Archive for the ‘Wine Consumers’ Category

Dec 18, 2011

The Worst Wine Gifts

Few other consumer products, and particularly consumable consumer products, have spawned as many “accessories” as wine. If you have a wine lover on your gift list this holiday season, it’s pretty easy to satisfy them without ever digging into your cellar for a bottle. Yet with abundance, comes absurdity also. With all of the following Stupid Wine Gifts, what really interests me is the moment of conception. I would have wanted to be in room to hear those famous words,…

Dec 15, 2011

Wine Trends To Watch in 2012

What can be expected in the wine world in 2012? What trends will move the industry in 2012? These are questions I think about more often this time of year if only because I find myself more reflective as the year ends and another arrives. These are the trends I see being most prominent in the wine industry in 2012. CONTINUED REFORM OF WINE REGULATIONSAfter elections in Washington State that got the government out of the business of selling spirits…

Dec 5, 2011

I Am Not A Crook

Today marks the 78th anniversary of Repeal of Prohibition, the day the last state necessary ratified the 21st Amendment. It's certainly a day to mark and take account of. It is also, apparently, a day to celebrate absurdity. "Today’s [alcohol regulatory] system balances a competitive industry with local social standards and community desires.  It is this system that fuels today’s robust and dynamic licensed beverage industry that creates access to market for start-up businesses."CRAIG PURSER, National Beer Wholesalers Association Craig…

Dec 2, 2011

The Case for More Wine Columns

If I'm not mistaken, fewer daily and weekly papers and fewer consumer magazines are publishing wine columns; at least fewer than 10 to 15 years ago. The reasons for this are surely myriad, but most important is that circulation for newspapers is falling, along with revenue from display ads and the bottom dropping out of the market for classified ads. This leads to fewer pages to fill with content and stuff must be cut. Often, wine columns of the stuff…

Dec 1, 2011

Signs of a Good 2012 in the Wine Industry

Trying to assess the state of an industry just on your own or within your peer group, one starts to look for signs; runes divining the direction of things. It's all very anecdotal. Here in Northern California in the wine industry, we notice perhaps more cars on the road on weekends; more of them in tasting room parking lots. We look at what wines folks are buying off lists. Are they splurging? We can see what our own wine related…