in wine PR and marketing.
It began at Belvedere Winery (Russian River Valley) with a part-time position in their tasting room, until I eventually went full-time. Working for Belvedere for five years in all segments of the business, including marketing, PR, and sales, I also accumulated over 60-credit units in a wine sales and marketing degree program (I only have to finalize with a math course). While at Belvedere, I was also responsible for their Grove Street brand.
From Belvedere, I worked briefly with Bare Foot Cellars as a Northern California Sales Manager.
I then became a Wine Educator at Robert Mondavi Winery in Napa, and finally the Director of Public Relations for Ironstone Vineyards (Calaveras County). This was all prior to starting Diaz Communications, an integrated PR, wine sales, and marketing company, including Web services, in 2001.
Then, I worked weekends at Kendall-Jackson for seven months – in their tasting room/visitors center, as our PR/Marketing company got off the ground. Here I worked with all of the wines within the KJ portfolio.
[While doing all of this, Jose worked for Pezzi King Winery, Imagery, and then Gary Farrell.]
In February, 2002, I was hired by Foppiano Vineyards as their publicist. As one of my duties, I organized their Petite Sirah Symposium. At the symposium, I realized that publicity was needed for Petite Sirah. I founded “PS I Love You,” and advocacy group for Petite Sirah. Today, I am still the executive director.
Throughout my publicist career, I have articles that have been published in Patterson’s Beverage Journal, Wine Business Monthly, Wine Country This Week, The Wine News, and Vine Time.
My latest writing outlet is this blog.
August 3rd, 2009 at 9:02 am
i do wine bottle art for festivals and have many examples in galleries in the midwest and out west…if you wish to see some samples i can e-mail you some of my work….m dillon,m.d.
September 5th, 2009 at 10:23 pm
Jo, you have some great photos. I especially like the Doorway Vineyard. Which vineyard is that?
I’m trying to get others in my circle to read your blog (you probably need no help), I just had to put your site RSS feed on my sidebar.
Happy tastings!
September 6th, 2009 at 11:51 am
Roger,
Can you tell me which blog story has the Doorway Vineyard shot. I take so many picture, I can’t keep track.
I’ve also just had my husband put a “can’t right click” on my site, which I should have him take down. I did it because people are taking my images for their sites, with absolutely no credit… And, to make matters worse, they’re taking them from my blog, but still leaving them in my site – using my bandwidth… That sucks bandwidth from my blog, because now I have their websites in my space, too.
What really put it over the edge is that some guy just took one of my stories, changed the title, and put it on his site as his own.
So, you could have right clicked, and we”d easily know which image you’re talking about. Meanwhile, I’ll also try to track it down.
September 6th, 2009 at 11:55 am
Well…. Did you go to http://www.JosePhotos.com?
If yes, that’s my husband’s shot. I’m Jo and he’s Jose…
I’m Jo, he’s Ho… We’ve caused a lot of confusion, until people see us. I tell people, “I’m Jo, he’s Ho.” They don’t ever forget that one.
He’s right he and thanks you.
Thanks for being my cheerleader, too. As I noted… my #1 tequila fan!