HELPING YOU MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR LEISURE TIME.
Explore the many Leisure time activities available to the Frederick County region such as: Travel ideas and tips, culture activities, golf, dining, spas.
BUSY MOMS TOAST WINDING DOWN WITH WINE
Why did Marile Borden name her website Moms Who Need Wine?
If you have to ask, said Borden, “you must not be a mom.”
“Moms are becoming much more real in terms of admitting that the job is a difficult one and that a nice glass of wine at the end of the day sure helps,” said Borden, mother of two and founder and publisher of the Moms Who Need Wine website, which has about 390,000 fans on Facebook.
“There’s definitely a trend,” said Borden, who is partnering with the California Wine Club to offer a Wine Mom Series exclusively on her site. Wines can also be suggested as a gift on a new site Borden is launching, DropY ourHint.com , where moms can choose what they want for Mother’s Day and a gentle hint will be sent to their loved ones.
Producers seem to be waking up to the connection.
One of the wines being offered through the club is MommyJuice from California producer Cheryl Durzy of Clos LaChance Wines based in San Martin, south of San Jose.
Durzy, a mother of two, said her two young children started calling her nightly glass of wine “mommy’s juice.”
“We would walk through restaurants and they would point to other people with wine glasses and say, ‘That’s mommy’s juice!’ and it was really embarrassing, but funny and cute, too,” she said.
Mommy Juice wines currently feature two wines from California, a red blend and a chardonnay, with a suggested retail of $9.99.
How hot are mom wines? Hot enough to have their own trademark battle going on between MommyJuice and another mom-marketed wine, Mommy’s Time Out.
Recently, Clos LaChance asked a San Francisco federal court to declare that its wine does not violate the trademark of Mommy’s Time Out. Mommy’s Time Out features wines from Italy, imported by New Jersey-based Selective Wine Estates. The wines on offer are a pinot grigio blend and a red wine, rosso primitivo, both with a suggested price of $9.99.
Clos LaChance wines said mommy is a generic word on which their rivals don’t have a monopoly. A spokeswoman for Mommy’s Time Out declined to comment.
It’s a safe bet that your typical wine connoisseur wouldn’t be caught dead with a glass of mommy-anything in his hand — though fans said their husbands happily drink it. And a scan of website comment boards indicates there are plenty of people who look askance at both the idea of mom marketing and the concept of mothers cheerfully admitting they like a glass of wine.
But the approach seems to resonate with its target audience.
“My readers go crazy over it,” Borden said. “We get comments all the time about how much they love those wines, how cute they are and how they love to bring it to a play date.”
In addition to the mommy wines, there are a number of great sips with femme-themed labels, including Mad Housewife, Middle Sister and Girls’ Night Out.
Borden and Durzy are careful to point out they’re not advocating wholesale tippling, always a poor parenting choice.
“It’s not about getting drunk around your kids,” Durzy said. “It’s about having that glass of wine at the end of the day when the kids are in bed.”
BRING YOUR PETS TO PLAY IN ANNAPOLIS
The Annapolis & Anne Arundel County Conference and Visitors Bureau invites pet lovers to “Bring Your Pets to Play” in Annapolis and Anne Arundel County during National Tourism Week May 7 to 15.
Ranked the 13th most dog-friendly city in the nation by Dog Fancy magazine, Annapolis became even more pet-friendly with the passage of the Dining Out Growth Act of 2011. The legislation allows patrons to bring their dogs with them when they dine in the outside eating areas of Maryland restaurants.
The AAACCVB will be celebrating resident and visiting pets throughout May. Visitors to the organization’s www.VisitAnnapolis.org homepage get access to information about accommodations, attractions, restaurants, retail outlets, parks, trails, deals and specials that cater to pets and their humans.