Joel Goldberg on Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm’s belief that Michigan’s wine laws can be brought up to date: "If she wants us to evolve into the 21st century, we should start by getting into the 1990s." A little clarification is necessary here. Joel Goldberg is the founder of a new organization promoting legal direct shipping of wine in Michigan: Wine Consumers Across Michigan (WineCAM). WineCam was organized to help put consumer pressure on Michigan’s legislators to bring reason and balance…

Winemakers in the south of France are rioting again and destroying public property. They are upset because things just aren’t going their way. Sales are down. production is up, imported wine sales are up. So, naturally, they choose to… -Burn railway crossings -Rail cars were set ablaze -Rail communication networks were disabled -Supermarkets were vandalized with imported wines swept off the shelf -Tanks at a local distillery were destroyed leaving 13,000 hectoliters of Chilean wine running in the streets. What…

It’s May 26th and it’s finally beginning to look conspicuously like normal in this neck of the woods (Sonoma County). I woke up today, dragged my self to the driveway to pick up my newspapers (San Francisco Chronicle, Santa Rosa Press Democrat, New York Times) and notice that it was gray…everywhere gray… …The fog had returned! During the Summer months, up and down the California coast, the fog shows a familiar cycle of rolling in over the land, often about…

"The more this happens, the more devalued it becomes, and the less consumers want to pay for it" The "This" Monsieur Patrick Aigrain, a wine economist, is referring to is the use of geographic appellations on wines. He’s talking about reference on wine bottles to the source of the grapes that went into the making of the wine. "Bordeaux", Russian River Valley", "Macon, "Rioja", "Anderson Valley." He’s absolutely right.(Alder at Vinography has taken on this issue himself and has an…

A group of whacked out French vintners in the Languadoc who would point to the Film "Mondovino" as inspiration have done more damage with dynamite. Yes you read that right. Dynamite According to reports, a group has formed made up of French vintners upset that the government isn’t doing more to help with the fact that French exports of wine has fallen and about the oversupply of French wine. The French government has already allocated 70 million Euros to aid…