Word: sonoma
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...gurus of the direct-mail copywriting trade are the Sonoma, Calif., team of Bill Jayme and Heikki Ratalahti. Over the past 20 years, they have used their wiles to help launch more than a score of publications, including Bon Appetit, Smithsonian and Mother Jones. Jayme and Ratalahti's marketing packages, which cost $30,000 to $50,000 each, share four characteristics: an irresistible envelope, a personalized typewritten letter, a brochure intended to give an as yet nonexistent product an aura of legitimacy, and a response card. Jayme and Ratalahti know that people do not read direct-mail pitches carefully...
...intrusive way to reach consumers. "It's not like a commercial where you have to wait a whole minute for the evening news to continue, or a billboard that blocks the scenery, or the telephone call that gets you out of the bathtub," says copywriting maestro Bill Jayme of Sonoma, Calif. "If you're not interested, you just throw it out." Says Denison Hatch, publisher of the industry newsletter Who's Mailing What!: "Junk mail is a good offer sent to the wrong person...
...downright wrong. Never chill a red wine, he decrees. In fact, most Beaujolais and some other fruity reds benefit from cool temperatures. Nixon says California's consistent climate renders vintage years virtually irrelevant as a guide to quality, a claim that would be disputed by the Napa and Sonoma vintners who suffered through icy rains last fall. Nixon heralds the 1961 Chateau Lafite-Rothschild as the century's greatest Bordeaux; he serves it when regaling journalists in his home. Wine critic Robert Parker calls the 1961 "unyielding, too acidic, disturbingly austere and surprisingly ungenerous." Parker's pick: the 1949 Lafleur...
...matters, it is a truly coed sport where women can play men without a handicap. It is also perfect for those who are no longer thirtysomething or in perfect shape. American Croquet Association president Stan Patmor, his tailor-made plus fours obscuring a few extra pounds, has seen the Sonoma-Cutrer championships grow dramatically since he became tournament director in 1986. "The game works for everyone -- old, young, fit, not so fit. It's beautiful to watch, and it's beautiful to play...
Still, with upkeep of a 105-ft. by 84-ft. lawn running about $4,000 a year and a set of croquet equipment costing as much as $3,500, the sport's appeal to the masses is limited. The court at Sonoma-Cutrer, built on 16 in. of sand from Bodega Bay, is mowed three times a day during the tournament to exactly three-sixteenths of an inch by lawn-mower blades with the precision of Ginsu knives and then groomed with a metal comb by a greenkeeper. The dependable sogginess that keeps British courts so lush is helped along...