Obituaries: Richard Cartiere, wine journalist

<p class="bold allcaps">Richard Cartiere</p> <p>Richard Cartiere, a veteran wine journalist and former assistant business editor at The Press Democrat, died Monday following surgery for brain cancer. He was 51.</p><p>Cartiere, a resident of Guerneville, was the publisher of the Wine Market Report, a small newsletter focused on the wine business in Napa and Sonoma.</p><p>He relished sniffing out the business deals and trends in Wine Country and quickly sharing them with his readers, most of whom were industry insiders.</p><p>"He was the Pony Express," said David Freed, chairman of UCC Vineyards Group, a vineyard investment group that also hosts seminars Cartiere was involved with. "I think in his prime, and he's been off his prime for the last two years now, he was the go-to guy."</p><p>Cartiere graduated from California State Sacramento in 1982 and went to work for the Reporter newspaper in Vacaville before joining The Press Democrat as a reporter.</p><p>He left the paper in 1986 to work for the Associated Press in San Francisco, returning to The Press Democrat as an assistant business editor in 1990.</p><p>He left two years later to work on Wine Business Insider, a newsletter founded by Lewis Purdue. He also co-founded sister magazine Wine Business Monthly.</p><p>Cartiere and Purdue parted ways in the late 1990s, when Cartiere established the rival Wine Market Report. The Wine Business Insider and Wine Business Monthly are now owned by Sonoma-based Wine Communications Group Inc.</p><p>Sent by mail and fax to subscribers, Cartiere's newsletters helped keep wine industry executives up to speed on the latest news in an era before the Internet became prominent, Freed said.</p><p>"It was a very critical communication piece that Rich and the Wine Business Insider provided for the industry," Freed said. "He was the guy that was keeping everybody informed."</p><p>During this time, Cartiere and longtime partner Richard Gilmore hosted conferences exploring different facets of the industry, such as wine marketing or analyzing crush reports.</p><p>In recent years, Cartiere's health had faded, Freed said. He was scheduled to speak at the Unified Wine &amp; Grape Symposium in Sacramento earlier this year, but organizers said he could not attend because he had been rushed to the hospital.</p><p>No information about a service or next of kin was available Tuesday.</p><p>-- Kevin McCallum</p>