Beginning in March 2020, American wineries began to see the impact on direct-to-consumer shipments due to pandemic lockdowns and isolating inside our homes. We are just now beginning to see a hint of what a post-pandemic DTC market can look like. The beginnings of the pandemic led to a 30% year-over-year increase in winery shipments in March 2020. The March 2020 thirty-percent increase in the volume of shipments far exceeded the average monthly increases seen in previous months of March….
In 1990 I went to work for a wine-oriented PR firm in Santa Rosa, California. I was fresh off the college boat, had never worked in public relations and the only insight I had into how the media works was that I saw newspapers and magazines arrived at my home with relative regularity. I didn’t know any journalists or writers. I read a lot, but the idea of speaking with writers and suggesting topics for them to write about held…
One of America’s most prolific wine bloggers, Jeff Siegel, has abandoned his long-standing wine blog for the blue skies of Substack, the subscription newsletter format, and making a buck. The trail of free posts, free observations, and free access to “The Wine Curmudgeon” runs from 2007 to 2021. In that time, Siegel grabbed the mantle of champion of the drinker of cheap wine. Now, he wants to make a buck after 14 years of giving it away for free. I…
Proponents of increasing the State of Oregon’s alcohol taxes in a comically excessive way are becoming more creative and more faithless in their arguments for increasing the state taxes in an effort to fight alcohol dependency. As a reminder, earlier in the year Oregon State Representatives Tawna Sanchez sponsored House Bill 3296. If passed, the bill would have increased the excise taxes on beer and cider in Oregon from $2.60 per barrel (31 gallons) to $72.60 per barrel. The increase…
“Our aim is to democratize wine. The mission is to remove the elitist, stuffy image from wine and bring it to the people.” The odds are 2-1 that any new consumer-facing wine service, app, editorial venture or website will make this above claim about what it is they are attempting to accomplish. More often than not, this “mission” is driven either 1) by the fact that the wines being sold or promoted through the new service are under $30 per…
