While small relative to other states, Utah’s $168 Million in sales of wine for their fiscal year 2004 is a record. The state compiles these numbers because it’s the state that controls all wine distribution. According to Ken Wynn, Director of the  Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, that $168 Million is a 20% increase over wine sales in 1999. I honestly don’t know how this rate of growth compares with other states. Though I doubt it far exceeds the growth…

The "Sideways Effect" Begins. Actor Jason Priestley is filming a new television series entitled "Hollywood & Vines" in which the former 90210 star takes us on a "road trip" to the West Coast’s wine regions. The British Columbia native is putting particular stress on his home region where they are producing stellar wines. All this emanates from the success of Sideways. I’ve heard word from other very good sources that other wine series are being considered in Hollywood, including one…

It turns out the author of FERMENTATIONS Wine Blog and a Small Time PR Firm has a larger collection of wine than the President of France. Well, not the current president. And not exactly a LIVING former President. A Dead President….It sounded better the first way I wrote it. Former French President Francois Mitterand’s wine collection went on the block in Paris the other day. The roughly 200 bottled  collection sold for just under $18,000. You’d think the person who…

I have a pretty decent library of wine book.They run the gamut from reference to "How-to’s" to memoirs. In the course of work I refer to my library often. Still, I don’t always find what I need. WINE BOOKS THAT NEED WRITING The Comprehensive California Vineyard AtlasThis collaboration between a GIS expert and a terroir expert is the most detailed look at California’s vineyards ever written. Not content to simply show the shape of appellations by drawing lines on a…

Today marks an important anniversary in the history of wine in America. Well, actually it’s an important anniversary in the effects of wine on the American society. No doubt there was a time when wine was responsible for more than just a buzz, hangover or unusual activities by the imbiber. Wine was responsible for, well, let’s call it "accidents". There was a time when a couple had a life long affinity for a particular wine because it led unexpectedly to…