Baywood Cellars and Celebrity Chef Lorena Garcia to Debut New Wines

MONTEREY, Calif. – Baywood Cellars winery and celebrity chef and national television personality Lorena Garcia today announced a deal in which Baywood Cellars will bottle and distribute a new collection of varietals under the Lorena Garcia name.

Baywood Cellars, a three-quarter century old family owned grower of wine grapes, first introduced its own brand of wines in the mid-1980s to great national and international acclaim, winning the Central Coast of California’s ‘best of region’ honors an unprecedented three straight years. Its Baywood Cellars ‘Vineyard Select’ ultra-premium brands have been recognized at numerous international wine competitions.

The winery and Garcia, host of a weekly cooking segment on Telemundo and proprietor of the hot Latin-fusion restaurant “Elements” in Miami, will unveil the new ‘Lorena Garcia’ line — featuring a Chardonnay, Pinot Grigio, Cabernet, Merlot and Pinot Noir – next week in test markets in NC, California and Florida before rolling out nationally in early 2008. The line will retail in the $10.99 price range and will initially be available in restaurants, wine shops and gourmet food stores.

The deal is unique in that Garcia, Baywood Cellars and Garcia’s public relations firm – French/West/Vaughan (FWV) of Raleigh – will collectively own the brand and each will share in its sales proceeds, as opposed to Garcia’s name simply being used under license, as is often the case with celebrity-endorsed products.

“All three partners to the deal are vested in the success of the brand and we are very excited about the sales potential and marketing support behind the Lorena Garcia brand,” said John Cotta, president of Baywood Cellars and the acclaimed winemaker behind all of the Cotta family-owned wine brands.

Garcia, who is set to become the new face of the home department of one of the country’s largest department stores retailers (announcement to be made soon), said she jumped at the chance to partner with Baywood Cellars after tasting some of the prototype wines and in light of the fact that much of her cooking is done with wines.

“A good wine shared among friends is an essential part of the dining experience so I’m very excited to be partnering with Baywood Cellars and its partners John Cotta and Reno Aragon to introduce a wine we think food enthusiasts will enjoy very much,” said Garcia, who will utilize the back label of the various varietals to pair some of her favorite, easy-to-prepare recipes with each signature wine.

The product launch will be supported by FWV with PR, trade and consumer point-of-sale materials, wine tasting dinners in select cities across the country where Garcia will personally oversee the menu and make appearances, as well as select in-store appearances by Garcia at key accounts.

The Lorena Garcia brand is expected to generate in the range of 30,000 case sales in 2008.

About Baywood Cellars
The Cotta family has been growing wine grapes and other agricultural commodities in the Lodi-Woodbridge and Monterey County regions of central California since 1925. It currently farms over 2,000 acres to harvest grapes and bottle wines under its own brands, and sells a portion of what it harvests annually to some of the wine industry’s best-known vineyards, who in turn use the grapes to produce their own wines or have the Cotta family produce and store the wines at Baywood Cellars under their own labels. John and his brother James Cotta, vineyard manager, with the help of their father John Cotta Sr., are today making some of the world’s most renowned Cabernet Sauvignons, Zinfandels, Merlots, Syrahs, Chardonnays, Gewurztraminers, Symphonies and Port varietals.

About Lorena Garcia
Lorena Garcia was born in Venezuela and is a graduate of the world-renowned Johnson & Wales University Culinary Arts School. She trained in top restaurants in Paris, Italy, Japan, Korea, Thailand and China before opening her first restaurant – the Food Café – in Miami, Florida in 2002. In 2005, Garcia opened ‘Elements’ in Miami’s Design District to great fanfare and the restaurant is today one of Miami’s best known. Garcia’s media background includes hosting ‘Con Saxon,’ a weekly national cooking show on Univison Radio, and hosting regular cooking segments on both the Univison and Telemundo cable television networks. Her personal style and approach to cooking have landed her on the pages of Cosmopolitan, Vogue and other hot lifestyle publications and her ‘Big Chef Little Chef’ program in which she works with school aged children and their parents to teach them about nutrition and how to cook and eat properly, has been reported on by hundreds of media outlets across the U.S. and Latin America.

About French/West/Vaughan
French/West/Vaughan, celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, is the Southeast’s largest independent public relations, public affairs and eMERGING media agency. The agency was named a 2006 finalist for PR Week magazine’s “Midsize PR Agency of the Year” award, and was named the Holmes Report’s 2004 National Consumer Agency of the Year. National and international clients represented by the agency include the Global Water Foundation, Minute Maid, Ford Motor Company, Wrangler, Nestea, the Justin Boot Company, Canada Post, Speedo, AIKO Importers, Pfizer, ASTROTURF and bioMérieux. Regional public relations clients include North Carolina State University and Tweetsie Railroad, among many others. The agency is headquartered in Raleigh and has offices in both New York City and Tampa.
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