The Top 10 Wine Stories of 2020 According to Your Eyeballs

Posted by Tom Wark on Dec 12, 2020

It’s always interesting to look back and see which posts attracted the most readership here at FERMENTATION during the year. As is has been in past years, 2020 readers were attracted most to those posts that touched on the current events in American culture. Below are the top 10 most-read posts of 2020 beginning with the most read.

1-Data Shows Wine Economists Are Wrong — Wine Industry Does Not Support Donald Trump
This mini-controversy roiled the online wine world for good reason. It wasn’t true. Still, no surprise that an election-related post was the number one most read post during 2020.

2-Utah’s Wine Shipping Bill—It’s Kinda Funny and Complicated
The wine shipping bill passed in Utah this year was so absurd (and even funny in its absurdity that a lot of folks wanted to read further on how something like this happens.

3-This is why Alcohol Self Distribution is the Next Big Thing
The popularity of this post speaks to the popularity of the idea of producer-to-retailer sales (going around the wholesaler).

4. Catastrophic—The State of Restaurant Wine Sales
This Covid-related post gets to the heart of the primary impact that the pandemic has had on wine sales in the U.S.

5-California Brings on the Winery Tasting Room Silliness
You can be open, but not crowded, but you have to serve food too, but not too much food, but also not incidental food. Covid Silliness brought readers to this post.

6-Is the Wine Industry Racist?
Not a surprise. A good comments section.

7-Stop The Wine Tariffs
Clearly, the Trump administration didn’t take the advice of the wine industry.

8-Recalling Justice Ginsburg as a Hero of the Wine Industry
With so much that has happened in 2020, it’s almost too easy to forget that this was the year the great justice departed.

9-Virtue Signaling and Nonsense in Wine
The Anonymous Emailer Strikes Again

10-Report: Retailer Wine Shipping Will Kill Americans
This was the one where I dismantle the wholesalers’ mouthpiece who tries to convince us that retailers shipping wine interstate will cause disaster.

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And a couple of posts that were meaningful to me:

A Conversation On Wine Writing, Mothers and Family

The Question of Cancel Culture and “Feminine” Wine