Feb 27, 2006
The reason you want to get into the wine business is not to enjoy the sun on your back as you walk through your vineyard, not to help educate people about wine from a well-stocked shop and not to produce wine in your own vision. The reason you want to be in the wine business is to be able to attend the "Premier Napa Valley Tasting and Auction".Held last Saturday at the Culinary Institute of America Greystone in St. Helena,…
Feb 24, 2006
There must be a number of managing editors at Indiana newspapers that are somewhat pissed off. By no fault of their own they are having to update the direct shipping story in their state in such a way that makes them look like they got it wrong. One day after a closely-watched and heavily attended committee meeting took place in the Indiana Legislature and a compromise on the direct shipping issue between Indiana wineries and the wine wholesalers was accomplished,…
Feb 16, 2006
Call me old fashioned, but I just don’t get he idea of causing havoc as a way to address the fact that the world is changing when it comes to economic and marketing models that govern the French wine industry. Were I in the South of France my views would apparently be in the minority. Yesterday thousands of French vintners and a few "Anarchists" (I guess you take the supporters you can get) spilled into the streets of Bezier, Nimes,…
Feb 13, 2006
The "three tier system" can be a complicated beast invested and stuffed with a myriad of regulations and special interest mandates. However, at it’s most basic the three tier system mandates that producers sell to distributors, distributors sell to retailers and restaurants and the retailer and restaurants sell to the consumer. The three tier system is in fact the most efficient way move large quantities of products across state lines from producers to consumers. However, the fact that such a…
Feb 10, 2006
Wine wholesalers have been given a state-mandated monopoly over wine sales for so long that now the wholesalers are starting to believe that their monopoly on sales is written into the U.S. Constitution. According to a group of wholesalers who signed onto an article written in a Virginia newspaper: "The U.S. Supreme Court decreed that the three-tier system of beverage alcohol distribution as written in the 21st Amendment of the Constitution does not interfere with the Commerce Clause, Article One…