Archive for the ‘Wine Business’ Category
Wine writers and wine bloggers who aspire to both understand and report on the business of wine can’t ignore the politics of wine. Few other businesses are so significantly defined by and impacted by regulations, lobbying and politics. Will consumers have legal access to the products they want? That depends on politics. Will wineries be able to make use of new technologies to distribute their wines more widely? That depends on politics. Will independent and specialty wine retailers have the…
The most startling thing about the Napa Valley Auction, which happens this coming weekend, is the remarkable concentration of wealth it attracts. But this is what is required in order for the event to raise the remarkable sums for local charities. Still, it’s startling. One of the best ways to witness this conspicuous monetary power is to position yourself somewhere near southern Napa on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week and observe the air traffic overhead. You’ll see a…
There is a simple way of determining in the wine industry and any other industry or situations, who your opponents are: Line up potential opponents and ask them what they oppose. It’s direct, simple and lacks provocation. Recently, the only national association of wine and spirit wholesalers provided a list of those things they oppose, making it a simple chore to determine if wine and spirit wholesalers are your opponents/enemy. At the recently concluded Wine & Spirit Wholesalers of…
Today, the silos that once kept the beer, wine, spirits and cider categories separate entities have been smashed to pieces. Not only do we see wineries making cider, brewers making cider, wineries making spirits and spirit producers making beer, we see them all borrowing from one another marketing concepts and branding ideas. And this is not just limited to the artisan or craft alcohol producers. As larger companies pick off craft producers of wine, beer, spirits, and cider, they too…
If you make a living in the wine industry, how ought you feel about this headline: “A new study from OutCo and Monocle Research shows 51% of millennials in California will replace alcohol with marijuana.” Further down in the story that ran in the form of a press release we get this nugget: “Millennials will be more open to diversity in their consumption of recreational substances than older generations, with more than 50% of them substituting cannabis for alcohol altogether….
