Yesterday I spent a little time looking over the recently issued “Top 100 Most Influential People in the U.S. Wine Industry” after a couple of friends alerted me to the 2nd annual listing by IntoWine.com. The way I know they were friends is that they didn’t smirk, laugh or guffaw when they said I made the list. I take list making seriously primarily because I know other people do too. Also, the act of ranking things can entail some pretty…
What issues will the wine trade and the more active wine consumers be talking about, be concerned with and be reading about in 2013? Predicting what is to come is not really that difficult if you read the tea leaves without splashing them around too much and stick with a concentration on the past. What follows, in no particular order, are my top ten issues that will rise to the top in 2013 by virtue of what has come before…
What an interesting year in wine. Legal battles, political battles, movements rising, technology, new markets, and changes in the media led the news. Here are my top wine stories for 2011 A SMALL CRACK IN THE WALL: Initiative 1183 Takes Washington Out of the Booze Business and Into the 21st CenturyIt has been a long time since a state abandoned its control of the alcohol marketplace and turned it over to the private sector. Initiative 1183 in Washington State did…
Wine Country beckons to Bay Areans looking for a nearby getaway as well as wine lovers the world over. But if you are like most visitors to Grapeland, your weekend will have you lined up elbow-to-elbow at well-traveled winery tasting rooms, browsing and buying grape-shaped trinkets and eating at the same fancy Wine Country restaurants as the couple that muscled by you at the bar at the last tasting room you visited that day. The solution is to get off…
The Top Ten Words of the 2011 Napa Harvest In my super -un-scientific, un-official, survey of growers, winemakers, owners and finance types in Napa Valley, here are the Top Ten words I hear associated with the 2011 Napa Valley Harvest (in no particular order). 1. Sauvignon Blanc 2. Cold 3. Shatter 4. Short 5. November 6. Picking-Crews 7. 20.1 Brix 8. Labor 9. Delicious 10. Late The average highs and lows for Saint Helena in the middle of Napa Valley…
