Jun 18, 2020
Masked and hands sterilized to the hilt, my boy Henry and I took a trip to the bookstore yesterday. For him, we were in search of some new adventures from “Henry and Mudge” and a new tale of the “Magic Treehouse”. The boy is learning to read and these two classics keep his interest and motivate him. I was seeking something new to read on Thomas Jefferson, motivated as I was by a recent incident here in Portland that had…
Jun 15, 2020
Attempting to gauge the political leanings of the “wine industry”, as some have recently attempted and about which others have speculated, is a fool’s errand. You can’t do so by tallying up political campaign contributions. You can’t do it by analyzing social media postings. The only way to determine if this thing called “the wine industry” leans left or right or otherwise is to look at voting data for those that work in the wine industry. That requires first identifying…
Mar 31, 2020
The problem with trying to predict the impact of the CoronaVirus on the Alcohol Universe is the same problem of predicting its impact on any industry: We don’t yet know the severity of the impact the Virus will have people and society and we don’t yet know the effective lifespan of the virus going unchecked by medical intervention such as a vaccine or effective treatment. But of course, predictions can be based on assumptions. Let’s assume, for the sake of…
Feb 26, 2020
I’ve figured out a way to increase wine sales: Let’s redefine seltzer as wine. This ingenious solution to the apparent decline in wine sales in the United States occurred to me as I read through a new study out of Australia on the phenomenon known as “Second Hand Drinking”. This phrase should sound familiar to you. It’s derived from the more well-known term, “Second Hand Smoking”. Moreover, the “Second Hand Drinking” phrasing is meant to further demonize the act of…
Jan 29, 2020
This is new and this has some important implications to consider: “Perfect. I agree with that 100%; America has enough resources on her own, most of everything has much better quality anyway. BUY AMERICAN!” “Based upon the pix looks like a bunch of winos gonna be teed off, ..they’ll get over it!” These two comments made in response to a recent article laying out the threat to the American wine industry from proposed tariffs of up to 100% on European…